Kiev, October 27
Pro-Western parties will dominate Ukraine's Parliament after an election handed President Petro Poroshenko a mandate to end a separatist conflict and steer the country further out of Russia's orbit into Europe's mainstream.

Poroshenko held preliminary power-sharing talks with Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk on Monday after their political groups led other pro-Western forces committed to democratic reforms in sweeping pro-Russian forces out of Parliament.

"The main task is to quickly form a pro-European coalition for carrying out agreements with the EU," Yatseniuk said at a meeting with election observers.

International observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe gave a further lift to the pro-Western Kiev leadership, saying Sunday's election had "largely upheld democratic commitments" despite the conflict in the east.

It was "an amply contested election that offered voters real choice and (had) a general respect for fundamental freedoms," Kent Harstedt, OSCE special coordinator, told a news conference.

Despite a dire result for parties sympathetic to Russia, Moscow was not immediately confrontational. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he thought Russia would recognise the election.

But after months of conflict and turmoil there was no euphoria from Poroshenko's allies. The president faces huge problems: Russia opposes his plans to one day join the European Union, a ceasefire is barely holding between government forces and pro-Russian separatists in the east, and the economy is in dire straits.

Russian President Vladimir Putin can also still influence events, as the main backer of the rebels in the east and through Moscow's role as natural gas supplier to Ukraine and the EU. He could also remove trade concessions from Kiev if it looks West.

Poroshenko's first task is to cement an alliance with Yatseniuk's People's Front, which was running neck and neck with his bloc on about 21 per cent support after more than half the votes on party lists were counted.

Ukrainska Pravda, an online newspaper, calculated that an alliance between those two leading blocs would still not give Poroshenko and Yatseniuk a majority in the assembly. They are likely to turn to Selfhelp, a like-minded party with just over 11 per cent of votes. Final results for party list voting and in single constituency seats are due on October 30. — Reuters

Rio de Janeiro, October 27
Leftist President Dilma Rousseff vowed to reconcile Brazil, reboot the economy and fight corruption after narrowly winning re-election in the most divisive race since the return to democracy in 1985.

Rousseff, the first woman President of the world's seventh-largest economy, took 51.6 per cent of the vote to 48.4 per cent for business favorite Aecio Neves in a run-off election.

After a vitriolic campaign that largely split the country between the poor north and wealthier south, Rousseff crucially picked up enough middle-class votes in the industrialised southeast to cement a fourth straight win for her Workers' Party (PT).

She will start her second four-year term on January 1 facing a laundry list of challenges: governing a polarised country, winning back the confidence of markets and investors, rebooting the stagnant economy and tackling corruption.

The 66-year-old, a former leftist guerrilla who was jailed and tortured for fighting the 1964-1985 dictatorship, called for unity in her victory speech. And she promised to listen to voters' demands for change.

"This president is open to dialogue. This is the top priority of my second term," she told supporters in the capital Brasilia, clad in white alongside two-term predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. — AFP

Gwangju, October 27
Prosecutors today demanded the death penalty for the captain of the South Korean ferry that sank in April, branding him an unrepentant liar who abandoned the more than 300 people who died in the disaster.

They also sought life sentences for three senior crew members and prison terms of between 15-30 years for 11 others as the trial of Captain Lee Joon-Seok and his crew wound up in the southern city of Gwangju.

The 69-year-old Lee "escaped the ship without making any efforts to rescue passengers", the prosecution team said in its sentencing recommendation to the court. "He made excuses and lied. He showed no repentance... and so we ask for the death sentence," the prosecution said.

The 6,825-tonne Sewol ferry was carrying 476 people-most of them high school students on an organised trip-when it sank off the southern coast on April 16. Only 174 people were rescued.

The disaster was blamed on a deadly combination of cargo overloading, illegal redesign and poor helmsmanship, but the most serious charges against Lee and his crew related to their response once the ship ran into trouble.

They were among the first to climb into rescue boats and were publicly vilified for abandoning the hundreds of passengers still trapped inside. — AFP

Baghdad, October 27
A suicide bomber killed at least 27 Shia militiamen on the outskirts of the Iraqi town of Jurf al-Sakhar on Monday after security forces pushed Islamic State militants out of the area over the weekend, army and police sources said.

The attacker, driving a Humvee vehicle packed with explosives and likely stolen from defeated government troops, also wounded 60 Shia militiamen, who had helped government forces retake the town just south of the capital.

Holding Jurf al-Sakhar is critical for Iraqi security forces who finally managed to drive out the Sunni insurgents after months of fighting.

It could allow Iraqi forces to prevent the Sunni insurgents from edging closer to the capital Baghdad, sever connections to their strongholds in western Anbar province, and stop them infiltrating the mainly Shia Muslim south.

The group has threatened to march on Baghdad, home to special forces and thousands of Shia militias expected to put up fierce resistance if the capital comes under threat.

Gains against Islamic State are often fragile even with the support of US airstrikes on militant targets in Iraq and neighbouring Syria. — Reuters

Pakistani officials claimed to have found evidence of new sanctuaries set up by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and its affiliates in the Afghan territory near the border with North Waziristan, where a massive military operation, codenamed Zarb-e-Azb, has been ongoing since mid-June.

Defence minister Khawaja Asif has said the operation will continue till complete elimination of terrorists. He told reporters here that the operation had been successful so far. “The organisational network has been broken and their sanctuaries in the tribal belt have largely been dismantled. There has been a substantial drop in terror acts in the country, though sporadic cases have been reported from some major cities as the militants have spread out there,” he said. “We will not rest until all militants are eliminated,” he added.

“It is a worrying development that the TTP is regrouping close to the border right under the nose of the Afghan security forces,” said a security official, who did not wish to be named, to The Express Tribune. The official did not rule out the possibility of “tacit support” from Afghan security agencies for the new Taliban sanctuaries.

Despite repeated requests, Afghan authorities have done little to dislodge militants from their side of the Durand Line, he added. “The lack of action from Afghan authorities has encouraged the terrorists to find new sanctuaries.”

Pakistan has long urged Afghanistan to eliminate what it calls “safe havens” of the TTP in northeastern Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nuristan. Fugitive TTP chief Mullah Fazllullah is also believed to be hiding in those areas. Islamabad has sought Fazllulah’s extradition from Afghanistan, but Kabul is not forthcoming to such a demand.

The Afghan inaction stems from a trust-deficit with Pakistan. While Pakistan voiced concern over Afghanistan’s reluctance to cooperate against the TTP, Kabul continues to believe that the country’s security establishment is still supporting Afghan insurgents. Recently, an acting Afghan interior minister reiterated these allegations against Pakistan while speaking at a conference in New Delhi.

British Indian surgeon murdered in Syria