Sudan president wins election, officials say

Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir won the country's controversial but historic presidential election with roughly two-thirds of the vote, the National Election Commission said Monday.
The elections were the first in 24 years in the oil-rich African nation, which has been riven by fighting in Darfur and a civil war between north and south.
A top United Nations official in southern Sudan called the voting "a necessary step in moving towards democratic governance in Sudan."
"The fact that it has come this far can seen as a step forward. It is a step forward in the peace agreement" signed in 2005, said David Gressley, UN resident coordinator for southern Sudan.
He confirmed that two supporters of an independent candidate for governor in Unity State were killed in clashes in the state capital Bentiu on Friday. But he said that in general, the post-election period has been relatively quiet.
The United States and other international observers criticized the elections, saying there were irregularities in many parts of the country.
The elections were "an essential step" in the peace process, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement last week.
But there were problems with the process, he said, citing "reports of intimidation and threats of violence in South Sudan, [and the] ongoing conflict in Darfur did not permit an environment conducive to acceptable elections."
Al-Bashir won 68.24 percent of the vote in the presidential race, getting just under 7 million votes, the commission said.

Pakistan police: Car bomb attack kills 4 officers

An early morning suicide attack killed four police officers in northwest Pakistan on Wednesday, according to authorities.
Police official Akhtar Ali told CNN a suicide bomber rammed a car into a police check post in the Pir Bala area just outside of Peshawar, the capital of Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa province.
Ali said the bomber was likely trying to enter the city limits of Peshawar.

At least 10 people were injured in the attack, Ali said.

Flight disruptions cost airlines $1.7bn, says IATA

Richard Branson: "I don't think we will ever, ever see a blanket ban again"

Global airlines have lost about $1.7bn (£1.1bn) of revenue as a result of the disruptions caused by the Icelandic volcanic eruption, a body has said.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) said that at its height, the "crisis" hit almost a third of global flights.
It also estimated that 1.2 million passengers a day were affected.
On Tuesday night, flights started landing in the UK after a six-day shutdown of UK airspace.
The decision to lift the ban followed safety tests that showed plane engines could cope in areas of low density ash.
A separate report by the the Centre for Economics and Business Research, commissioned by price comparison website Kelkoo, has estimated the cost to airlines of the disruptions to be 1.08bn euros ($1.45bn; £942m) over the six days.
David Frost, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, told the BBC that the cost to the UK economy of the flight disruptions was likely to have been more than £100m a day.
Compensation call
IATA noted that airlines had saved about $110m a day on fuel while planes were not flying, but said they had also faced additional costs from looking after stranded passengers.

Airspace was being closed based on theoretical models, not on facts Giovanni Bisignani, chief executive, IATA

"For an industry that lost $9.4bn last year and was forecast to lose a further $2.8bn in 2010, this crisis is devastating," said Giovanni Bisignani, chief executive of IATA.
Mr Bisignani also criticised governments for the haste with which they closed airspace, and called on them to provide compensation to the airlines.
"Airspace was being closed based on theoretical models, not on facts. Test flights by our members showed that the models were wrong.
"[The crisis] is an extraordinary situation exaggerated by a poor decision-making process by national governments. Governments should help carriers recover the cost of this disruption."
Budget airline Easyjet said it had lost £50m during the flight ban and that it would be seeking government compensation.

Iceland volcano in maps

The eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull has brought disruption to the skies over Europe.
The maps above show how flights have been restricted to flying around the ash cloud, shown in red. Where the shading is darkest, it indicates the cloud is extending higher into the atmosphere.
The flight ban was partially lifted on Tuesday - five days after the eruption. EU transport ministers agreed to allow limited flights within Europe after flight tests showed the density of the volcanic ash in the air was diminishing.