President Elect

SANTIAGO, Chile -- President-elect Michelle Bachelet, a socialist who was jailed and tortured by Chile's military junta, began putting together her administration yesterday while promising to give all Chileans a voice, and a better deal. "Because I was the victim of hatred, I have dedicated my life to reverse that hatred and turn it into understanding, tolerance and -- why not say it -- into love," she said after her victory in Sunday's runoff election against a conservative businessman.

President Barack Obama has called France's new president-elect to congratulate him on winning Sunday's election. The White House says Obama told Francois Hollande that he looks forward to working with him on a range of shared economic and security challenges. Obama invited Hollande to visit the White House before this month's G-8 summit at Camp David, Md. Hollande is also expected to attend the NATO summit in Chicago later this month. Hollande, a Socialist, defeated conservative incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy to win France's presidency.

WASHINGTON - Tested before taking power, President-elect Barack Obama appealed to Democrats in Congress yesterday to allow the use of an additional $350 billion in federal bailout funds and vowed to veto any move to block the money. Obama backed up his plea with a promise to revise elements of the bailout program that have drawn widespread criticism, pledging billions will go to help homeowners facing foreclosure. Several Democrats said his commitments, to be made in writing, would be enough to prevent an embarrassing preinauguration rejection for the president-elect when the Senate votes this week.

HABITAT PARTNERS WITH PLYMOUTH GROUP: Allen Hanford of Carver is part of the team from Brush With Kindness, the special-projects program at Habitat for Humanity of Greater Plymouth, which is partnering with the Plymouth Taskforce for the Homeless in remodeling a kitchen in a home in Plymouth. The kitchen is in a newly purchased duplex that houses eight formerly homeless men and two staff managers. Hanford is chairman of Brush With Kindness. UNION ELECTION: Craig A. Pinkham was elected secretary-treasurer of Braintree-based Utility Workers Union of America Local 369. The Quincy native succeeds...

President Barack Obama has called France's new president-elect to congratulate him on winning Sunday's election. The White House says Obama told Francois Hollande that he looks forward to working with him on a range of shared economic and security challenges. Obama invited Hollande to visit the White House before this month's G-8 summit at Camp David, Md. Hollande is also expected to attend the NATO summit in Chicago later this month. Hollande, a Socialist, defeated conservative incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy to win France's presidency.

WASHINGTON - President-elect Barack Obama said yesterday that he and Congress will "hone and refine" his nearly $800 billion economic recovery plan, as he seeks to patch fissures with senior Democrats over key features of the package. Obama declared that the need for quick passage was made more urgent with the release of a Labor Department report showing another 524,000 jobs lost in December, increasing the unemployment rate to 7.2 percent, the highest in 16 years, and raising the total job losses for last year to 2.6 million.

CARACAS -- President-elect Evo Morales of Bolivia, fresh from a visit with Fidel Castro, launched a world tour yesterday by joining with President Hugo Chávez in a denunciation of free-market economics -- a sign of the growing relationship among the three leftist leaders. Notably, the tour includes stops in Spain, France, Belgium, South Africa, China, and Brazil -- but not Washington. Morales's spokesman says he was not invited. Arriving in Caracas aboard a specially arranged Cuban jetliner, Morales said he and Chávez were...

Peru's president-elect has chosen acclaimed singer Susana Baca as culture minister. Baca becomes the Andean nation's first black minister of government since independence from Spain in 1821. Baca is the best-known voice of the rich musical and dance tradition of Afro-Peruvians, descendants of slaves brought in colonial times. The 67-year-old Baca won a Latin Grammy in 2002 for the album "Lamento Negro," which she'd recorded nearly two decades earlier in Cuba. President-elect Ollanta Humala also named his education minister on Monday,...

LAGOS, Nigeria -- Attackers blew up the country home of Nigeria's vice president-elect with dynamite yesterday, authorities said, as violence escalated in the country's oil-rich south before a government handover this month. Militant groups making an array of demands, including a greater share of government oil revenues, have carried out bombings, kidnappings, and protests since 2005 that have shut down a third of production in the nation. Meanwhile, gunmen abducted a Nigerian toddler yesterday in the affluent suburb of Port Harcourt, the latest kidnapping to hit the troubled...

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic - The Dominican government said yesterday that it has reached a deal with Honduras’s president-elect to offer ousted leader Manuel Zelaya safe passage to the Caribbean nation. The agreement would let Zelaya, who is holed up in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, fly to the Dominican Republic as a guest after President-elect Porfirio Lobo of Honduras takes office Jan. 27, according to Rafael Nunez, presidential spokesman. Zelaya praised the accord as a sign of Lobo’s commitment to...

Voters in the 1932 presidential election, shell-shocked by economic disaster, were "fed up with Washington, with government, and with both parties," writes Sally Denton. "The way most people feel, they would like to vote against all of them if possible," humorist Will Rogers said. Democratic candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt offered a change, but, as Denton writes, before he took office "it was difficult to get a fix on Roosevelt's platform for the presidency. " Just in case the parallels to Barack Obama's 2008 victory weren't clear enough, she adds that FDR's eloquent oratory, if at times...

Congo's president is running in the central African nation's November elections. President Joseph Kabila filed on Sunday. His sister Jaynet Kabila says his re-election will allow him to continue Congo's reconstruction. Kabila took office in 2001 after his father's assassination. He was elected in 2006 in the country's first democratic election in 40 years. He has pushed through a series of constitutional changes to strengthen his powers and replace the two-round voting system with one winner-takes-all round.

A Zambian judge has dismissed a petition from the main opposition party trying to block President Rupiah Banda from running for re-election next month. The Patriotic Front had argued Banda is ineligible for re-election because both his parents were allegedly born outside the country. Judge Jane Kabuka dismissed the petition on technical grounds Tuesday. Banda, the former vice president, narrowly won a 2008 presidential poll forced by the death of president Levy Mwanawasa. Banda, who is in his 70s, was born before Zambia gained independence in 1964.

Peru's president-elect has chosen acclaimed singer Susana Baca as culture minister. Baca becomes the Andean nation's first black minister of government since independence from Spain in 1821. Baca is the best-known voice of the rich musical and dance tradition of Afro-Peruvians, descendants of slaves brought in colonial times. The 67-year-old Baca won a Latin Grammy in 2002 for the album "Lamento Negro," which she'd recorded nearly two decades earlier in Cuba. President-elect Ollanta Humala also named his education minister on Monday, the sociologist Patricia Salas.

ABUJA, Nigeria — President Goodluck Jonathan was declared the winner of the presidential election yesterday, as rioting swept across the Muslim north. The violence cut across 13 states, demonstrating the religious and ethnic tensions that divide Africa’s most populous nation. Heavy gunfire echoed through cities. Crowds burned buildings and tires and threw stones at security forces. Many residents hid in their homes. Hundreds were injured and many were feared dead, though federal officials declined to offer any figures.

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — The United States approved travel sanctions on Laurent Gbagbo and 30 of his allies yesterday as pressure mounted on the incumbent leader to step down following last month’s presidential election that the international community says he lost. In addition, regional leaders called on Gbagbo to “yield power with dignity without further delay.’’ The rebuke from neighboring nations carries added weight because Gbagbo’s representatives have dismissed similar calls from former...

WASHINGTON - Though President-elect Barack Obama isn't accused of anything, the charges against his home-state governor - concerning Obama's former US Senate seat no less - are an unwelcome distraction. As Obama works to set up his new administration and deal with a national economic crisis, suddenly he also is spending time and attention trying to distance himself from Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich and charges that the governor was trying to sell the now-vacant US Senate post.

CHICAGO - President-elect Barack Obama said yesterday that a review by his own lawyer shows that he had no direct contact with Rod Blagojevich, the embattled Illinois governor, about the appointment of Obama's replacement in the US Senate and that his transition aides did nothing inappropriate. Obama pledged to make the review public, but said he decided to hold off until the week of Dec. 22 at the request of prosecutors. "I don't want to interfere with an ongoing investigation," he said.

MINSK, Belarus — The country’s autocratic president, Alexander Lukashenko, appeared to have quashed any immediate threat to his continuing rule, declaring yesterday that he was the overwhelming winner of a presidential election that ended with a violent crackdown on reformists hoping for change. No demonstrations occurred in the capital, Minsk, last night, an indication that things were returning to normal in Belarus, one of the most authoritarian of the former Soviet states and which the United States once labeled Europe’s last dictatorship.

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic - The Dominican government said yesterday that it has reached a deal with Honduras’s president-elect to offer ousted leader Manuel Zelaya safe passage to the Caribbean nation. The agreement would let Zelaya, who is holed up in the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, fly to the Dominican Republic as a guest after President-elect Porfirio Lobo of Honduras takes office Jan. 27, according to Rafael Nunez, presidential spokesman. Zelaya praised the accord as a sign of Lobo’s commitment to...