I haven’t been downtown as of late but this confrontation has made our local news. Thanks to ZombieTime for the video.

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The brutal and downright nasty Minnesota Senate is inching towards to completion tonight as the recount of previously rejected absentee ballots was completed. Democratic-Farm Labor candidate Al Franken held an unofficial lead of 225 votes over the incumbent Republican Senator Norm Coleman, according to a Minneapolis Star-Tribune tally of officials’ count of the absentee ballots. Franken had led unofficially by 49 votes going into the day and gained a net 176 votes from the new ballots.

The story from the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

With the recount complete, focus immediately shifted to the Minnesota Supreme Court, which continued to consider a request from the Coleman campaign to alter the process and add more absentee ballots to be reconsidered. But by early evening there there was no word from the state’s highest court as to when it would rule or hear arguments.

Officials from the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office, flanked by attorneys for Coleman and Franken, spent much of the day sorting through — but not yet counting — the 933 previously-rejected absentee ballots that local election officials had acknowledged were mistakenly not counted. When the counting finally began in the late afternoon, and then moved quickly, Franken gained a large majority of the votes that the campaign had for weeks argued should be counted.

The State Canvassing Board is scheduled to meet Monday — and possibly again Tuesday — to review the tally of the previously rejected ballots. It may announce the race’s final result by Tuesday, the day a new Congress convenes in Washington.

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Colorado Governor Bill Ritter has named Michael F. Bennet, the superintendent of the Denver Public Schools, to fill the Senate seat vacancy left when Senator Ken Salazar was picked to run the Interior Department in the Obama Administration. Many political observers had been expecting Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper to be selected.

More from the Denver Post:

Gov. Bill Ritter on Saturday appointed Denver Public Schools Superintendent Michael Bennet to fill a Senate vacancy that will be created by the promotion of Sen. Ken Salazar to interior secretary in the Obama administration.

The move surprised many Republicans and Democrats, who considered Bennet a dark horse candidate for the Senate spot because of his lack of legislative experience. He has never run for or held public office.

Bennet had been mentioned as a possible choice for President-elect Barack Obama’s education secretary, but Obama chose 44-year-old Arne Duncan, chief executive officer of Chicago public schools for the Cabinet post.

Salazar’s nomination to head the Interior Department will be considered by the Senate. The Democrat has two years remaining on his term.
Ritter praised Bennet, 44, as a proven leader and problem-solver in the both public and private sectors.

“This is a critical time in history. The economic challenges facing America and Colorado are unprecedented,” Ritter said in a written statement. “Our challenges are so serious that it will take a new generation of leaders, a new way of thinking and a bold new approach to problem-solving to steer us through this.”

In a statement from his office, Obama called Bennet an excellent choice who will be “a breath of fresh air in Washington.”

“Michael Bennet perfectly reflects the qualities of the ruggedly independent state he has been chosen to serve,” Obama said.

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In the wake of the resignation Somalia’s President, Abdulahi Yusuf, Ethiopian troops that had been in Somalia propping up the Abdulahi regime are now preparing to leave Mogadishu and return to Ethiopia. It’s unclear what is next for Somalia other than more of the same. Without a central government, it’s likely that Islamic groups, particularly al-Shabab, are likely to fill the power vacuum. More from All Africa:

A convoy of trucks loaded with Ethiopian soldiers, mattresses and other equipment left Somalia’s capital Mogadishu on Friday, witnesses said.

Ethiopian soldiers have been propping up Somalia’s Western-backed government for the past two years but say they will withdraw in the next few days — potentially leaving a dangerous power vacuum in the Horn of Africa nation.

It was not immediately clear whether the troop movement was the start of a withdrawal, or a deployment of soldiers elsewhere in the country where they are fighting Islamist insurgents.

“We have seen Ethiopian troops moving to Afgoye from Mogadishu,” said resident Omar Abdi Nur, referring to a town 30 km (19 miles) southwest of the capital.

“Their vehicles were carrying mainly equipment and soldiers. Nothing happened and they passed safely,” he said, adding that the main road from the capital to Afgoye had been closed to other traffic this morning.

Ethiopian military officials in Mogadishu were not immediately available for comment.

The end of Ethiopia’s two-year presence in Somalia and this week’s resignation of President Abdullahi Yusuf are seen by diplomats and analysts as an opportunity to forge an inclusive government which can work for peace.

But some Islamist insurgents have vowed to keep fighting the government even when its military allies leave, and a hardline opposition group seen as key to lasting peace is snubbing the idea of power-sharing and said Somalia risked a new civil war.

While there are frequent Ethiopian troops movements in and around the capital, residents said the soldiers did not usually move with items such as mattresses and cooking equipment. Other Ethiopian soldiers remained in Mogadishu.

“I have seen 28 Ethiopian vehicles entering Afgoye town, said Afgoye resident Husein Moalim.”Some soldiers were walking on high alert and others were on the vehicles.”

There are an estimated 3,000 Ethiopian soldiers in Somalia and the international community has been scrambling to beef up a separate African Union force there of 3,200 troops, but the United Nations has ruled out any quick deployment.

And as if on cue, Islamic insurgents have now begun seizing police stations. More on this from the New York Times:

Islamic insurgents appeared to be scrambling for power Saturday, taking over several police stations in the capital as Ethiopian troops who have been propping up the government began to pull out, witnesses said.

Many fear the Ethiopian pullout — and last month’s resignation of Somalia’s president — will cause Islamic militant groups to fight among themselves for power, bringing even more chaos to this beleaguered Horn of African nation.

”We have to show commitment to do our part in security, we want to help people feel secure,” Abdirahim Issa Adow, a spokesman for one wing of the insurgency, told The Associated Press after deploying troops to three of Mogadishu’s 14 police stations.

His Union of Islamic Courts is not allied to the most powerful insurgent group, al-Shabab, which has taken over most of Somalia.

The United States accuses al-Shabab of harboring the al-Qaida-linked terrorists who blew up the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. Many of the insurgency’s senior figures are Islamic radicals; some are on the State Department’s list of wanted terrorists.

Ethiopia has been propping up Somalia’s weak government for two years, but vowed to leave by the end of 2008. Officials have since declined to give an exact date amid concerns of a power vacuum, so the thousands of Ethiopian troops are being pulled out in stages.

The government controls only Baidoa, the seat of Parliament, and pockets of the capital, Mogadishu. There is no effective military or police force; some police bases are occupied by government forces and others are vacant. The three taken over Saturday were vacated months ago.

Also Saturday, witnesses about 230 miles (370 kilometers) north of Mogadishu said Islamic groups were fighting each other, killing at least six people.

The Somalia government, with the tacit approval of the United States, called in the Ethiopians in 2006 to support the U.N.-backed government and rout Islamic militants who had taken over most of the country.

Initially, the Ethiopians’ superior firepower worked — the Islamists were driven from power. But they quickly regrouped and launched an insurgency that continues today.

Abdullahi Yusuf resigned as president in December, saying he had lost control of the country to Islamic insurgents.

Many Somalis have seen the Ethiopians as occupiers, and the insurgents have used their presence as a rallying cry to gain recruits — even as the militants’ strict form of Islam terrified people into submission.

For two decades, Somalia has been beset by anarchy, violence and an insurgency that has killed thousands of civilians and sent hundreds of thousands fleeing from mortar shells, machine-gun crossfire and grenades.

A local human rights group says more than 15,000 people have been killed in Somalia in the past two years. The figure is impossible to independently confirm. The group, Elman Human Rights, says it relied on hospital and witness accounts.

The anarchy has also allowed Somali pirates to flourish, attacking 111 ships around the Gulf of Aden in 2008, hijacking 42 of them and earning tens of millions in ransom. Fifteen ships with more than 260 crew are still in the hands of pirates, according to the International Maritime Bureau.

It’s a bloody mess.

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Oppostion candidate John Atta Mills has won the second round run off by less than one percentage point in Ghana’s Presidential elections. Mr. Atta Mills heads the National Democratic Congress (NDC) founded by former President Jerry Rawlings. The NDC returns to power after an eight year furlough. More from All Africa:

Opposition presidential challenger John Atta Mills has won Ghana’s presidency at his third attempt, returning the National Democratic Congress (NDC) founded by former President Jerry Rawlings to power after eight years out of office.

The chairman of the Electoral Commission of Ghana, Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, announced in Accra on Saturday that Atta Mills had won 50.23 percent of the vote, while Nana Akufo-Addo of the National Patriotic Party (NPP) won 49.77 percent.

The African Elections Project (AEP) reports from Accra that the commission’s certified results showed that the NDC won 4,521,032 votes and the NPP 4,480,446 votes. The commission said 72.91 percent of the country’s 12,472,758 voters had cast ballots.

Atta Mills previously lost two elections to the now outgoing President John Kufuor – first in 2000, when Rawlings’ term of office came to an end, and again in 2004.

His election marks the second successive victory of an opposition candidate at the end of an outgoing president’s term of office.

Saturday’s announcement of the final election result followed an election in the remote western constituency of Tain on Friday. The vote in Tain was delayed by problems with ballot papers and Atta Mills’ lead was so narrow that the electoral commission judged that the outcome in Tain had the potential to overturn it.

Atta Mills won Tain comfortably after the NPP boycotted the polls. The NDC had won the constituency in parliamentary voting on December 7.

Earlier in the week both the NPP and NDC made allegations of electoral irregularities, in the Volta and Ashanti regions respectively. The electoral commission said on Saturday that neither party had been able to provide sufficient evidence to invalidate the result.

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