...and everywhere!

- In Ukraine, AP reports that Viktor Yushchenko has declared victory.

"There is news: It's over. Now, today, the Ukrainian people have won. I congratulate you," he told the festive crowd in Kiev's central Independence Square....

Yushchenko spoke after returns from 80% of precincts showed him with 55% compared to Viktor Yanukovych's 41%. Those results were in line with three exit polls, including one done by the government, all of which showed Yushchenko winning by a comfortable margin.

Earlier, the BBC reported that Yanukovych seemed to be

preparing for defeat as polls closed.

"If we fail, we will form a strong opposition," he said. Mr Yanukovych, however, has not so far not conceded.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he will accept, and work with, whoever wins the poll on Sunday.

Some 12,000 international observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) were in Ukraine for the vote.

- On the other hand, an election given little attention by OSCE, which sent just 21 observers, was that for parliament in Uzbekistan. But maybe that was because, according to the BBC,

no opposition parties were allowed to run.

Many ordinary Uzbeks say they see no difference between the candidates, who all support President Islam Karimov.

Some independents did try to stand, but officials rejected their applications on technical grounds.

But I suppose that doesn't really matter, does it; after all, Karimov

insisted Uzbekistan has no "real" opposition.

I guess the thousands of political prisoners "held in cruel, inhuman and degrading conditions" don't actually exist. Amnesty International must have just dreamed them up.

Footnote, "But, uh..." Award: Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov said

"[t]he OSCE cannot have the exclusive right to assess elections. It represents Europe while we're in Central Asia."

Uzbekistan is a member of the OSCE.

- In the West Bank, Hamas has shown surprising strength in elections for local councils. Haaretz (Israel) reports that of the 26 races, Fatah won control of 12 councils, Hamas took seven, with the other seven undecided as no party had a majority of seats.

In the next few days, Hamas and Fatah will try to win the support of the independent candidates and other organizations that fielded candidates, namely the Popular Front, the Democratic Front, and People's Party. According to the voting procedure, the party that can command the majority of the seats - through deals brokered with other small groups when the election is indecisive - then determines who head these local authorities.

That is, each village or city council is like a mini-parliament, using coalitions to form majorities where no single party can do so. The two things that are significant here are that

voter turnout was very high, around 81 percent. It is also clear that Hamas beat Fatah in elections for authorities traditionally considered Fatah bastions.

Some - I among them - speculated that the first elections were held where they were precisely because many of them were thought to be at least more or less safe areas for Fatah. So these results can't look good to them.

But that doesn't necessarily mean the opposite, that sentiment for continuing "armed struggle" as advocated by Hamas is surprisingly strong. Instead, what this may - may - indicate is that even though an increasing number of people have become exhausted with violence and are prepared to look for other means of struggle, they still are looking for an aggressive stance, even if not a violent one, against Israel and the occupation. That combination of avoiding violence while continuing to push for a just settlement was reflected in a statement by

[s]ome 560 prominent Palestinians, including senior PLO officials, cabinet ministers, lawmakers, intellectuals and poets, [which] urged an end to militant attacks and a push for democratic reform to advance the quest for a state.

"We reaffirm our legitimate right to confront occupation, but call for restoring the popular character of our intifada and ceasing actions that reduce the range of [international] support for our cause and harm the credibility of our struggle," they said in a front-page advertisement in Palestinian newspapers.

They also pressed Arafat's successor not to compromise on long-held Palestinian demands for a state in all of the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and a "fair solution" for Palestinian refugees.

That from Haaretz for Sunday, which also reported in the same article that Israel, to its credit, is easing some security restrictions prior to the January 9 Palestinian elections for president. (However, there have been incidents involving two of the presidential candidates.)

One thing did strike me as significant, though:

East Jerusalem campaigning will be permitted only in private homes. An Israeli official speaking on condition of anonymity said the measures would include allowing candidates to campaign in private areas, hang posters and distribute campaign literature. But rallies in public places that could be seen as threatening Israel's sovereignty in the disputed part of the city will not be permitted.

The status of Jerusalem, which both sides want as a capital, remains possibly the touchiest, thorniest issue on the table. How that can be settled short of some sort of separation or some cobbled-together form of joint administration, I don't know. Perhaps one possible solution would be for it to become an international city and the capital of neither nation; the Israeli capital could return to Tel Aviv and the Palestinian capital could be in Ramallah.

I know, I'm dreaming. But the choice seems to be dreaming or despair and I never seem quite ready for the latter.

And speaking of the January 9 elections, which I just was, the formal campaign has started. There are a total of eight candidates, with the clear favorite being interim Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who opened his campaign by urging

Israel to end its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

He also urged the Jewish state to free all political prisoners. ...

"Israel must pull out of all Palestinian lands occupied in 1967. We must end the occupation," he told a cheering crowd of hundreds of supporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

"We cannot compromise on Jerusalem," he added,

as reported by the BBC on Saturday.

Abbas's main challenger is Mustafa Barghouti, an advocate of non-violent struggle, who tried to take on the mantle of Yasser Arafat by putting on a black-and-white checkered keffiyeh of the kind Arafat made a symbol of the Palestinian resistance and opening his campaign at Arafat's gravesite in Ramallah.