Ukraine’s Supreme Court ordered a second presidential run-off to be held by December 26 after it ruled last month’s fraud-plagued election invalid.New York TimesSupporters of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, the winner in the November 21 run-off, threatened to form a separate nation in the country’s east; theNew York Timesopposition candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, who promises to increase Ukraine’s ties to the West, celebrated the court’s decision with thousands of protesters in Kiev’s Independence Square. Stricken by a mysterious illness that has left his face a mask of puffy, red cysts and lesions, Yushchenko said to the crowd, “This is the face …

The United States, the United Nations, Russia, and the European Union, acting collectively as “the Quartet,” presented Israel and Palestine with the famous “road map” to peace that President Bush promised to reveal once the Palestinians acquired a prime minister independent of Yasir Arafat. A suicide bomber, who turned out to be a British citizen, responded to the confirmation of Mahmoud Abbas as prime minister by blowing up a nightclub in Tel Aviv, leaving body parts scattered along the shore. A day later Israeli tanks invaded a crowded neighborhood in Gaza and killed 12 Palestinians, mostly civilians, including a two-year-old …