PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Rene Preval, the only president in Haiti's history to finish a five-year term, was sworn in Sunday to again lead the impoverished nation after decades of armed uprisings, lawlessness and foreign intervention.\nIn a brief ceremony in Parliament, Preval took the oath of office, and the Senate leader placed on him the presidential sash of the national colors -- blue and red.\nAfterward, Preval stood and waved as about 300 legislators and foreign diplomats, including Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Canadian Governor-General Michaelle Jean, gave him a standing ovation.\nSeveral hundred onlookers gathered on the streets, which were lined with Haitian flags and dozens of U.N. peacekeepers and Haitian national police. Some supporters of Jean-Bertrand Aristide -- the former president who was ousted in a 2004 revolt -- held up photos of him and chanted "Bring Aristide back" and "Aristide's blood is our blood."\nPreval replaces a U.S.-backed interim government appointed to lead this Caribbean nation after Aristide fled into exile.\nThe former Aristide ally and champion of Haiti's poor has pledged to unite the country's fractured society and restore the peace that vanished in the aftermath of the February 2004 bloody revolt.\nPreval, 63, ruled Haiti from 1996 to 2001. He faces big challenges, including a corrupt state bureaucracy, a wrecked economy, roiling insecurity and the plight of prisoners.\nBefore the inauguration, inmates rioted at Haiti's main prison about a half-mile away from the Parliament building. Gunfire could be heard from inside the prison and about 100 inmates massed on the roof, holding what appeared to be two dead bodies. There was no immediate official word on casualties.\nHaitian police and U.N. peacekeeping troops surrounded the prison.\nThe riot could not be heard or in the Parliament area.\nThe U.N. envoy to Haiti, Juan Gabriel Valdes, has said one of Preval's main priorities should be fixing the country's broken justice system.\n "In Haiti, impunity is almost total for many criminals who roam free while the innocent and those wrongly accused of a crime stagnate in prisons." Valdes wrote in an editorial published Saturday in the Canadian newspaper Le Devoir.
\nsh: Brazilian gang launches more attacks on police; more than 50 people killed
By Stan Lehman \nThe Associated Press
\nSAO PAULO, Brazil -- A notorious criminal gang unleashed a second wave of attacks on police Sunday, bringing to 52 the number of people killed in the deadliest assault of its kind in the history of Brazil's largest state, authorities said.\nAnother 18 related prison rebellions also broke out Sunday, bringing the number of uprisings across Sao Paulo state to 36. Inmates were holding more than 120 people hostage. The state has a total of 144 prisons.\nOfficials say the attacks and prison rebellions were planned by the First Capital Command, known by its Portuguese initials PCC.\nThe attacks were in response to the transfer of several imprisoned PCC leaders, a practice authorities use to sever the inmates' ties to gang members outside prison.\nEight PCC leaders were among 765 inmates transferred to a remote, high-security facility in the far western tip of Sao Paulo state.\nThe press office of the Sao Paulo state government said the PCC carried out at least 100 separate attacks since Friday that killed at least 35 police officers, the girlfriend of one of them, two passers-by and 14 suspected gang members.\nThe attacks and ensuing gunbattles wounded another 50 people -- 36 policemen, eight bystanders and six suspects -- the state government's press office said.\nAt least 16 people have been arrested.\nAuthorities said police units were on maximum alert, and the federal government said it was ready to help the state with all means available.\nOfficers in bulletproof vests set up checkpoints to search vehicles, and barriers went up in front of many police stations to keep pedestrians and vehicles away. TV footage showed bullet-riddled police cars and shattered glass at one station.\nAssailants also attacked patrol cars, bars where off-duty policemen gather, a courthouse and a highway police outpost on the outskirts of the city of Sao Paulo.
