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She officially took charge of Congress in 1998, but before yesterday’s surprise result, her future in politics had looked uncertainDuring the campaign Gandhi has been criticised by rivals because she was born in Italy and speaks Hindi with an accent But then her children were deployed. Priyanka, his younger sister, did not stand for election but is widely regarded as a key Congress player.In stark contrast, the long political career of Atal Bihari Vajpayee appears over. It was a masterstroke.At just 33, Rahul Gandhi is the rising star of Congress and easily won his own seat in the family’s Uttar Pradesh state He paid tribute to his mother “I have seen my mother fight with her back to the wall And she has won. She has won against all odds,” he said, smiling broadly and garlanded with marigolds. Communist and other leftist parties have said they would back Congress, and they had gained 59 seats.The result sent shock waves around the region. While Pakistan and India came to the brink of nuclear conflict under Vajpayee, more recently the rivals had successfully embarked upon a peace process.

Last night Pakistani leaders insisted that it would continue. Mrs Gandhi said: “The Congress party will take the lead to ensure our country has a strong, stable and secular government at the earliest.”Hers is by any standard a remarkable rise to power. Against all predictions, an Italian widow who married into the Gandhi-Nehru clan is now on the brink of becoming the fourth member of the family to be Prime Minister of the world’s largest democracy.After nearly 14 hours of vote-counting for 539 of Parliament’s 543 elected seats, official results showed Sonia Gandhi’s Congress and its allies were leading the Hindu-nationalist-led National Democratic Alliance 210 to 181 seats. The daughter of a builder from Turin, she met her future husband when she was a language student in Cambridge, England.She married into the dynasty 36 years ago and was propelled into the forefront of Indian politics when her husband Rajiv was picked as the successor to the Gandhi-Nehru crown after the death of his brother in a plane crash in 1980.After distancing herself from politics following her husband’s assassination in 1991, Mrs Gandhi was initially seen as a reluctant politician. Surely Atal Bihari Vajpayee, its diminutive, poetry-writing Prime Minister, was guaranteed electoral victory

It was the result they said could not happen. India, the world’s largest democracy, rode the crest of a surging economic wave Peace had been brokered with Pakistan And the national cricket team ruled the world. It was the result they said could not happen.

His wife, Christina Fu, says he has been denied exercise and reading materials.. But China has rejected the protests as an “interference in the judicial process”.Yang’s supporters and family have appealed to the US and Chinese legislatures for help in gaining his release. His family said he was using a friend’s identity card to travel because the Chinese government refused to renew his passport.Last month, members of the US Congress issued a letter addressed to Chinese President Hu Jintao calling Yang’s detention “extraordinarily inhumane”. “I do not agree with this verdict.” The Chinese government has not released any of its evidence against Yang.Yang is one of a series of foreign-based Chinese who have been convicted of spying for Taiwan. His sentence includes the two years he has been held since he was detained on 26 April, 2002, in Kunming.Yang, 40, lives in Boston and runs the Foundation for China in the 21st Century, an advocacy group calling for political change in China. A Chinese court sentenced a US-based political activist to five years in prison yesterday on charges of spying for Taiwan in a case that has prompted protests in Washington.
Yang Jianli, who was detained in 2002, was also convicted of an illegal border crossing after a trial in Beijing, the official news agency said.Yang, a Chinese citizen with permanent US residency, was in China to meet dissidents and laid-off workers when he was stopped while boarding an airline flight using a false ID card.He will decide within five days whether to appeal, once a written verdict is issued, said his lawyer, Mo Shaoping “I entered a not guilty plea for him,” Mo said.