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NPR's Gerry Hadden reports that another election defeat for the party that for years ruled Mexico has re-ignited hopes that the government can reach a peace agreement with guerrillas in the south. The Institutional Revolutionary Party or PRI yesterday lost the gubernatorial election in the state of Chiapas. Only six weeks ago, the PRI lost the presidential election to opposition candidate Vicente Fox . Both Fox and the opposition winner in the governor's race yesterday have pledged to resolve the bloody conflict in Chiapas between government forces and the indigenous Zapatista rebels.

Ralph Nader is the Green Party nominee for president. He's run before, but this time, the consumer advocate has stepped up his effort. He's raising money, traveling the country, and drawing crowds to hear his pitch that there's little difference between the two major parties and that he is the candidate who will stand up for workers. All Things Considered is airing excerpts from candidate's stump speeches every Wednesday. Today, we hear a portion of one of Nader's.

NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports from Rome that L'Unita, the official mouthpiece of the Italian communist party, folded this month amid dwindling sales and mounting debt. At the end of the Cold War, the Italian Communist party changed its name, but even so the Italian left lost its political clout. With the closing of L'Unita, Italy has lost a cultural institution that for decades featured the writings of leading western intellectuals, as well as East European dissidents.

For the first time in a decade a single party holds a clear majority in Turkey's legislature. Many Turks hope the predominantly Islamic Justice and Development Party can pull the nation out of economic lethargy. But some non-Muslims fear religious divisions may flare. NPR's Ivan Watson reports.

NPR's Peter Overby reports that a ruling today by the Supreme Court appeared to open the way for a whole new category of campaign spending by political parties on congressional campaigns. The court said the Federal Election Commission was wrong when it cited the Colorado Republican Party for exceeding federal spending limits after it spent $15,000 on radio ads in 1986 against a Democratic Senate candidate. Such expenditures, as long as they are made independently of a particular candidate's campaign, should not be limited, the court said.

on the showdown that's expected at the Republican convention in August over the issue of abortion. Several Republican governors already have promised they will fight to keep anti-abortion language out of the party platform. But Patrick Buchanan and his followers have threatened to walk out of the convention or even launch a third party candidacy, if the platform does not include a strong stand against abortion.

Host Bob Edwards speaks with NPR's Jennifer Ludden about Israeli Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon's efforts to form a national unity government. Though nothing is final, much progress has been made in negotiations between Sharon's Likud Party and the more liberal Labor Party. In a national unity government, outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Barak might be Sharon's Defense Minister and Nobel Laureate Shimon Peres could be Foreign Minister.

U.S. forces seize documents, cash and arms in a raid on the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. The leading Shia Muslim party claims the raid came in retaliation to the group's threatened boycott of an American plan to hand pick a new Iraqi advisory panel rather than allow Iraqi parties to elect one. NPR's Deborah Amos reports.

Ralph Nader has launched his campaign for the presidency as an independent candidate. Mark Kamleiter, co-chair of the Green Party of Florida and one of the organizers of Florida Greens for Nader, supports the 2004 campaign -- as well as the right for third parties to play a part in American politics. Commentator Diana Abu-Jaber supported Nader in 2000. She understands why he's running again, but she can't afford to vote for him this time.

Spain's new leader reiterates his pledge to withdraw troops from Iraq, saying Tomahawk missiles and bombs are not the way to defeat terrorism. Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, whose Socialist Party defeated Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's ruling Popular Party in Sunday's elections, repeated his claim that the occupation of Iraq is a fiasco. NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports.