21.   Barac maintains he is innocent and merely a scapegoat for ruling officials.

22.   Before a flower-draped altar, four senior ruling Nationalist Party officials covered her copper coffin with a Taiwan flag.

23.   Border Gezi, a top ruling party official, said Sunday that opposition supporters were provoking the violence.

24.   But she has also been criticized by President Thabo Mbeki and senior ruling party officials as a self-promoting insubordinate.

25.   But ruling party official Milan Topoli insisted the HZDS could still put together a majority coalition with the help of the Party of the Democratic Left, former Communists.

26.   But news reports in the afternoon about talk among ruling party officials of a larger-than-expected income tax cut reversed the course, traders said.

27.   Chee appealed the decision, arguing that ruling party officials and member of Parliament routinely give speeches in outdoor areas.

28.   Croatia should seek extradition of Serb priest Momcilo Djujic, an alleged World War II criminal, a senior ruling party official said Friday.

29.   Earlier Tuesday, a Spanish ruling party official reacted skeptically to a proposal by Basque Nationalist Party chairman Xabier Arzallus for negotiations modeled on the Northern Ireland peace process.

30.   Elsewhere, four people were stabbed and a ruling party official was pelted with bricks.