Showing posts with label elections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label elections. Show all posts

21 April 2017

Paris police shot on Champs-Elysees; IS group claims attack

Bystanders raise their arms as police seal off the Champs Elysees avenue in Paris, France, after a fatal shooting in which a police officer was killed along with an attacker, Thursday, April 20, 2017. French media are reporting that two police officers were shot Thursday on the famed shopping boulevard. Many police vehicles can be seen on the avenue that passes many of the city's most iconic landmarks.
A gunman opened fire on police on Paris' iconic Champs-Elysees boulevard Thursday night, killing one officer and wounding three people before police shot and killed him. The Islamic State group quickly claimed responsibility for the attack, which hit just three days before a tense presidential election.

Security already has been a dominant theme in the campaign, and the violence on the sparkling avenue threatened to weigh on voters' decisions. Candidates canceled or rescheduled final campaign events ahead of Sunday's first round vote.

26 March 2017

No surprise: Beijing's pick Lam chosen as Hong Kong's leader

Former Hong Kong Chief Secretary Carrie Lam declares her victory in the chief executive election of Hong Kong in Hong Kong, Sunday, March 26, 2017. A Hong Kong committee has chosen the government's former No. 2 official Lam to be the semiautonomous Chinese city's next leader.
The candidate favored by China's Communist leadership was chosen as Hong Kong's new leader on Sunday, in the first such vote since huge pro-democracy protests erupted over the semiautonomous Chinese city's election system in 2014.

A committee dominated by pro-Beijing elites selected Carrie Lam, Hong Kong's former No. 2 official, as the financial hub's chief executive even though she was far less popular than her main rival. Lam received 67 percent of the votes cast by the 1,194-member committee.

20 March 2017

East Timor votes for president in test for young nation

People queue up to give their vote during the presidential election at a polling station in Dili, East Timor, Monday, March 20, 2017. East Timorese went to vote Monday in the first presidential election since the U.N. officially ended the peacekeeping mission in the country in 2012.
East Timor voted for a new president Monday in an election that will test Asia's newest and poorest nation.

Francisco "Lu Olo" Guterres, a former guerrilla leader from the leftist Fretilin party, was up against seven other candidates. He and the Democratic Party's Antonio da Conceicao, the minister of education and social affairs, were the front-runners.

While East Timor's president has a mostly ceremonial role, the prime minister heads the government.