KINSHASA (Reuters) - Democratic Republic of Congo’s election board has told participants in Sunday’s presidential vote it cannot organize the ballot on time, one of the candidates said.
Electoral commission CENI summoned candidates to a meeting in parliament on Thursday after media reports of a delay due to problems with vote materials.
Candidate Theodore Ngoy, who was at the meeting, said in a text message to Reuters that CENI president Corneille Nangaa announced the commission was “technically unable” to carry through the election as planned on Sunday.
The election is meant to choose a successor to President Joseph Kabila, who is due to step down after 18 years in power, in what would be Congo’s first democratic transition.
There was no word on a new timetable, but Nangaa was scheduled to give a news conference at 3 p.m (1400 GMT).
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伏羽忍冬
2018-12-21 01:08:03
19/12:
We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency.
....Russia, Iran, Syria & many others are not happy about the U.S. leaving, despite what the Fake News says, because now they will have to fight ISIS and others, who they hate, without us. I am building by far the most powerful military in the world. ISIS hits us they are doomed!
US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis will be retiring "with distinction" at the end of February, President Donald Trump announced on Thursday.
Mr Trump tweeted that General Mattis "was a great help to me in getting allies and other countries to pay their share of military obligations".
He did not name a successor, but said one would be appointed shortly.
The news of Gen Mattis' departure comes a day after Mr Trump announced all US troops would be withdrawn from Syria.
In his resignation letter, Gen Mattis described his views on "treating allies with respect" and using "all the tools of American power to provide for the common defence".
"Because you have the right to have a Secretary of Defence whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down," Gen Mattis wrote.
The Democratic Republic of Congo's long-delayed presidential election has been postponed for another week.
The vote, scheduled for Sunday, is now due to take place on 30 December, the Electoral Commission said on Thursday.
A delay in deploying voting materials to polling sites after a fire last week was behind the move, it added.
It is the latest in a series of delays to frustrate opposition supporters, who suspect that President Joseph Kabila intends to cling on to power.
Mr Kabila, who has been in office since 2001, was meant to have stepped down in 2016 under a constitutional prohibition from seeking an additional term.
However, the election to choose his successor has been continually postponed, amid unrest and reported logistical difficulties.
Filibuster_HK
2018-12-21 23:28:09
Trump vows 'very long' government shutdown over border wall
Demonstrators have clashed with police in Barcelona during protests against the Spanish government’s decision to hold a cabinet meeting in the Catalan capital on the first anniversary of the snap election called after the regional government’s unilateral independence declaration.
Parts of the city were in lockdown on Friday morning, while elsewhere in Catalonia, more than 20 roads were blocked by members of the direct-action Committees for the Defence of the Republic with the aim of cutting off all access to Barcelona.
Dozens of protesters sat on the AP 7 motorway, which runs down the Mediterranean coast, holding their hands in the air as police in riot gear pulled them from the road. Some were wearing hi-vis vests in a presumed reference both to France’s gilets jaunes activists and the colour associated with the Catalan independence movement, yellow.
Some roads were blocked with tyres.
Thousands of police officers were on duty to cordon off the area around Llotja de Mar, the old stock exchange building, where the ministers were meeting.
DI_Cotton
2018-12-22 09:35:22
LG講咗唔用了
:^(
Filibuster_HK
2018-12-22 12:50:07
U.S., Canada call on China to release detained Canadians
WASHINGTON/VANCOUVER (Reuters) - The United States joined Canada on Friday in calling on Beijing to release two Canadians detained in what are widely believed to be tit-for-tat arrests related to the high-profile detention in Canada of an executive of a major Chinese corporation.
China last week detained two Canadians - Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat and an adviser with the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank, and businessman Michael Spavor - after Canadian police arrested Huawei Technologies Co Ltd’s [HWT.UL] chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, on Dec 1.
“We are deeply concerned by the arbitrary detention by Chinese authorities of two Canadians earlier this month and call for their immediate release,” Canada’s Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said in a statement.
Her words were echoed in a similar statement by U.S. State Department spokesman Robert Palladino, who noted that Canada was honoring its international legal commitments in arresting Meng, and called for the immediate release of Kovrig and Spavor.
British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said in a statement that the United Kingdom “has confidence Canada is conducting a fair and transparent legal proceeding” with respect to Meng. He said he was “deeply concerned by suggestions of a political motivation” for the detention of Kovrig and Spavor.
Filibuster_HK
2018-12-22 12:53:14
Supreme Court rejects Trump asylum ban on illegal migrants
Thousands of Hungarians marched to the presidential palace late on Friday to protest against labour reforms as a rally led by spoof political party MKKP merged with a subsequent demonstration staged by opposition groups.
Passage of two laws last week backed by prime minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party angered a variety of groups.
One, dubbed by critics the “slave law”, allows employers to ask staff to work up to 400 hours per year of overtime. Another would set up new courts which critics say could be politically manipulated.
MKKP’s gathering started outside parliament, where one protester brandished a placard saying “Happy boss, gloomy Sunday”.
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Filibuster_HK
2018-12-22 13:01:31
Government to shut down in fight over Trump's border wall
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government was to begin a partial shutdown at midnight on Friday after Republican senators failed to muster the votes needed to approve $5 billion that President Donald Trump wants for a border wall fiercely opposed by Democrats.
Trump sought to blame Democrats, who responded by reminding him that he said last week he would be “proud” to shut down key parts of the federal government in order to get funding for a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico.
“We’re going to have a shutdown. There’s nothing we can do about that because we need the Democrats to give us their votes,” Trump said in a video posted to his Twitter account about two hours before a midnight deadline to pass a stop-gap spending bill. “The shutdown hopefully will not last long.”
Republican and Democratic senators had this week reached a deal on short-term funding legislation that did not include the $5 billion Trump wants, but the president said on Thursday he would not sign it.
The shutdown was the latest evidence of dysfunction in Washington and does not bode well for next year, when Democrats will have a stronger hand as they take control of the House of Representatives.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-congo-election-commission/congo-to-postpone-sundays-presidential-vote-candidate-idUSKCN1OJ14S
KINSHASA (Reuters) - Democratic Republic of Congo’s election board has told participants in Sunday’s presidential vote it cannot organize the ballot on time, one of the candidates said.
Electoral commission CENI summoned candidates to a meeting in parliament on Thursday after media reports of a delay due to problems with vote materials.
Candidate Theodore Ngoy, who was at the meeting, said in a text message to Reuters that CENI president Corneille Nangaa announced the commission was “technically unable” to carry through the election as planned on Sunday.
The election is meant to choose a successor to President Joseph Kabila, who is due to step down after 18 years in power, in what would be Congo’s first democratic transition.
There was no word on a new timetable, but Nangaa was scheduled to give a news conference at 3 p.m (1400 GMT).