More here: Bulgaria to vote in election beset by fraud fears
Twin bombs kill 9 in Pakistan ahead of elections, Taliban vow more deaths
The first attack took place on the outskirts of the city of Kohat, where the bomb ripped through the office of Syed Noor Akbar, killing six people and wounded 10. The blast also damaged shops and vehicles nearby, and hit an office of the Awami National Party, which has been targeted repeatedly by the Taliban.”The election office was open at the time and supporters of Noor Akbar Khan were sitting inside. The death toll may rise, the condition of some of the injured is critical ,” police official Tanveer Khan told AFP.The second bomb targeted the office of Nazir Khan Afridi in the suburbs of Peshawar, killing three people and wounding 12, police said.Both politicians are running as independent candidates for National Assembly seats in the general elections to be held on May 11. The Pakistani Taliban have claimed responsibility for both attacks. The Taliban previously announced they were targeting three political parties: The Awami National Party, the Muttahida Quami Movement and the Pakistan People’s Party. All three are perceived by the Taliban as too liberal.However, the parties have continued to hold large public rallies. Their leaders have expressed concerns about electoral fraud, but have so far decided not to boycott the election.Pakistani officials said they planned to seal the border with Afghanistan and restrict the movement of Afghan refugees on election day, in hopes of preventing further attacks. … Read More
Four bombs kill 12 in Pakistan ahead of elections, Taliban vow more deaths
The first attack took place on the outskirts of the city of Kohat, where the bomb ripped through the office of Syed Noor Akbar, killing six people and wounded 21, local media reports. The blast also damaged shops and vehicles nearby, and hit an office of the Awami National Party, which has been targeted repeatedly by the Taliban.”The election office was open at the time and supporters of Noor Akbar Khan were sitting inside. The death toll may rise, the condition of some of the injured is critical ,” police official Tanveer Khan told AFP.Akbar is a member of the minority Shia sect and this could have been a motive for the attack, police said according to the local media.The second bomb targeted the office of Nazir Khan Afridi in the suburbs of Peshawar, killing three people and wounding 12, police said.In the evening, two were killed and five injured when a bomb attack targeted an election meeting by Awami National Party candidate Ameer Rehman at Swabi in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province in north-west of the country. A remote controlled device was used in the attack, police said according to local media.A boy was killed and five others were injured when a bomb went off near an election meeting by independent candidate Shams Mengal at Saryab Road in provincial capital of Quetta.The politicians are running for National Assembly seats in the general elections to be held on May 11. The Pakistani Taliban have claimed responsibility for both attacks. The Taliban previously announced they were targeting three political parties: The Awami National Party, the Muttahida Quami Movement and the Pakistan People’s Party. All three are perceived by the Taliban as too liberal.However, the parties have continued to hold large public rallies. Their leaders have expressed concerns about electoral fraud, but have so far decided not to boycott the election.Pakistani officials said they planned to seal the border with Afghanistan and restrict the movement of Afghan refugees on election day, in hopes of preventing further attacks. … Read More
Venezuelan committee dismisses opposition demands for vote audit as ‘impossible’
The President of the Venezuelan electoral committee Tibisay Lucena dismissed Capriles’ demands for an audit as “impractical” and unconstitutional. “After a long analysis by the National Voting Council, we can say that it is impossible to approve the request with the current conditions,” Lucena said on Venezuelan state television, adding that such demands are not provided for in the Venezuela’s judicial system. She went on to say that starting on Monday, there will be an audit of 46 percent of the votes that had not been previously checked. Addressing Capriles’ claims of “stolen votes,” Lucena stated that the opposition leader had not provided sufficient evidence to back up his allegations. Capriles said that the Venezuelan presidential elections had been sullied by thousands of irregularities including voting intimidation, and demanded a recount of the ballots. He claimed that by his calculations he had won the election, and slammed the Maduro government for its “desperate lies.” He stressed that if the necessary paperwork from polling stations was not included in the audit, then the opposition would not participate in the “joke” of the electoral process.On Thursday, Capriles criticized the Commission for not setting a date for the audit, and said that the next step would be to formally challenge the elections. The Venezuelan Electoral Committee stated on April 20 that despite the audit, the results of the presidential elections were irreversible and there would not be a recount.Late leader Hugo Chavez’s successor Nicolas Maduro won the Venezuelan election on April 14 by a narrow margin of 1.8 percent, with 50.66 percent of the vote. Capriles refused to accept the results until there was a full recount and claimed that he had won.“We won in many of the states of Venezuela and according to these results we won in the main areas of the country, the loser in the government, they are the losers,” the ex-presidential candidate said after the results were announced.Maduro agreed to an audit of the vote but has denied all allegations of foul play. Chavista deputies also founded a commission this week to investigate so-called “fascist aggression” during protests in the run-up to the elections.Pedro Carreno, one of the members of the new commission, says the opposition had a hand in inciting the violence in which nine people died and over 80 were injured. Furthermore, he accused the opposition of trying to conceal their involvement. The government has arrested two people so far it has accused of inciting violence during the election protests.Both Maduro and Capriles have called on their followers to rally on May 1, a potentially inflammatory situation that could lead to clashes. … Read More
SF Pride capitulates, drops Manning
A group of former San Francisco Pride parade grand marshals that SF Pride calls its electoral college announced on April 26 that Pfc. Bradley Manning, the gay private who the United States military is currently prosecuting for disclosing information to WikiLeaks, had been selected as honorary grand marshal for this year’s LGBT Pride Celebration.The decision greatly offended some of the most militaristic LGBT organizations and activists, who condemned SF Pride. That ultimately led to capitulation by SF Pride president, Lisa Williams, who announced in a letter that Manning would not be honored this year.She cast the reversal as a product of dysfunction in the organization: Bradley Manning will not be a grand marshal in this year’s San Francisco Pride celebration. His nomination was a mistake and should never have been allowed to happen. A staff person at SF Pride, acting under his own initiative, prematurely contacted Bradley Manning based on internal conversations within the SF Pride organization. That was an error and that person has been disciplined. He does not now, nor did he at that time, speak for SF Pride. Continue Reading… … Read More
Russia to change agreement with France to prevent adoption by same sex couples
“We treat our partners with respect but we also ask them to show equal respect to our cultural traditions, our life and our ethical, legislative and moral norms. I think that we have the right to make correction and changes” Putin told a meeting with Russian lawmakers on Friday, when the head of the legislative assembly from the western region of Kaliningrad expressed concern that the legalization of gay marriages in France which could lead to adoptions of Russian orphans by same sex families.France is one of few countries that have bilateral agreements with Russia on adoption. It ranks fourth in the number of adopted Russian children.The head of the Upper Chamber, Valentina Matviyenko, told President Putin that the Russian Foreign Ministry was already working on changes to the adoption agreement with France.Earlier this week the French parliament gave its final approval to the bill allowing same sex marriages in the country as well as the adoption of children by same sex couples. The bill is yet to be signed by President Francois Hollande, but given that the move was one of the key promises in Hollande’s electoral program the deal can be considered sealed.The legalization caused massive protests in France, with thousands of people demonstrating in Paris demanding the authorities respect traditional values.Russian officials have warned France of the possible consequences of the move. Presidential Plenipotentiary for Children’s Rights, Pavel Astakhov, said in a recent newspaper interview that the authorities were very resolute over the issue.“Our position is stated in our basic laws – in the Constitution and in the Family Code. They directly state that only a union of a man and a woman can be considered marriage. We have nothing else. Period,” Astakhov told Rossiiskaya Gazeta daily.President Putin said during a recent visit to the Netherlands that the legalization of same sex marriage was against the Russian mentality and traditions, could lead to a surge of violence and was, therefore, extremely undesirable. He also noted that however hard the activists try to protect same sex marriage, such a marriage would never produce children.At the same time, President Putin claimed Russian authorities were not violating the rights of sexual minorities and vouched to personally protect these rights. “I hold that these people do not have any other President for themselves and I, as a President, is protecting their rights,” Putin said. … Read More
Australia’s WikiLeaks Party submits registration, hails ‘optimistic’ poll
The WikiLeaks Party attracted more than double the 500 members required for registration – 1,300 supporters in the three weeks since it opened for membership on March 30.The party is submitting its registration to the Australian Electoral Commission just after a favorable poll emerged in the Australian media saying 26 percent of voters would vote for Assange.The research – conducted by UMR Research, the Labor Party’s pollster – is based on 1,000 Australian voters’ online answers to the question of whether they would vote for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and the WikiLeaks Party.The number of those who said they would exceeds the 14-percent threshold a party needs to run for the Australian Senate. The lowest response, 18 percent, came from the state of Western Australia, and the highest, 36 percent, came from New South Wales. In Victoria State, where Assange is running, 23 percent of poll participants said they would vote for the WikiLeaks Party.However, the polling agency cautioned party supporters against euphoria, as the actual voting results for the WikiLeaks Party will likely be lower than those in their research. They also advised that Assange’s long-distance Senate bid would be hard-fought. ”If he runs a clever campaign he will have a good chance of winning the last, sixth Senate seats,” UMR managing director John Utting said, according to the National Times.The poll came days after a much less optimistic forecast was published by Nielsen which questioned 1,400 Australians and found that 15 percent would vote for the WikiLeaks Party and Assange. The results were published a week ago.”I think [Assange's] candidacy looks credible from these numbers but I still think, on those numbers, it would be a very big ask to win,” Nielsen pollster John Stirton said, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. ”He’s in the ballpark of the support he needs but he’s got to convert every single one… and I think that’s highly unlikely.”Sitting in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, Assange said he is aware of the differing poll figures giving him anywhere from 15 to 27 percent support, and is preparing for a tough remote campaign. “I don’t want to underestimate the difficulties of being in this situation. But WikiLeaks has certain abilities in using the Internet, certain understanding on how to project the information on the Internet. So we’ll see whether that works,” Assange told RT. Another factor could work in Assange’s favor in his race: Australia has a ‘preferential’ electoral system allowing voters to cast ballots for multiple candidates in order of preference. The system sometimes allows candidates with as little as 2 percent of primary preference votes to win elections.The WikiLeaks Party is expected to unveil other candidates to represent it in key races in New South Wales and Western Australia. Assange’s running mate in Victoria has also not yet been identified.Assange’s running mate could sit in for the WikiLeaks founder if he wins a Senate seat but is still unable to leave the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he has been holed up since June 2012 after claiming asylum in a bid to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning on sexual assault allegations.The founder of the whistleblowing website believes that once extradited to Sweden, he could then be re-extradited to the United States, where according to his lawyers he is likely to face trial and possibly even the death penalty for WikiLeaks’ release of thousands of classified US diplomatic cables. … Read More
