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BBC News with Neil Nunes.
In a surprise result, a student-led protest movement has won the general election in Serbia, defeating the veteran leader Aleksandar Vučić, who's held power for 14 years. After Mr. Vučić conceded, the streets of Belgrade erupted in celebration, with thousands of opposition supporters dancing and setting off fireworks. Voter turnout at close to 70 percent was the highest in decades. Nick Thorpe reports now from Belgrade. We actually know very little about the policies that the new government would pursue. We have no idea who will be the prime minister, who would be the foreign minister. This is a list drawn up by students of personalities with no background in politics at all. From my own conversations with some of the students, they say that the focus of the new government initially, at least, will be very much on reforms here in Serbia. Votes are being counted in Brazil after a tense and chaotic presidential election. With three quarters of the count completed, the incumbent left-wing President Lula da Silva has a slender lead over his right-wing challenger Flávio Bolsonaro. The Supreme Court extended polling by two hours after the president accused officials in major cities of obstructing public transport to suppress voter turnout. His rival had also requested an extension in areas affected by heavy rainfall. Ione Wells is in Brasilia. It is looking really neck and neck, pretty much 50-50 between the two candidates. And I think that shows just why these candidates were concerned about anything that could disrupt the electoral process, because the polls were suggesting in the last couple of days that this race had really, really narrowed, that there was a lot more undecided voters. And that's why both candidates are fighting for every single vote, particularly in some of these key swing states around the country. The Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has returned to the country after almost a year in exile. She first appeared in a church in the western Lara state, where she was greeted by bystanders who sang the national anthem and shouted liberty. Will Grant has more. María Corina Machado supporters have lined the route of her journey across the country to the capital Caracas. In stark contrast to the clandestine way in which she left Venezuela, she is signposting her return openly and defiantly. Officially, the Nobel Peace Prize winner still faces a series of charges in Venezuela, from treason to conspiracy to insurrection. However, given her return came with the tacit approval of the Trump administration, she clearly feels more emboldened than ever to appear in public, almost challenging the government of Delcy Rodríguez to try to detain her under such conditions. This is the world news from the BBC. Exit polls in Bulgaria's presidential election have put the incumbent Iliana Iotova in the lead three points ahead of her arrival, the pro-Western former Prime Minister Andrey Gyurov. The exit polls give Ms. Iotova just over 35 percent, which means the two will fight it out in a run-off in a week's time. Ms. Iotova favors dialogue with Moscow and opposes military aid to Ukraine. The leader of the French hard-right national rally, Marine Le Pen, has launched her campaign for next year's presidential election. At a convention in Orleans, she promised to restore the rule of law in France after the recent violent unrest. "Protecting the French people, these are the four words which sum up our grand plan for France. And the first of those protections is the right to security, beginning with security here at home. Everyday security for you, for your families and for your children." Ms. Le Pen is currently leading in opinion polls with six months to go before the election. Algeria's parliament has voted to send troops into neighboring Niger to help the country fight off various armed groups who've been attacking oil facilities and other sites. The move marks a further step in the two countries' renewed cooperation and will be the first time Algeria has sent troops abroad for more than half a century. Niger has suffered an Islamist insurgency for the past decade. The number of dead from an attack last Friday on a remote Nigerian village has risen to 48, with police finding more bodies in a nearby forest and river. Witnesses say gunmen on motorcycles turned up at Binnari in the northeastern Taraba state just after Friday prayers. They opened fire indiscriminately, looting shops and setting homes alight. BBC World News. |