World News
Presidential election in Brazil: Lula wins the 1st round followed by Bolsonaro, a 2nd round necessary
Reading Time: 2 minutes
Sylvie Claire / October 3, 2022
Former leftist President Lula came out on top in the 1st round of Brazil’s presidential election on Sunday, ahead of far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro.
However, his advance is less important than the polls predicted and a second round will take place between the two men on October 30 since Lula could not obtain the absolute majority of the votes.
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, icon of the Brazilian left, won 47.97% of the votes, ahead of the far-right incumbent president, at 43.60%, announced in the evening the Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE), based on the counting of 97.69% of the polling stations.
This short victory is disappointing for Lula, to whom the polls promised a large lead, even a triumph in the first round, which he wanted to celebrate on the great Paulista Avenue in Sao Paulo.
He will have to face his sworn enemy in a second round, scheduled by electoral law for October 30.
The president Jair Bolsonaro has resisted better than expected while the polls said he was trailing far behind Lula in the voting intentions (36% against 50%).
For the populist leader, who escaped a humiliating defeat in the first round, these four weeks may be an opportunity to galvanize his troops in the streets and find new momentum.
The question is whether Bolsonaro will accept a possible electoral defeat in the second round. The right-wing populist president’s previous statements suggest he will not. “If we have a clean election, then I will win today with at least 60 percent of the vote,” he said Sunday, for example, after voting in the first round. He has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that the Brazilian electoral system is prone to fraud and that he does not trust the results.
In addition, many bolsonist candidates, including former government ministers, were elected to Congress and as governors.
The election, to which 156 million voters were called, apparently went off without violence in Latin America’s largest country.
Continue Reading
Reading Time: < 1 minutes
Sylvie Claire / September 23, 2023
At least 25 people, including two children, died when a bus crashed into a ravine in the Andean region of Huancavelica, in southern Peru, the authorities announced in a revised death toll on Monday evening.
An initial police report put the death toll at 20, with a further 35 injured. A statement from the Ministry of Health later that morning put the death toll at 24. Finally, at the end of the day on Monday, the death toll stood at “25 dead and 34 wounded”, according to the Ministry of Defense.
The accident occurred on Sunday night, when the bus carrying over 50 passengers from Huanta in Ayacucho to Huancayo in the Junin region ran off the road.
Images show the damaged bus lying on its side near a river below the ravine, debris and personal belongings strewn all around.
Peruvian President Dina Boluarte expressed her “condolences to the families” from New York, where she will be attending the 78th General Assembly of the United Nations. The Peruvian Episcopal Conference, for its part, urged the government to “carry out a serious investigation” to prevent such accidents from happening again.
On August 13, another accident in the same region left 13 people dead and 5 seriously injured.
Road accidents are frequent in Peru, mainly due to speeding and poor road maintenance, especially in mountainous areas.
Reading Time: < 1 minutes
Sylvie Claire / September 17, 2023
In Japan, the number of people aged 100 has reached a record level: the world’s third-largest economy now has 92,139 people aged 100 or over. That’s 1,613 more than a year ago, reported the Ministry of Health in Tokyo on Friday.
For over half a century, the number of people aged 100 has been rising every year. Due to a low birth rate and almost non-existent immigration, no other industrial state is aging as fast as this East Asian country.
Japan’s population is also shrinking at a record pace. Last year, the number of Japanese fell by 801,000, the biggest drop since comparable data have been recorded. There are now 122.4 million.
When the Japanese Ministry of Health began compiling statistics in 1963, there were 153 centenarians. Twenty-five years later, there were over 10,000. According to the latest figures, around 88% of centenarians are women. Japan has the longest life expectancy in the world. Life expectancy for women is around 87 years, and 81 for men.
Reading Time: < 1 minutes
Steph Deschamps / September 17, 2023
The death toll from the earthquake in Morocco has risen to 2,946, the Moroccan Ministry of the Interior announced on Wednesday evening. A further 5,674 people were injured.
The previous death toll was 2,901. The death toll is expected to rise further. Hopes of finding survivors are now very slim. Rescue workers have not yet been able to reach all the villages affected in the Atlas Mountains.
A magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck the country on Friday night. The epicenter was located some 80 kilometers southwest of Marrakech. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), over 300,000 people in and around Marrakech were affected by the disaster.
World News2 days ago
At least 25 dead in a bus accident in Peru
Entertainment2 days ago
The Young and the Restless mourns the death of actor Billy Miller
World News1 week ago
