Turnout remains low in Egyptian election
CAIRO – Egyptian authorities scrambled to rescue the country’s presidential election from the embarrassment of low voter turnout that has dented former army chief Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi’s hopes for an enthusiastic show of public support. Few people trickled to the polls Wednesday even after the balloting was extended for a third day.
Estimates reported by pro-el-Sissi media put turnout since Monday at 38 to 44 percent, well below the nearly 52 percent in the 2012 election won by the Mohammed Morsi, the Islamist president el-Sissi ousted last summer.
In his final campaign TV interview last week, el-Sissi set the bar even higher, saying he wanted more than 45 million voters to cast ballots – a turnout of more than 80 percent – to “show the world” the extent of his popular backing.
El-Sissi is considered certain to win the race, perhaps by a landslide.
Venezuela raises tensions with U.S.
BOGOTA, Colombia – Venezuela alleged Wednesday that the U.S. ambassador to Colombia has plotted to destabilize President Nicolas Maduro’s rule, adding to tensions between the two countries as the U.S. House approved a measure calling for sanctions on officials in the South American nation over human rights abuses.
The accusation was the latest in a barrage of attacks by Maduro’s socialist government on the U.S., which Venezuelan leaders contend is behind three months of anti-government protests that have resulted in 42 deaths. A State Department spokeswoman said that the allegation is baseless and that such claims are meant to distract Venezuelans from their own government’s failure to address grave economic and social problems.
Leaders of Venezuela’s governing party presented what they said were emails written by ousted hard-line opposition lawmaker Maria Corina Machado to other opponents of Maduro. One message, dated March 23, says Kevin Whitaker, now the ambassador in Bogota but at the time the top U.S. State Department official for the Andean region, offered his support to the opposition, which has been seeking for months to force Maduro to step down.
Russian rocket heads for space station
MOSCOW – A Russian rocket carrying a three-man crew to the International Space Station has blasted off successfully from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The Soyuz booster rocket lifted off as scheduled at 1:57 a.m. Thursday and soared into the darkness over the Central Asian steppe in what a NASA commentator described as a “flawless launch.”
The crew NASA’s Reid Wiseman, Russian cosmonaut Max Surayev and German Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency were set to arrive at the orbiting station less than six hours later and remain there for six months.
They were joining two Russians and an American who have been at the station since March.
The Russian and U.S. space agencies have continued to cooperate.
Associated Press
