In brief: El-Sissi officially Egypt’s president
Cairo – Egypt’s former military chief Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi was officially declared the next president Tuesday, winning elections to replace the Islamist leader he removed from the post last year.
The Election Commission announced the results of last week’s election, saying el-Sissi won a landslide victory with 96.9 percent of the vote, with turnout of 47.45 percent. El-Sissi garnered 23.78 million votes, while his sole rival, leftist politician Hamdeen Sabahi, got 318,000 – lower than the 1.4 million invalid ballots cast in the polling.
El-Sissi’s victory was never in doubt, but the career infantry officer had pushed for a massive turnout as well to bestow legitimacy on his ouster last July of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi and the ensuing crackdown on his Muslim Brotherhood and Islamist supporters.
Move aims to halt pink dolphin as bait
Sao Paulo – Brazil will temporarily ban the catch of a type of catfish in an effort to halt the killing of the Amazon pink dolphin, whose flesh is used as bait, the Fishing and Aquaculture Ministry said Tuesday.
Ministry spokesman Ultimo Valadares said the government is working out the details of a five-year moratorium on fishing of the species called piracatinga that is expected to go into effect early next year.
“That should give us enough time to find an alternative bait for the piracatinga,” Valadares said by phone.
Chancellor no help as phone-a-friend
Berlin – A German politician hoping for help from Angela Merkel during a television quiz show was left disappointed when the chancellor failed to take his call.
Conservative lawmaker Wolfgang Bosbach used his phone-a-friend lifeline to ring his party’s leader during a VIP version of the show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.”
But Bosbach’s call for help in answering a question about East German washing machines failed after he twice got Merkel’s voicemail.
Toward the end of the show broadcast Monday, Bosbach received a text message from Merkel apologizing for not answering.