President to face rival in runoff vote

President Joseph Kabila failed to win an outright majority in Congo’s historic elections, setting up a runoff with a former rebel leader, election officials announced Sunday.

Kabila won 45 percent of the 16.9 million votes cast in the July 30 vote, compared with Jean-Pierre Bemba’s 20 percent, Electoral Commission Chairman Apollinaire Malu Malu said at a news conference. The other votes were shared by 31 candidates.

The second round will likely come in late October after any legal challenges are resolved and Congo’s Supreme Court certifies the results. Turnout in the first round was about 70 percent.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, whose 17,500 peacekeeping troops are helping oversee the voting process, hailed the elections as “a historic milestone in the peace process in the country.”

But Kabila’s personal security forces fought Bemba loyalists outside Congo’s election commission headquarters Sunday in gunbattles that left at least one soldier dead. Sporadic fighting continued in the capital, Kinshasa, even after the results were broadcast on national television.

LONDON

‘Key person’ grilled in alleged plot

Pakistani authorities interrogated a key British suspect Sunday in the alleged plot to blow up U.S.-bound passenger jetliners. Britain’s top security official said police have gathered “substantial material” and indicated they were close to charging some of the suspects.

Rashid Rauf, a Briton of Pakistani descent, was arrested days before authorities said they had uncovered the plot to bomb 10 trans-Atlantic jetliners with liquid explosives. Britain has arrested 23 people, including a brother of Rauf.

Rauf has been described by Islamabad as a “key person” in the alleged conspiracy foiled by British security services Aug. 10.

British Home Secretary John Reid indicated Sunday that criminal charges could be filed in the next few days but did not disclose details.

SEOUL, South Korea

$230 million in aid headed to N. Korea

South Korea said Sunday that it will provide $230 million worth of disaster relief to flood-ravaged North Korea, despite Seoul’s earlier decision to halt regular aid to Pyongyang after missile tests by the impoverished communist nation.

The aid – including 100,000 tons of rice, 80,000 blankets and emergency medical supplies – will be sent to the North starting late this month, said Vice Unification Minister Shin Eon-sang.

The goods are in addition to $20 million in donations that the Seoul government and South Korean civic groups have jointly pledged to the North.

State media in the North has said last month’s heavy flooding killed “hundreds,” but a South Korean aid group has claimed the toll is nearly 58,000 dead and missing.

The North initially rejected South Korean aid from the Red Cross but earlier this month asked for help.