Incumbent President Joseph Kabila was declared the winner of Congo’s tense decider election, defeating his ex-rebel leader rival in the war-torn country’s first multi-party contest in more than 40 years.

Iraq’s election commission decided today to extended voting by an additional hour around the country to deal with the large turnout of people seeking to elect a new parliament.

IRAQ prepared to seal itself off from the outside world yesterday and clamp down on movement around the country to ward off threats from insurgents bent on wrecking a referendum on a new constitution.

US and Iraqi forces stepped up security across Iraq today and prepared to impose an overnight curfew in an effort to reduce insurgent attacks aimed at wrecking this weekend’s constitutional referendum.

Thousands of Iraqi detainees who have not been brought to trial were allowed to vote in Iraq’s constitutional referendum today at prisons including the notorious Abu Ghraib detention centre.

A TOP Iraqi election official yesterday said Iraqi law will allow Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi detainees who have not been brought to trial to vote in this weekend’s constitutional referendum.

Insurgents determined to wreck Iraq’s constitutional referendum killed nearly 45 people and wounded dozens in a series of attacks today, including a suicide car-bomb that ripped apart a crowded market in a town near the Syrian border, police said.

An election official today said Iraqi law will allow Saddam Hussein and thousands of other Iraqi detainees to vote in this weekend’s crucial constitutional referendum.

An Iraqi election official claimed today that 72% of eligible Iraqi voters had turned out so far nationwide.

Iraqis may have to wait weeks to learn the winners of this weekend’s election, with guerrilla attacks and other factors expected to slow the vote tally, a foreign election adviser in said today.

Thousands of Iraqi expatriates were expected to register in five US cities today for their homeland’s first independent election in nearly 50 years, with some travelling hundreds of miles to participate in the historic event.

A BRAZEN attack in the heart of Baghdad with rebels executing election workers in cold blood was a chilling reminder of the deteriorating security situation in the capital ahead of parliamentary elections on January 30.

The United Nations is ahead of schedule in organising Iraq’s elections but will not take part if security does not improve, the UN elections chief said.

The governing African National Congress surged toward its most dramatic victory yet today as South African voters showed their loyalty to the party that led them out of apartheid.

Despite lingering poverty, high unemployment and an AIDS crisis, gratitude to the party that toppled apartheid a decade ago appeared to guarantee the African National Congress a landslide South African general election victory today.

THE electronic voting system in Dáil Éireann failed after being infected by a computer virus this year, it emerged yesterday, prompting fears over the security of the nationwide system for next year's elections.