Jacob Zuma was officially elected president of South Africa Wednesday by the nation’s newly seated Parliament, reports the BBC. Zuma has been widely favored to win all along, and with voters allowing his party, the African National Congress, to retain its majority in parliament (a body that elects the president using a simple majority) in elections last month, he was a virtual shoe-in. Zuma received 277 votes; his closest opponent, Myume Dandala from the newly formed opposition party Congress of the People received 47 votes. After it was announced he won the vote, Zuma laid out his list of priorities for the nation, which included land redistribution, education, health, reducing crime, and finding decent jobs for all South Africans, reports the BBC. Zuma will be sworn in Saturday in front of an expected crowd of tens of thousands in Pretoria.

Voting in West African nation was peaceful. Ghanaians await poll results following the West African nation’s largely peaceful voting in elections for the presidency and Parliament positions this weekend. Poll officials called the voter turnout high and observers described long lines outside of polling stations, reports the BBC. The nation’s current president, John Kufour, has served the maximum two terms and must step aside. Former Foreign Minister Nana Akufo-Addo and the John Atta Mills (of the opposition National Democratic Congress) are the two main candidates and have been embroiled in a tight race. But, despite a close race, coupled with a large turnout, Mills (who is running for a third time) believes the post-election will be just as peaceful as the voting. “In any contest you expect a winner and a loser, and parties are likely to accept the results if indeed the conduct of the process is free, fair and transparent,” he said. In Africa, where violent election aftermaths (such as in Kenya and Zimbabwe) make worldwide news, Ghana has served as a glowing contrast with consistently high voter turnout and peaceful elections. The turnout in the country’s last elections in 2004 was a record 85 percent. And citizens want to make sure transition of power in the nation is as peaceful as possible. “In as much as we need change, we must maintain the peace we enjoy,” said one voter, a business student. “We are very scared of what has happened in countries around us like Liberia, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone.”Female genital mutilation is still practiced although it’s outlawed in the nation.
Hundreds of Kenyan girls escape circumcision. In Kenya, at least 300 girls have run away from their homes to escape undergoing female genital mutilation, reports the BBC. The girls have taken refuge in two shelters in the nation’s Nyanza province. Even though the practice, which involves the female’s outside genitals being partially or totally removed, is against the law in Kenya, it is still performed and some parts of the nation where it’s looked at as a rite of passage for girls into womanhood. The ceremonies happen between November and December and approximately 200 girls are circumcised in the Kuria District every day, according to gender activist Beatrice Robi from the women’s organization Maendeleo Ya Wanaweke. Robi also urged girls at risk of being circumcised to escape to the shelters. Some parents actually encourage their daughters to escape to rescue centers so they don’t have to go through the process, said Kuria police official Paul Wanjama. “There are some parents who are against that [female genital mutilation], but they get pressure from these traditional people,” he told the BBC. The police are investigating cases of forced mutilation and court action will be taken, said Wanjama. The practice could cause bleeding, infections and a higher death rate for newborns, according to the U.N. World Health Organization.

Tomorrow about 12 million Ghanaians are expected to vote for a new president to replace John Kufour, 70, who has led the West African Nation for the last eight years. Eight candidates are running for president and about 1,000 contenders are vying to hold a seat in Ghana’s National Assembly, the country’s congressional body. Onlookers say the mood in Ghana before the tight presidential elections is cautious but upbeat.  There are fears of foulplay but international observers say they expect everything to go smoothly.  While most of Ghana’s neighbors have been involved in wars and civil unrest, the country has remained politically stable and economically prosperous even though there are increasing reports of government corruption and international drug trafficking in the country.

America elects Obama president. Throngs gathered everywhere Tuesday night – including in New York’s Rockefeller Plaza, the streets in front of the White House, at the Rev. Martin Luther King’s former church in Atlanta and in Chicago’s Grant Park to receive the word that America had elected its first Black president. Voters toppled records left and right as they waited in lines five hours or more to cast votes for their favorite presidential candidate. And after their votes were tallied, Sen. Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, had crushed Arizona Republican senator John McCain, putting an end to yet another racially divisive election. Obama also became the first Democrat to win in Virginia in 40 years, and laid claim to the prized electoral votes of Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania – key states the Republicans said they had to win to return to the White House.  Obama was declared the winner at about 11 p.m. – he won 339 electoral votes to McCain’s 159, making it an electoral landslide. At Chicago’s Grant Park celebration, where Obama later addressed the crowd of thousands of supporters, the Rev. Jesse Jackson was seen crying with joy; Sean Diddy Combs, expressed “shock”; and a teary-eyed Oprah Winfrey looked on proudly. Spike Lee, the Black Eyed Peas and Brad Pitt also were among the celebrities on hand to witness the historic moment. U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, a civil rights stalwart who won his own election Tuesday, talked about the significance of Obama’s historic win. “This is an unbelievable night,” said Lewis, who was brutally beaten by police in Selma, Alabama, during a voting rights march. A gracious and humble McCain, in his concession, also spoke of the historic significance of Obama’s win. “Sen. Obama has achieved a great thing,” McCain said from a ballroom in his home state of Arizona. “His success alone commands my respect.” As he mentioned Obama’s name, his supporters booed, demonstrating that, despite Obama’s talent for invoking a spirit of hope, the Illinois Democrat has a lot of work ahead before he truly unites the nation. McCain pledged, however, to do all he can to help Obama as he faces the challenges ahead and to “find ways to come together to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences and to leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country then we inherited. …Whatever our differences, we are fellow Americans. No association has ever meant more to me than that.” Obama got 51 percent of the vote compared to 47 percent for McCain with 70 percent of the vote counted. Share your reaction here.

Health care rises as an independent voter concern

. While the economy continues to be the No. 1 issue that voters want the presidential candidates to address, health care has “crept up” as a priority among Independent voters in recent months, according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation health policy survey. One in four (26 percent) independents ranks health care as one of the top issues they would “most like to hear the presidential candidates talk about.” Health care’s importance has risen among independents by 8 percentage points since April, according to the poll. Eleven percent of Republicans said health care is a priority – a new low – while the percentage of Democrats who said the issue is a priority remained about the same at 25 percent. Overall, the poll finds that among registered voters, health care ranks third, behind the economy and the Iraq war, as the issue that they want presidential candidates to discuss during the campaign. In addition, the poll finds that the number of adults who reported a serious problem “paying for health care and health insurance” increased by 6 percentage points from one month ago and now stands at 30 percent. The poll is part of a broader Kaiser Family Foundation effort to provide a place for resources and information about health policy issues in the 2008 election. More information is available online at health08.orgYou now have better mental health coverage. When President Bush signed the $700 billion bailout bill into law on Friday, he also approved a measure that improves mental health coverage. HR 1424 created mental health parity and would require group health plans for 51 or more employees to cover mental illnesses at the same level as they do physical ailments. It does not require the plans to cover mental health, but, if they do, the coverage must be equal. The mental health legislation was added to the larger bailout package as a means of enticing House members who voted against the previous bailout measure but supported a parity bill, according to the Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report. Under the new law, the U.S. Department of Labor must submit biannual reports to Congress on group health plan compliance. The law allows managed care companies to refuse to pay for care if they deem it not medically necessary or “clinically appropriate,” but insurers must reveal their criteria for determining medical necessity and their reason for denying any mental health claim, according to The New York Times. The law takes effect next year. Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) co-sponsored the mental health parity legislation with the late Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) as “the issue literally struck home” with both lawmakers, each of whom had family members with mental conditions and illness. Domenici said of the new law, “We are ushering in a new era of health care for those with mental illnesses.” The measure also received broad support from other lawmakers, including Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) and Reps. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) and Jim Ramstad (R-Minn.), reports CQ HealthBeat. The new mental health parity law will make it easier for patients with various conditions, such as depression, autism, schizophrenia, eating disorders and alcohol and drug addictions to seek treatment because it eliminates the restrictions of higher charges on treatments for mental illnesses and addictions. About 113 million people in the U.S., including 82 million people who are enrolled in employer-sponsored health plans that are not affected by state regulation, will benefit from the new law, federal health officials say. It is only expected to raise premiums by about two-tenths of 1 percent, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates. 

Who do you like in the Biden-Palin battle tonight?

What can we expect tonight when the Republican and Democratic vice presidential candidates face off in the only debate before Election Day?  Will Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R ) reveal her “barracuda” tendencies?  Will Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) be able to remain gaffe free for the night? 

Obama-Fannie Mae link is false, critics argue.

Claims by John McCain’s campaign that the former head of collapsed mortgage giant Fannie Mae is a top economic adviser to Sen. Barack Obama is “another flat-out lie from a dishonorable campaign that is increasingly incapable of telling the truth,” says an angry Obama campaign spokesman. Articles in The Washington Post and other publications have also called the connection misleading, but that hasn’t kept the McCain campaign from hammering home that claim in a slick, new television ad. Get more on what the ad says at BET.com/News.

Angola’s long-awaited election was a “disaster.” Angola’s historic election, the country’s first in 16 years, was a poorly organized disaster, says an observer from the European Union. Not enough ballots and the lack of ink used to mark voters’ fingers to keep them from voting more than once were just a couple of problems, reports CNN. “Voting was a disaster in Luanda [the nation's capital] following woeful organization,” said Luisa Morgantini, the chief of the EU observer mission after visiting polling stations Friday. Hundreds of people waited for hours for some stations to open, and in some instances the polling officials didn’t even show up, reports CNN. Half of the country’s almost 16 million citizens registered to vote. The last election, held in 1992, was disputed and led to another civil war in the nation. But this year, the campaigns were peaceful. Angolans voted for parliament members on Friday; presidential elections will happen next year.  “We have now stared a new political era, a new way of using politics to obtain our goals,” said President Jose Eduardo dos Santos. Dos Santos’s Popular Liberation Movement of Angola, is expected to keep control of the parliament, despite corruption claims from international rights groups. Results will be released this week.

Zimbabwe will proceed with run-off elections.
Even though opposition candidate Morgan Tsvangirai announced Sunday he would pull out of Friday’s runoff, the Zimbabwean government is still going ahead with the election, reports CNN. Tsvangirai, who is currently taking refuge at the Dutch Embassy in the country’s capital city, Harare, dropped out of the second round of votes because of what he says were government supporters’ violent acts and intimidation toward his supporters. Such acts included arrests, beatings and murder. He didn’t want his supporters to risk their lives by going to vote for him in Friday’s poll, he says. The government hasn’t received a formal withdrawal from Tsvangirai’s party, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), but party officials say they are drafting a formal letter. But even the letter might not stop the elections. “There is nothing on this good Earth that will stop the elections on the 27th,” said a spokesman for Tsvangirai’s opponent, longtime Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe. Even if Tsvangirai were to withdraw formally, which he hasn’t done, the elections will still proceed. Meanwhile, MDC headquarters reportedly were raided by the Zimbabwean government. Sixty people were arrested and an opposition party spokesman told reporters that the government gave no reason for the raid.