COSTA RICA: Centre-left presidential candidate Carlos Alvarado Quesada from the Citizen Action Party declared victory yesterday with more than 60 per cent of the vote.
He defeated right-wing journalist and evangelical preacher Fabricio Alvarado Munoz from the National Restoration Party who lost an early poll lead after saddling his campaign with hostility to equal marriage legislation.
Vice-president-elect Epsy Campbell Barr, whose paternal grandmother migrated to Costa Rica from Jamaica, is the first woman of African descent elected to such high office in Latin America.
RUSSIA: Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied rumours yesterday that the weekend arrests of businessman Ziyavudin Magomedov and his brother are a ruse to steal his energy and agriculture businesses.
Mr Peskov insisted that the arrests were "not a one-off" but part of government efforts to fight corruption.
The Magomedov brothers are alleged to have formed “a criminal group," which carries a life sentence, and suspected of embezzling 2.5 billion roubles (£31 million) in state contracts, although formal charges have not yet been filed.
VENEZUELA: Chief prosecutor Tarek William Saab announced at the weekend that five police officials have been held on suspicion of responsibility for a fire that killed 68 people in a Valencia police station jail.
He said that the officials were believed "responsible for the tragic events that caused the death of 68 citizens" but gave no further details.
Among those detained is Jose Luis Rodriguez, the deputy director of the police station where fire tore through cells in which about 200 prisoners were kept.
INDIA: A security clampdown and a separatist-called general strike closed down much of Kashmir yesterday after fierce fighting killed 16 combatants and four civilians.
Authorities imposed a curfew in parts of the Jammu & Kashmir state capital Srinagar, shut schools and colleges and cancelled university exams in an attempt to stop student protests.
They also stopped train services and cut mobile phone internet services in the most restive towns, reducing connection speeds in other parts of the Kashmir Valley.
