Akufo-Addo wins election in Ghana
Compiled from news services
Ghanaian opposition leader Nana Akufo-Addo won presidential elections in West Africa’s secondbiggest economy after incumbent President John Mahama conceded the vote, Accra-based broadcaster Joy News reported on Friday.
The 72-year-old former lawyer emerged as winner after pledging to create jobs and reignite West Africa’s second-biggest economy that’s seen faltering growth amid power outages and low prices for main exports oil, cocoa and gold. Mr. Mahama assumed office after the death of President John Atta Mills in July 2012, and was elected in December that year. He is the first leader who’s been refused a second term since Ghana returned to democratic rule in 1992.
Renzi delays acceptance
Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is keeping Italy waiting. The outgoing premier has yet to tell the head of state whether he would be willing to stay on despite his defeat in a constitutional referendum.
As President Sergio Mattarella held talks with party leaders for a second day on Friday in the struggle to find a premier, he wanted to hear whether Mr. Renzi would agree to be re-appointed, or whether he would back a figure he trusts as a successor.
Mr. Mattarella favors Mr. Renzi staying on, newspaper La Repubblica reported, and wants to reach a decision on Monday — to ensure Italy has a newly appointed premier at the European Union summit in Brussels on Dec. 15.
When Mr. Renzi formally handed in his resignation to Mr. Mattarella on Wednesday, the president delayed accepting.
Ex-soldier pleads not guilty
More than two decades ago, Dominic Ongwen was a boy on his way to school in northern Uganda when he was abducted by the brutal rebel group known as the Lord’s Resistance Army and turned into a child soldier.
On Tuesday, he took a seat before the International Criminal Court in The Hague for the first day of a trial in which he is charged with 70 war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, rape, torture and sexual slavery.
But Mr. Ongwen’s appearance Tuesday also raised a crucial question: Was the former brigade commander a perpetrator of war crimes — or a victim himself? He pleaded not guilty.
Dutch leader convicted
Geert Wilders, the farright politician who is seen as a likely contender to become prime minister when Dutch voters go to the polls next year, was convicted on Friday of inciting discrimination and of insulting a group for saying the Netherlands would be safer with fewer Moroccans.
The three-member judiciary panel found that Mr. Wilders, the leader of the Party for Freedom, violated Dutch law with his remarks on March 19, 2014, but it elected not to convict him of inciting hatred, and it imposed no punishment.
Also in the world …
The fate of the presidency in Gambia took a peculiar turn Friday night when the longtime incumbent, Yahya Jammeh, appeared on state TV to announce that — amid accusations of voter irregularities — he was rejecting the results of last week’s vote that ousted him and calling for new elections.