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Finally Lebanon parliament elects new president to end lengthy stand-off

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new-presidentLebanon‘s parliament has elected Michel Aoun as president, ending a political stand-off that has left the post empty for more than two years, BBC News reports.

The Maronite Christian former general secured a majority when MPs met on Monday, October 31 for their 46th attempt to choose a head of state.

Aoun is backed by the powerful Shia Islamist group, Hezbollah.

His candidacy was blocked by the rival, Sunni-dominated Future Movement until a deal was struck earlier this month.

It will reportedly see the Future Movement’s leader, Saad Hariri, become prime minister.

The stalemate has paralysed Lebanon’s government, which is also struggling to deal with deep divisions over the five-year civil war in neighbouring Syria and the arrival of more than one million refugees.

Photo: EPA
Related links:

BBC. Lebanon: Michel Aoun elected president after long vacuum
Tass.ru: Христианский политик Мишель Аун избран президентом Ливана

Michigan Community Elects First Muslim-Dominated City Council

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1029846402A city in the metropolitan Detroit area has made history by becoming the first in America to seat a Muslim-dominated city council.

The Hamtramck city council of six members now has four Muslims — one Yemeni and three Bangladeshi — on its panel, making last Tuesday’s election a historical one for the United States.
Polish Catholics used to comprise 90% of Hamtramck’s population back in the 1970s, but the situation in this Detroit enclave changed dramatically due to immigration from the Middle East and Bangladesh, and higher birth-rates of the newcomers.
According to the latest US census poll, the city of some 22,000 is now 24% Arab, mostly Yemeni, 19%African American, 15% Bangladeshi, while its Slavic Polish and Yugoslavian — mostly Muslim — populations are currently at 12 and 6 percents, respectively.

One of the winners of November 3 elections is Saad Almasmari, 28, a Yemeni who moved to the US in 2009 and received American citizenship four years ago. He received the highest percentage of votes, at 22%.

“Although we are Muslims, it doesn’t have anything to do with serving the community,” Almasmari commented to ABC. “It’s not about religion. It’s not about Muslim unity. We are planning to work for everyone.”
In the past, Hamtramck made history by becoming the first US town to allow mosques to broadcast calls to prayer via loudspeakers on the streets in 2004. The city council had one Muslim member at that time.

Source: sputniknews.com