Presidential Elections

Sierra Leone held its first presidential election since U.N. peacekeepers withdrew two years ago, a poll that many hope will show that this West African nation can transfer power peacefully after being ravaged by coups and a long, diamond-fueled civil war. Voters arrived before dawn and formed long lines for a chance to choose from seven candidates. President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, 75, is completing his second term and cannot run again.

Democrats on Tuesday proposed putting on a 2008 ballot an initiative aimed at having California join the movement to elect presidents by popular vote. The initiative, if successful, also would head off a Republican effort to get some of California's electoral votes. GOP consultants have proposed a separate initiative to change California's winner-take-all system of awarding its 55 electoral votes.

Once again, New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg says he is not running for president. Still. He says on his own website that he was asked about it again in Washington. He doesn't say who asked him again, but it must have been someone who hasn't read or heard the mayor's last 20 coy denials. So now as long as he says someone brought it up again, Bloomberg proceeds to discuss the issue again. He says, "Are you running?" is the wrong question, even though you have to run before you get elected.

As summer turns to fall, the presidential race is heating up: Candidates are swinging elbows in debates, flaying each other in speeches and siccing newspeople on their party rivals. The question is which candidate takes the next step -- airing the first negative TV advertisement of the 2008 campaign. "We've seen swiping and sniping," said media analyst Evan Tracey. "The natural progression is to take that to the airwaves and put it in an ad." But it's not that straightforward.

In a stone-throwing melee in the heart of Pakistan's capital, riot police Saturday fired tear gas and beat lawyers and human rights activists protesting President Pervez Musharraf's plans to have himself reelected while serving as chief of the military. Dozens of people were reported injured in the daylong clashes, which marked an escalation in the political tensions that have roiled Pakistan for months as a nationwide grass-roots movement to oust Musharraf has gained strength.

Lawmakers Saturday overwhelmingly endorsed a new five-year presidential term for Gen. Pervez Musharraf, according to unofficial results, but the legitimacy of the vote has yet to be decided by the Supreme Court. The lopsided balloting, held simultaneously by Pakistan's national parliament and four provincial assemblies, was denounced as a sham by Musharraf's opponents. The government praised it as a show of orderly democracy.

Inside a brightly lighted downtown theater, a group of actors gathered around a piano, their songbooks open and voices ready, waiting for their cue. Director Tony Humrichouser peered intently at the score. With his nod, the cast began to sing: I remember back in '84 , I went to open up my door And there stood Walter Mondale in my yard. He'd been there since the break of dawn, That's when he'd mowed and raked my lawn And walked and fed my lazy St. Bernard.

As Argentines go to the polls today to elect a new president, the only question appears to be whether First Lady Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner will win by a wide enough margin to avoid a runoff. She would be the first woman elected president of Argentina and the second sitting female chief of state in South America, joining Chile's Michelle Bachelet.

So, Mitt Romney is in South Carolina talking to a Chamber of Commerce meeting about terrorism, which Republicans tend to do a lot more than Democrats. He was apparently referring to a recent audiotape, allegedly of Osama bin Laden calling on jihadists to assemble for the main fight in Iraq. "Actually," Romney said, "just look at what Osam -- Barack Obama -- said yesterday. Barack Obama calling on radicals, jihadists of all different types, to come together in Iraq. That is the battlefield."

With two weeks left before the president has to step down, Lebanon's parliament speaker postponed presidential elections for the third time to give deadlocked rival factions more time to find a compromise candidate. Parliament, dominated by anti-Syrian legislators, was to meet Monday for another attempt to choose a successor to pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud, who steps down Nov. 24.