Off the wire
Aussie dollar gains back some ground  • Australia's federal police to receive 240 mln USD boost to fight terror, gang crime  • Aussie banking giant Westpac delivers robust results  • Ethiopian runner wins Prague Marathon  • Study: social smoking carries same heart-disease risks as everyday habit  • Leading goal scorers in French Ligue 1  • Barca, Real Madrid and Atletico all win as Spanish title race comes to aa head  • French Ligue 1 results  • French Ligue 1 standings  • France's Valentin Prades wins gold medal at Modern Pentathlon World Cup  
You are here:   Home

Xinhua world news summary at 0030 GMT, May 8

Xinhua, May 8, 2017 Adjust font size:

Centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron won Sunday's runoff vote of the French presidential election, defeating his far-right rival Marine Le Pen, according to polling agency projections issued after the vote.

An estimation by research firm Elabe for BFMTV show that Macron won the presidential race with 65.9 percent of votes, while Le Pen scored 34.1 percent. The results will make the 39-year-old former minster of economy the eighth president of the French Fifth Republic, and the youngest one ever.(France-Election)

- - - -

CARACAS -- At least eight bodies have been found in the southern Venezuela's Amazonas state, where an army helicopter disappeared in December, the prosecutor-general's office announced Sunday.

On December 30, 2016, a military helicopter disappeared as it travelled toward the airport of La Esmeralda in the northern part of the state. It had 13 people on board. The helicopter crashed in an area of dense rainforest, making it difficult to find. It was found on May 2 by a special army group looking for it. (Venezuela-Helicopter-Deaths)

- - - -

ISLAMABAD -- A senior Pakistani military officer said Sunday that the country's security forces had killed over 50 Afghan security personnel in the recent cross-border firing.

Afghan officials had confirmed the death of seven security personnel and some several civilians. Pakistan officials had said that three security men were among 12 people killed in the Afghan firing. Both sides later declared ceasefire along the Chaman border.(Pakistan-Afghanistan-Firing)

- - - -

CHICAGO -- A Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) bus and a car collided in the West Side neighborhood of Chicago early Sunday morning, leaving four people dead, tweets from the Chicago Fire Department said.

The car was heading west at high speed, struck a parked car, lost control, and crashed head-on into the eastbound CTA bus. The bus driver and three passengers on the bus were also taken to hospital but their injuries were not life threatening.(US-Traffic-Deaths)

- - - -

KIRKUK, Iraq -- Five suicide bombers affiliated with the extremist Islamic State (IS) group and two Kurdish security members were killed on Sunday in an attack on a Kurdish military base near Iraq's northern city of Kirkuk, a local security source told Xinhua.

The attack occurred at about 3:30 a.m. local time (0030 GMT) when five IS suicide bombers, wearing explosive vests, broke into the military base in northwest of Kirkuk, prompting heavy clash between the attackers and the Kurdish force, also known as Peshmerga, a Kurdish security source said on condition of anonymity. (Iraq-Attacks) Endi