Mexico
Leftist candidate to challenge election
MEXICO CITY - Mexican leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador says he will ask an electoral court to invalidate the results of the July 1 presidential election, charging there was vote buying and campaign overspending by the winner of official vote counts.
Lopez Obrador also says that next week he will reveal what he calls "a national plan in defense of democracy and Mexico's dignity." He isn't giving any hints on what the plan will entail, but says he and his supporters will act peacefully.
The electoral court has until early September to deal with any challenges and determine whether to validate the presidential election in which Enrique Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party finished first with just over 38 percent of the votes.
Germany
Tricky parking spots are for 'men only'
BERLIN - A town in southwest Germany has drawn accusations of sexism after designating two particularly tricky parking spaces "men only."
The mayor of the Black Forest town of Triberg says women would find it difficult to park there because drivers need to back in diagonally without hitting a pillar and a wall.
Gallus Strobel noted that 12 places in the 220-capacity car park are reserved for women.
Many German cities designate a small number of parking spaces, usually near exits, for women concerned about their personal safety in poorly lit garages.
Japan
Rain causes flooding, mudslides; 15 dead
TOKYO - Heavy rain triggered flash floods and mudslides in southern Japan on Thursday, causing at least 15 deaths and leaving 11 more people missing.
Television footage showed residents wading through muddy, knee-deep water on streets. Others shoveled out mud from their homes.
Local officials said damage was concentrated in Kumamoto and neighboring Oita states on Japan's southern island of Kyushu. Most victims were in their 70s and 80s.
Britain
WikiLeaks gets win vs. Visa, MasterCard
LONDON - WikiLeaks declared victory Thursday in the first round of its campaign against the financial blockade imposed by Visa and MasterCard after an Icelandic court ordered their local partner to resume processing credit-card donations to the secret-spilling site.
Visa and MasterCard were among half a dozen major U.S. financial firms to pull the plug on Wiki- Leaks after its decision to begin publishing about 250,000 State Department cables in late 2010.
WikiLeaks says that the ensuing blockade has led to a 95 percent fall in revenue, something which founder Julian Assange says has forced him to focus on fundraising at the expense of his site's publication work.
Wire reports
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