TBILISI, Georgia, Oct. 28 (UPI) -- Giorgi Margvelashvili of the Georgian Dream Party claimed 62.13% of the vote to become Georgia's next president, election officials said Monday.
Margvelashvili is an ally of Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, who led Georgian Dream to a victory over outgoing President Mikheil Saakashvili's United National Movement in parliamentary elections last year, RIA Novosti reported.
Davit Bakradze of Saakashvili's United National Movement was second in Sunday's polling, taking 21.88% of the vote after more than 70% of the vote had been counted, election officials said.
Twenty-three candidates were on the ballot.
Tamar Zhvania, head of Georgia's Central Election Commission, called the elections "yet another success by the people of Georgia."
"It is very important that everything was peaceful, with no serious violations or incidents," she said.
Election officials said turnout was relatively low, 46.6%, compared with 61% in parliamentary balloting a year ago.
Ivanishvili plans to step down soon in favor of an unnamed successor, so it is unclear who would be prime minister, now the most powerful political office in Georgia because of a change to the country's Constitution, The New York Times reported.
Under the changes that are effective with the inauguration of the new president, the prime minister, chosen by Parliament, becomes the head of the government with full authority over domestic and foreign policy. The president is head of state and commander in chief, but cannot introduce legislation or propose the state budget.
BEIJING, China, Oct. 28 (UPI) -- A vehicle plowed into a crowd of people and caught fire in front of Tiananmen Square in Beijing Monday, killing five people and injuring 38, police said.
The crash killed the driver and two passengers and two tourists, a male and female, China's state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.
The vehicle, a Jeep, struck a guardrail before bursting into flames, police said.
The Los Angeles Times said the accident may have been deliberate, reporting that the vehicle was driven along a sidewalk toward the square's huge portrait of Mao Zedong before it struck the crowd and caught fire.
Tiananmen Square remains a sensitive location and frequently is the scene of attempted protests and self-immolations. It is best-known for the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators.
TEL AVIV, Israel, Oct. 28 (UPI) -- Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Israel would renew its ties with the U.N. Human Rights Council after one and half year boycott by attending this year's meeting.
The boycott began in March 2012 after the council announced plans to conduct an international investigation into settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Haaretz reported Sunday.
Netanyahu, under pressure from the United States, Australia, Canada, Spain, France and Germany, said Israel would attend the hearing on human rights Tuesday, the report said.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle had sent a letter to Netanyahu that said failure of Israel to attend the hearing would cause severe diplomatic damage.
"In light of the fact that we received appropriate recompense for agreeing to resume cooperation with the human rights council, it was decided that Israel will participate in Tuesday's hearing," an unidentified senior Israeli official said.
PATNA, India, Oct. 28 (UPI) -- Police in India's Bihar state said they were holding four people Monday in a series of bomb blasts that killed at least six people before a political rally.
Dozens of others were injured in the explosions Sunday in the eastern Indian state's capital of Patna.
The attacks began with an explosion at the city's railway station lavatory and spread closer to large grounds near the station where Narendra Modi -- widely expected to be the prime ministerial candidate of India's main opposition Bharatiya Janta party (BJP) in next year's general elections -- later went to address a mammoth rally as concerns rose across the country about growing political violence in the world's largest democracy in advance of elections.
Authorities reported seven explosions.
Unexploded bombs were found near the venue of the rally and defused.
Though no group had claimed responsibility for the attacks, some Indian media reports said police were investigating the role of an Indian Islamic militant organization.
The blasts injured more than 80 people, some critically, authorities said.
Eastern Bihar state is ruled by Janata Dal (United) party, led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, whose relations with the BJP have soured after their parties broke off their alliance.
The Indian Express reported four people had been arrested, including one police said who was battling for life at a Patna hospital after allegedly planting the bomb at the railway station. Police said they had seized suspicious documents from the suspects.
The Express said police had not officially termed the blasts terror attacks but the city's police chief, Abhay Anand, confirmed the use of improvised explosive devices and timers.
The NDTV television channel reported police were investigating the role of the Indian Mujahedin, described as an Islamisc militant group blamed for a number of recent deadly bombings in the country.
The TV channel quoted police as saying they had major leads from one of the suspects and that they believe the mastermind of the attack is one who had been allegedly trying to set up an Indian Mujahedin module by recruiting boys from a neighboring state.
The report said police, using information provided by the suspect, raided his village and said they found incriminating evidence.
"We found explosive devices, literature, pen drives and cash. There was evidence of his involvement in illicit activities," a senior Bihar police official was quoted as saying.
Police said they believe the blasts were designed to create panic and set off a stampede at Modi's rally, which would have killed or injured more people.
Speaking at news conference, Kumar said the investigation was being handled by the federal government's National Investigating Agency.
Modi's party has blamed Kumar's government for security lapses.
The blasts are a frightening turn in the political campaign for the general elections next year as various parties vie for power. The current federal coalition government is led by the Congress Party of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
The report said Modi's party decided to go ahead with the rally despite the blasts and that party leaders feared calling it off could cause panic and a stampede.
KABUL, Afghanistan, Oct. 28 (UPI) -- Any postwar NATO presence in Afghanistan must ensure the proper distribution of billions of dollars in security aid, officials said.
Because of the need to safeguard more than $4.0 billion that will flow annually from being squandered or pilfered in a country plagued by corruption, NATO officials are planning a postwar force with more military managers and fewer combat trainers, The New York Times reported Sunday.
The issue relates to plans after NATO and U.S. forces end their combat operations in Afghanistan at the end of next year.
Without plans that would have U.S. and NATO troops positioned at Afghan military and police headquarters to oversee how the money is spent, the newspaper said, NATO officials fear the U.S. Congress and European parliaments might cancel their financial commitments.
The report said military commanders want the postwar effort to concentrate on training and advising Afghans, with NATO troops spread across the battlefield, while political leaders in Washington and in NATO countries prefer fewer troops only at large Afghan headquarters.
Any enduring NATO military presence in Afghanistan "is tied directly to the $4.1 billion and our ability to oversee it and account for it," a senior NATO diplomat told the Times.
Financing of Afghan security forces is important to prevent political chaos and factional bloodshed that could result after the coalition forces leave, he said.
The report said NATO proposes an enduring presence of as many as 12,000 troops, with two-thirds made up of U.S. forces. That number would be below what military commanders have recommended but senior NATO officials told the newspaper larger numbers are unnecessary given the more limited goals being set by political leaders.
Any postwar plan would come only after a security agreement is concluded between the United States and Afghanistan. Such an agreement would deal with the number, role and legal protection of U.S. troops.
Because of problems concluding a deal, Washington may opt for stationing no U.S. troops.
However, the Times said both U.S. and alliance officials remain guardedly optimistic an agreement would be concluded eventually because of Afghanistan's desire for billions of dollars in assistance.
The report said NATO plans call for its military personnel to be assigned to the headquarters of the defense and interior ministries, the six Afghan National Army corps headquarters and to the similar number of national police headquarters.
They would also be well represented in army and police training institutions.
The report said Pentagon officials want at least some American commandos to remain to carry out counter-terrorism missions, unilaterally or in coordination with Afghan forces.
BERLIN, Germany, Oct. 27 (UPI) -- Internal U.S. National Security Agency documents indicate the U.S. embassy in Berlin is a major base for espionage in Europe, Spiegel Online reported.
Citing documents released by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden about intelligence-gathering operations in Germany, the German newspaper said Sunday German Chancellor Angela Merkel was wiretapped as early as 2002 by a top-secret unit known as the Special Collection Service.
A classified NSA document from 2010 said the SCS operates in Berlin and has agents in 80 locations around the world -- with two bases in Germany, where agents work undercover and under diplomatic protection.
Spiegel said the documents strongly suggest the SCS targeted the cellphone Merkel uses mainly to talk to party members, ministers and advisers. The order for the intercept was placed in 2002.
Another document said SCS's elite listening devices could intercept virtually every form of communication, including wireless networks and satellite communications.
NSA experts identified what appears to be a facility on the roof of the U.S. embassy in Berlin from which a large number of cellphone conversations made from nearby offices of the German government could be monitored.
The documents indicate microwave and millimeter-wave signals, as well as web-based operations, can also be intercepted.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands, Oct. 27 (UPI) -- Syria has submitted its first formal declaration about its chemical weapons program and a plan for how to destroy them, weapons experts say.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said the declaration was submitted Thursday, three days ahead of the mandatory deadline.
"Such declarations provide the basis on which plans are devised for a systematic, total and verified destruction of declared chemical weapons and production facilities," the OPCW statement said.
Syria has also submitted another declaration "covering activities and facilities that are not prohibited under the Convention but can be subjected to routine verification measures," the organization said.
That document is viewed as a "confidence building measure and to establish the peaceful intent of commercial activities," OPCW said.
The organization, which was recently named winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, says it has given its first report to the U.N. Security Council since inspectors began rendering inoperable Syrian production facilities for chemical weapons earlier this month.
JERUSALEM, Oct. 26 (UPI) -- An Israeli defense official said the country believes Iran can enrich enough uranium for a nuclear weapon in about a month's time.
Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon told USA Today the Iranians have the capability to spin low-enriched uranium into highly enriched, weapons grade material using new centrifuges -- a new revelation about Iran's highly controversial nuclear program.
"We have made it crystal clear -- in all possible forums, that Israel will not stand by and watch Iran develop weaponry that will put us, the entire Middle East and eventually the world, under an Iranian umbrella of terror," Danon said.
The enrichment capability -- though it's not expected Tehran is pursuing a weapon at breakneck pace right now -- was confirmed by international officials.
"If they use all their centrifuges ... and their stockpiles of low- and medium-enriched uranium, that would take one to 1.6 months," said David Albright, a former inspector for the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency.
The Obama administration has said the Iranian government could build a nuclear weapon in about a year's time if it made the internal decision to pursue one with haste.
Iranian President Hasan Rouhani is a former nuclear negotiator who is widely regarded as a moderate and has sought to reset relations with the West over the nation's nuclear program.
USA Today said Obama administration security officials have sought to convince congressional lawmakers not to pass a new round of tough sanctions against Iran while initial talks with Rouhani's government have proved positive at the outset.
KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo, Oct. 26 (UPI) -- A new round of violence broke out in the Democratic Republic of Congo days after a tentative peace deal was struck, the U.S. State Department said.
The fighting between government troops and M23 rebels threatens to spill over the border into Rwanda, where U.N. officials have accused government forces of supporting the rebels, Voice of America reported Saturday.
Rwanda's U.N. Ambassador denied the charge.
The U.S. State Department said a mortar shell lobbed by one of the sides in the Congo landed in Rwandan territory, threatening to turn the internal dispute into a larger regional conflict.
"We are ... troubled by reports that at least one round landed across the border in Rwanda," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement. "This fighting puts at risk the fragile peace negotiations in Kampala and risks undermining the concerted efforts earlier this week to reach a final agreement and peacefully resolve the conflict."
Voice of America said thousands of refugees in the area have fled the DRC for Rwanda to escape the fighting.
The State Department said there have been reports of casualties but specific numbers of those killed or injured were not available.
The fighting comes two weeks after the two sides in the conflict agreed in principle to a peaceful end to the conflict and the eventual disarmament of the M23 fighters.
ABUJA, Nigeria, Oct. 26 (UPI) -- More than 90 members of the Islamist group Boko Haram were killed in a clash with government forces, Nigerian military officials say.
Brig. Gen. Ibrahim Attahiru told CNN the attack began late Thursday and carried on through the night in Borno, in northeastern Nigeria.
The government held a news conference Friday featuring a young man who said he had been an unwilling recruit to Boko Haram, Nigeria's Leadership Newspapers reported. The group's stated aim is to establish Sharia law in heavily Muslim parts of Nigeria.
Malam Bukar Modu said he was found by government soldiers and arrested after he was wounded and left for dead during a Boko Haram operation Oct. 6.
Modu told reporters his cousin forced him into BokoHaram last year, telling him he would be killed if he did not join.
He said he had been involved as a "foot soldier" in operations in which innocent people were killed, and had stolen food and pharmaceuticals during raids.
"Sometimes, I feel guilty of committing crimes against God but our commanders always tell us that it is God's work that we are doing," he said. "It is a terrible thing to be a member of the sect but many foot soldiers like me cannot leave for fear of being killed."
PRAGUE, Czech Republic, Oct. 26 (UPI) -- The Social Democrats emerged from Czech elections with 20.5% of the vote Saturday, officials said, putting them in first place but with no clear mandate.
In one sign of popular discontent, the center-right Civic Democrats, who led the previous coalition government, picked up only 7.7% of the vote, Radio Prague reported.
ANO, a new populist party founded by millionaire Andrej Babis, was second with 18.6% and the Communists third with almost 15%. TOP 09, a conservative group, came in fourth with 12%.
"This election shows a spectacular rise of anti-politics and a huge amount of cynicism, with Czechs saying, 'How can things be any worse than what we have had now or in the recent past?'” Jiri Pehe, the director of New York University in Prague, told The New York Times.
Pehe was an adviser to Vaclav Havel, the poet, playwright and political activist who served as president of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic from 1989 to 2003.
The Social Democrats had hoped to win enough parliamentary seats to form a governing coalition with the Communists. But the two parties combined support fell far short of a majority, and the results show no obvious coalition, Radio Prague said.
A number of party leaders have ruled out some potential coalitions, complicating the situation even further.
President Milos Zeman has the constitutional power to select a prime minister. While presidents have generally picked the leader of the party that has won the largest share of the vote, Zeman has tended to be a maverick.