News Headlines - 25 October 2019

▽Bolivia election: Protests as Evo Morales officially declared winner - BBC News

Bolivian President Evo Morales has been declared the winner of Sunday's election, despite disputed results that have sparked riots and claims of fraud.
Officials said Mr Morales had won 47.1% of the vote and beaten his closest rival by more than 10 percentage points, thereby avoiding a run-off... Second-placed candidate Carlos Mesa has called for a second-round vote as have the US, Brazil, Argentina and Colombia.
But Mr Morales, Bolivia's first indigenous president and already Latin America's longest-serving leader, is now set to govern the country until 2025.

▽UN to probe abuses in Chile as strike continues

The United Nations said Thursday it would send a special mission to investigate human rights abuses in Chile, where a general strike went into its second day following a week of street protests that left 19 dead.
President Sebastian Pinera tried to ease tensions by announcing a plan to end a highly unpopular state of emergency and nighttime curfews that have lasted six days... The protests erupted on Friday against a metro fare hike, but evolved into a wider rebellion over low salaries and pensions, high education and health care costs and a yawning gap between rich and poor.

▽Bangladesh sentences 16 to death for murder of teenager burned to death in sex harassment case

Sixteen people were sentenced to death on Thursday for burning alive a Bangladeshi teenager who refused to withdraw sexual assault charges against her head teacher.
The case highlights what activists say is a culture of impunity over sexual violence in the South Asian country of 168 million people, as well as abuse rife in around 20,000 seminaries that educate mostly poor and rural students.
Nusrat Jahan Rafi was doused in kerosene and set on fire on April 6 after she made a sexual harassment complaint against the principal of her rural Islamic seminary.

▽Iran parades jailed Instagram star on TV - BBC News

Sahar Tabar gained worldwide fame on social media for her eerie likeness to American actress Angelina Jolie - a look she is rumoured to have achieved by having as many as 50 plastic surgeries.
She was arrested on 5 October on a raft of charges including blasphemy, instigating violence, insulting the Islamic hijab dress code and encouraging corruption among young people. The hardline Tasnim news agency reported at the time that her arrest was based on "numerous messages from the public calling for the case to be pursued".
Almost a month later, Iranian Channel Two (IRTV2) has shown an interview with the star, in which she was introduced as a "zombie" and an example of how "the madness to become famous on social media has ruined a real life".

▽Japan and Korea promise to work on bilateral ties, trade tensions

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon agreed on Thursday on the need to cooperate on North Korea despite frigid bilateral ties, but Abe repeated that Seoul needed to keep its promises for relations to improve.
Ties between Tokyo and Seoul, two Asian allies of Washington, have deteriorated since South Korea’s top court last October ordered some Japanese firms to compensate Koreans forced to work in their wartime mines and factories.
Japan, which says the matter was settled by a 1965 treaty, calls the decision a violation of international law, and the feud has spilled over into trade and security matters.