Blantyre [url=http://www.cheapmaxplus.com/]Cheap Nike Air Max Plus Online[/url] , May 20 (Xinhua) -- Millions of Malawians turned up at various polling stations on Tuesday to cast their votes to elect a president, lawmakers and local government leaders in the country's tripartite elections with no major hiccups.
Voters lined up at various polling stations as early as 5 a.m. in readiness for the voting process which kicked off an hour later in the country's fifth elections since the return to multiparty politics in 1994.
Twelve political party candidates are competing for the presidential seat with 193 parliament seats and 462 local government seats to be won.
Incumbent Joyce Banda of the governing People's Party (PP), who is facing stiff competition from mainly three candidates, was scheduled to cast her vote in her home town of Zomba east of Blantyre, the commercial capital, while the other three candidates were scheduled to cast their votes in their home towns as well.
According to the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC), a body mandated to organize elections, the number of registered voters slightly decreased from 7, 537, 548 to 7, 470, 806 following a final voter verification exercise it conducted.
The electoral body further said a total of 24 million ballot papers were dispatched to all towns ahead of the elections, according to local media.
At Saint Kizito Polling Station, long queues formed at various polling streams as voters waited patiently to cast their votes while those who had done so beamed with confidence about their preferred candidates emerging victorious.
John Nakutapa, a 20-year-old youth, who had just cast his vote, told Xinhua in an interview that he was happy to have exercised his right to vote.
"I feel so good that I have voted. This is important because I know that the person I have voted for will develop the country," he said.
Robert Namulu, another youth who had just cast his vote, said voting is a democratic right for citizens of Malawi and added that the country has many problems which require a visionary leader.
"We have so many problems in this country and our hope is that the people who are going to win will do everything possible to solve our problems," he added.
However, some voters, who were in the queue complained of the slow voting process.
Some of the election monitors found monitoring the voting process old Xinhua that the polling station opened on time and that the voting process had been good with no major problems.
"Voting is going on well here. We started at 6 am and we hope to finish at 6 p.m.. So far there are no major problems and the voting is peaceful. We have every confidence that the elections will be free and fair," Erick Namatumbo, one of the monitors told Xinhua.
Analysts have predicted a tough presidential race with an Afrobarometer survey published in the local media indicating that a presidential winner will emerge with about 30 percent of the votes.
Malawi uses the first-past-the post electoral system - meaning that a presidential winner with the most votes is declared winner and there is no provision for a run-off.
The electoral body has established a totaling center in Blantyre where all the results will be announced. Counting is expected to commence immediately when voting stops.
"
by Wang Xin and Cang Wei
A father and son walk past statues at the Nanjing Anti-Japanese Aviation Memorial Hall. Photo by Sun Can Xinhua Russian students pay tribute to heroes from the former Soviet Union who died when assisting China against Japanese aggression in WWII. Photo by Sun Can Xinhua The memorial hall hosts an exhibition about the ""Hump Airlift"" in April. Photo by Sun Can Xinhua
BEIJING,？August 3？(Xinhuanet) -- Liao Yongbao was 64 years old before he learned the where-abouts of his father's grave. That was in 2004, when Liao, now 75, first saw his father's name engraved on a black marble tablet.
Liao Jingcheng, who was killed in aerial combat on June 18, 1941, when his son was just 10 months old, is buried at the Nanjing Anti-Japanese Aviation Memorial Hall, a complex in Zhongshan, one of the most picturesque areas of the capital of Jiangsu province, surrounded by trees and bathed in melodious bird-song.
""After years of searching I finally found my father in the memorial hall,"" Liao said. ""Tears streamed down my face as I read his name and the details of his life on the marble slab. I began to learn more about him when the workers sent me material related to him,"" he said.
""In 2009, the Jiangsu province government officially honored my father as a revolutionary martyr. Although I never had the chance to grow up with him, he will always be my hero.""
The memorial hall holds the remains of 3,305 martyrs from the Japanese occupation of China: 2,197 of the dead were from the United States, 236 came from the former Soviet Union, and two were Korean nationals. The other 870 were Chinese.
The martyrs' cemetery, built by the government of the Republic of China, tells the story of how airmen from China, the US and the Soviet Union fought side by side against the Japanese.
The graveyard was badly damaged in the late 1960s, but in 1987 work began to restore it to its original glory, and construction of the memorial - 30 black marble tablets engraved with the names of the fallen in Chinese, English and Russian - was completed in 1995. A memorial plaza was added a short time later.
In 2008, the Nanjing government invested 40 million yuan ($6.4 million) to renovate and expand the hall, which was officially opened to the public in 2009.
Help from overseas
""The heroes sacrificed their lives in the battle against the Japanese
aggressors, which was also part of the global war against fascism,"" said Luo
Chaojun, deputy curator of the memorial hall. ""Every year, more than 100,000
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