First female president Pope lunches with poor
LJUBLJANA - Natasa Pirc Musar, a lawyer, won the second round of Slovenia’s presidential election on Sunday and will become its first female head of state, preliminary results showed.
Ms Pirc Musar, 54, won 53.86 per cent of votes in the runoff, while her rival, rightwing politician and former foreign minister Andze Logar, won 46.14 per cent, according to election commission data based on 99 per cent of the votes counted.
Turnout was 49.9 per cent, the commission data showed.
“I will do my best to be a true president for all, to work for fundamental and constitutional human and democratic rights and democracy,” Ms Pirc Musar told reporters after claiming victory.
Although the role is mostly ceremonial, the president is commander in chief of the armed forces and also nominates several top officials, including the central bank governor. ■
ROME — Pope Francis ate lunch with hundreds of refugees, poor and homeless people on Sunday as he called for a renewed commitment to helping society’s weakest and denounced the “sirens of populism” that drown out their cries for help.
Pope Francis celebrated the Catholic Church’s World Day of the Poor by inviting an estimated 1300 poor people into the Vatican for a special Mass and luncheon. Children threw their arms around his neck as he sat at one of dozens of tables set up in the Vatican audience hall.
During the Mass that preceded it, Pope Francis denounced the indifference that the world shows to migrants and the poor, as well as the “prophets of doom” who fuel fear and conspiracies about migrants for personal gain.
“Let us not be enchanted by the sirens of populism, which exploit people’s real needs by facile and hasty solutions,” Pope Francis said.
This year’s commemoration takes place as Italy once again is at the heart of a European debate over migration, with the far-rightled government of Premier Giorgia Meloni going headto-head with France over the fate of people rescued in the Mediterranean. Italy kept four rescue boats at sea for days until finally allowing three to disembark last week and forcing France to take in the fourth. ■