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Former international footballer George Weah and Liberia's Vice President Joseph Boakai will face a runoff for the country's presidency on November 7, the national election commission announced Sunday.

With tallies in from 95.6 percent of polling stations, Weah took 39.0 percent of the votes and Boakai 29.1 percent, both well short of the 50-percent barrier required to win outright from the first round of voting held on Tuesday.

Whoever wins the second round of voting will replace President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa's first elected female head of state, who is stepping down after a maximum of two terms.

The handover would represent Liberia's first peaceful transfer of power in more than seven decades.

National Elections Commission chairman Jerome Korkoya told journalists that 1,550,923 votes had been counted and turnout was at 74.52 percent across this small west African nation.

AFP/File / ISSOUF SANOGOFormer international Liberian football star turned politician and presidential election candidate George Weah shows his voting card prior to casting his vote at a polling station in Monrovia on October 10, 2017

Three other candidates took a significant share of votes, with veteran opposition leader, Charles Brumskine, at 9.8 percent; former Coca-Cola executive, Alexander Cummings, at 7.1 percent; and former-warlord-turned-preacher, Prince Johnson, at 7.0 percent.

These candidates will now decide which runoff contender they will direct their supporters to follow, holding significant sway over the final results.

Liberian voters have a clear choice between an establishment candidate in Boakai, who has served in governments for more than three decades, and the wildly popular but politically inexperienced Weah.

Boakai presents himself as an everyman who transcended his humble beginnings, and has attempted to craft a more energetic image after earning the unfortunate title of "Sleepy Joe" for his propensity to fall asleep at public events.

The vice-president has also had to undertake a delicate balancing act to promote his record in government, while distancing himself from Sirleaf to define his own vision.

llegal immigrants who commit crimes in France will face deportation, President Emmanuel Macron said Sunday, in an interview in which he also confirmed disgraced Hollywood movie mogul Harvey Weinstein will be stripped of the prestigious Legion d'Honneur.

In the wide-ranging interview, only the sixth Macron has given at home or abroad since his election in May, he said that even without new legislation "we can take tougher measures" and expel illegal immigrants if they commit a crime, "whatever it may be".

He was speaking after it emerged that a Tunisian man who stabbed two women to death in the southern city of Marseille on October 1 had been arrested two days earlier for shoplifting in eastern Lyon.

Ahmed Hanachi, a 29-year-old whose papers were not in order, had been allowed to walk free the day before he attacked the women.

Hanachi was known to the police for drug as well as alcohol problems and had a history of petty crime, using seven aliases.

"We are not taking all the steps that should be taken. Well, that's going to change," Macron told three journalists who interviewed him for more than an hour at the Elysee Palace.

- 'Slackers' -

Macron, 39, whose popularity has plunged from 60 percent in June to 44 percent this month, according to polling by Ifop/Fiducial, was peppered at the start of the interview with questions over a series of comments seen as dismissive of ordinary people or critics.

The centrist president, alternately professorial and combative in the interview, insisted he was taken out of context and did not intend to insult or humiliate anyone by for example calling critics of his ambitious reform agenda "slackers".

He has fast-tracked a major overhaul of France's complex labour code, with critics seizing on his use of executive orders as an example of an autocratic leadership style.

In round two, Macron is planning major tax cuts for the wealthy, forcing him to fend off accusations that he is a "president of the rich".

The former investment banker reiterated that the tax reforms are aimed at making the economy more productive and reining in the budget deficit to within the EU-mandated 3.0 percent of GDP, and pointed to changes that would benefit the middle class and the underprivileged such as a lower social charges and residence taxes.

He said he would pursue his agenda "with the same pace and the same determination" and that the French would start to appreciate the full effects of his reforms in 18 to 24 months.

The massive weekend truck bombing which killed at least 137 people in Mogadishu is the deadliest in conflict-riven Somalia so far. Here some of the other major attacks:

- 2017 -

February 19: A car bomb explodes in a busy intersection in the capital Mogadishu, killing 39 people.

No one claims responsibility but it comes on the day the Shabaab Islamist militants warn of a merciless war against the new president.

- 2016 -

February 29: At least 30 people are killed and about 60 are wounded in twin bombings in the southwestern city of Baidoa, claimed by the al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab.

- 2013 -

April 14: A nine-man suicide attack squad blasts its way into Mogadishu's main court complex in a rampage that leaves 29 civilians dead, while a separate bomb attack kills five more.

- 2012 -

January 24: The Shabaab take credit for a suicide attack that kills 33 soldiers at a military base housing Ethiopian peacekeeping troops in central Somalia.

- 2011 -

October 4: At least 82 people die and 150 are injured in a truck bombing at the ministerial complex of the transitional government. It is the first attack claimed by the Shabaab since they were pushed out of Mogadishu.

- 2010 -

May 1: Twin bombings rock Mogadishu's popular Bakara market and a nearby mosque, an Islamist bastion. At least 32 people are killed, the majority of them Shabaab members.

August 24: Thirty-three people including several MPs die after the Shabaab stage a suicide attack at a Mogadishu hotel frequented by lawmakers and top government officials.

Kenyan police used teargas on Friday to disperse protesters in the country’s three main cities, Reuters witnesses said, as a standoff between the government and opposition leaders over a planned repeat presidential election continued.

On Thursday, the government banned demonstrations in the central business districts of the capital Nairobi, the coastal city of Mombasa and the western city of Kisumu. The interior minister said demonstrators had damaged and looted property.

A repeat presidential election pitting is scheduled for Oct. 26 after the Supreme Court nullified the result of an August poll in which incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta beat veteran opposition leader Raila Odinga, citing irregularities.

But Odinga withdrew from the race this week, saying the election board had failed to institute reforms to ensure a free and fair election. His opposition alliance called for demonstrations demanding a new election with a new election board instead.

The election board has said the polls will go ahead anyway, pitting Kenyatta against six other candidates, none of whom polled more than 1 percent in the August election.

In Kisumu, a stronghold of Odinga support, protesters reacted angrily when police turned water cannon on them to prevent them from entering the city centre.

“Our demonstrations have a (valid) basis and are peaceful,” said Odinga supporter Hezron Tirus Aloyo. “We condemn the directive … on the limitation of our rights to demonstrate.”

Federal security forces in Ethiopia on Thursday opened fire on residents in a town located in Oromia region and in the process killed four people, American broadcaster VOA’s Horn of Africa service has reported.

The incident took place in the town of Soda when residents blocked a convoy of trucks they suspected were carrying arms headed for the neighbouring Somali regional state.

It turned out that the security forces did not take kindly to being questioned by residents hence the confrontation that led to firing of arms and the subsequent deaths.

The federal forces were angered by the residents' demand to stop the trucks and opened fire, killing four people.

“The federal forces were angered by the residents’ demand to stop the trucks and opened fire, killing four people,” VOA quoted one Kulultu Fara, a security chief in the Oromia region.

According to him, the ‘detained’ trucks are still in the town as federal government agents seek cooperation with local officials to resolve the impasse.

Most residents in Oromia believe that the government continues to arm a paramilitary force, the Liyu Police’ located in the Somali region as part of efforts to clamp down on Oromo protesters.

Some residents and activists continue to blame the Liyu Police for recent clashes between Oromo and Somali ethnic groups. Despite long-standing talk of resource control fueling the tensions, some residents and activists say the Liyu police are more to blame for recent incidents.

Meanwhile, a new wave of anti-government protests continue to gain currency in Oromia – the heartland of similar protests between 2015 – 2016. It led to a state of emergency in October 2016, a six-month measure that eventually lasted 10 months, it was lifted in early August 2017.

The protests were usually met with heavy security clampdown which has roundly been condemned by human rights groups. Addis Ababa has also refused to admit independent investigators.

A government-backed report by the Ethiopia Human Rights Commission (EHRC) earlier this year said over 660 people died in the protests that took place in Oromia and Amhara states.