Hamid Karzai was officially declared the president of Afghanistan by election officials this morning, after they scrapped a planned runoff vote scheduled for this Saturday. For the latest from the ground, we talk with the BBC's Andrew North, who is in Kabul following the latest news.

After weeks of international pressure, Afghanistan announced that it will now hold a run-off presidential election. But the November 7 date gives the country less than three weeks to organize the nationwide vote. We look at the challenges the country will face to hold another election in such a short time, and what it will mean for incumbent President Hamid Karzai and his rival Abdullah Abdullah, with Christine Fair, professor at the Center for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown University. Fair is also a former election monitor in Afghanistan. We also talk to Emal Pasarly, deputy head of the Pashtu Service at the BBC; and from Afghanistan, Daoud Sultanzoy, an Independent Member of Parliament for Ghazni Province, in Eastern Afghanistan.

U.S. Special Envoy to Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke went to Paris on Wednesday for a meeting with more than two dozen of his international peers. But it wasn't a celebration – Holbrooke was there pursuing a fair outcome to Afghanistan's presidential primary election. The meeting was filled with reports of rampant fraud and further allegations of corruption during the country's second-ever presidential election since the fall of the Taliban.

The latest results, with more than 60 percent of the ballots counted, show that incumbent president Hamid Karzai has 47.3 percent of the vote. As Afghanistan braces for a potential runoff election, we look at what Afghanistan can do to clean up their voting process with Noah Feldman, professor of law at Harvard, author of The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State and a fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations; and Emal Pasarly, a reporter in the BBC's Pashto section.

As voting gets underway in Afghanistan's second-ever presidential election, we talk Martin Patience, an Afghan correspondent for the BBC. Polling centers have opened across the country, but violence has already shuttered some voting spots. Martin is on the ground in Mazar-i-Sharif in Northern Afghanistan. The threat of violence is being taken extremely seriously; some 300,000 Afghan and foreign troops will be deployed to protect an estimated 17 million voters at 6,969 polling sites.

President Barack Obama officially hit his half-year mark this weekend. As the airways are flooded with pundits, policy wonks and politicos, The Takeaway turns to the public to see how they think the president is measuring up. Joining our roundtable of voters — including some we spoke to during the election season — are Tracey Rousey from Alberton, Georgia, Alice Craft-Kerney of New Orleans, Louisiana, Brian Hinkle, from Chicago, and Pat Gallagher, in Louisville, Kentucky.

Iran’s Guardian Council today says it is recounting the votes in last Friday’s deeply divisive elections. Meanwhile, the government has said it will shut down reporting from the country. To discuss how Iranian-Americans are trying to track the news from their homeland, The Takeaway is joined by Hadi Guyemi, spokesperson for the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran; he is also a former Human Rights Watch worker.

Here's a real-time update of what people on Twitter are saying about Iran.

Thousands of people across Iranian society poured into the streets yesterday to protest what they charge were fraudulent results in last week’s presidential vote. These were the largest demonstrations since the 1979 revolution. For the latest in the situation on the streets, The Takeaway talks to Babak Dehghanpisheh, the Middle East Correspondent for Newsweek, who is in Tehran.

Iran’s media operate under the tight control of a special government court. But many Iranian voters are turning to social media technology to express their views and debate political ideas.

Pooria Jafereh, a journalist with BBC Monitoring, a service of the BBC that listens to media in different countries, joins The Takeaway with a look at the influence of media on this election. We also speak to Afshin Molavi, Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation and author of “Soul of Iran: A Nation’s Journey to Freedom." Also joining the discussion is Shappi Khorsandi, a stand-up comedian and author of "A Beginner's Guide to Acting English," to talk about the comedic aspects of Iranian politics.

It’s election day in Iran. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is facing a tough challenge from Mir Hossein Mousavi, a moderate former prime minister. Outsiders may see this as an ideological choice for Iranians, but in fact there are basic pocketbook issues at stake. The economy is in serious trouble, with unemployment at 17 percent and inflation over 23 percent, according to Iran’s Central Bank. Joining The Takeaway to take a look at the election are Afshin Molavi, a Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation, and author of “Soul of Iran: A Nation’s Journey to Freedom,” and Radman Rabii, a Mousavi supporter.

Just yesterday, Detroit voters elected David Bing to be their new mayor. The former basketball star, now turned auto parts businessman, will serve the final eight months of former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's term. Mr. Bing narrowly defeated the interim mayor, City Council President Kenneth V. Cockrel, Jr. He is expected to be sworn in next week, but before that, he stops by The Takeaway to talk about his hopes for the future of Detroit.

What else is on David Bing's resume? He was a Detroit Piston with a mean hook shot:

Detroit voters went to the polls yesterday to elect an interim mayor to finish out disgraced, ousted, and convicted Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's term. The winner? David Bing -- former star of the Detroit Pistons, turned local business leader. Despite trailing in the polls, Bing beat out Ken Cockrel, the man currently sitting in the mayor's office. The new mayor takes on a city in financial crisis. For more we turn to Noah Ovshinsky, a political reporter for WDET in Detroit, who has been covering the mayoral race.

The news is filled with stories of the economic beating Detroit, Michigan has taken lately, but the politics there aren't doing too well either. Today voters in Detroit will elect a new mayor after Kwame Kilpatrick was ousted from office and convicted of lying under oath. Two mayoral candidates, Dave Bing and Mayor Ken Cockrel, Jr., are hoping to breath new life into the politically-beleaguered city. Joining us with all the details of the race is Noah Ovshinsky, a political reporter for WDET in Detroit.

Stage three of India's five-stage, month-long election takes place Thursday. BBC India correspondent Tinku Ray reports from Mumbai on BBC's "Elections Train," which has been traveling across the world's largest democratic nation.

And, you can follow the train's journey on an interactive map on the BBC's Web site, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8000645.stm and follow the BBC's Indian election coverage at http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/indiaelection09/.

For footage from India's election watch the video below.