Prime minister disbands parliament, calls election
Thailand’s embattled prime minister dissolved parliament Friday – a move forcing national elections three years early and guaranteeing a showdown with political opponents who have accused him of corruption.
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s decision means he must face an election battle just one year after winning a second term in a landslide victory. His announcement came two days before a rally expected to draw thousands of his opponents.
“I have decided to dissolve the parliament,'’ Shinawatra told reporters after meeting with the country’s revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej and winning the monarch’s consent for elections. The ballot for a new House of Representatives will be held April 2, he said.
More: mercurynews.com
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Prime Minister to inaugurate 16th Asia Society Conference
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will inaugurate and deliver the keynote address at the Asia Society's 16th Asian Corporate Conference here today.
The three-day conference will draw business and government leaders from around the world, including 200 senior executives from China and delegations from Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, Hong Kong and the United States,
The conference will see the leaders deliberate on the theme 'Driving global business: India's new priorities, Asia's new realities'.
The conference being co-organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) will bring together top business and government leaders from around the
World Briefs: Asia/Pacific
Nearly two dozen Japanese ruling party lawmakers worshipped at a Tokyo war shrine Friday, defying protests by China and South Korea.
The 21 lawmakers from Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumis Liberal Democratic Party are all first-year members elected in the partys landslide election victory last September, a parliamentary official said.
Koizumi has visited Yasukuni five times since taking office in 2001. The shrine honors 2.5 million war dead, including several executed World War II war criminals.
Xiang-Xiang, a 4-year-old giant panda weighing in at about 180 pounds, hesitated for a few seconds on the
Role for kings in Asia's democracies
As embattled Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra digs in his heels against a strident street campaign to oust him, opposition leaders are turning to Thailand's final arbiter.
Not the Constitutional Court, which batted away a petition to probe Mr. Thaksin's alleged misdemeanors. The ballot box is also mistrusted: Opposition parties are boycotting Sunday's parliamentary elections. Instead, protesters are turning to King Bhumibol Adulyadej, Thailand's revered constitutional monarch, in the hopes he will urge Thaksin to step aside.
Thailand's political crisis has thrown a spotlight on democratic rule in Asia's other surviving monarchies. In Nepal, a 14-year experiment
Canadians Face Tough Choices in Election
Canadians voting Monday for a new leader and House of Commons will choose between 13 years of Liberal Party rule or a new government that could shift the country toward a conservative right seeking to cut social programs funded by high taxes.
It's a tough call for the nation's 22.7 million registered voters.
Many support the social and economic policies of the Liberals and worry that Conservative leader Stephen Harper may be too extreme in his views on abortion and gay marriage, but Canadians also have grown weary of the broken promises and corruption scandals
Rice meeting with Asia minister protested
Hundreds of anti-U.S. protesters broke through a police cordon and marched to a convention center where Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was meeting Friday with other foreign ministers in Malaysias capital.
Police pushed back most of demonstrators, but small group broke through again, including protest leader Khairy Jamaluddin. He sat on the ground outside the building and refused to leave.
Dr. Rice, I will not leave until you come out! said Khairy, the son-in-law of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
More : seattlepi.nwsource.com
