Politics

In a statement released on Thursday, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that ICRC President Jacob Kellenberger "deplored the fact that the U.S. authorities had not moved closer to granting the ICRC access to persons held in undisclosed locations." The ICRC started making requests to get access to all U.S. detainees, including the ones held in alleged secret prisons, over two years ago. After Kellenberger met with senior officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Nation

A riot took place at the main prison in Haiti on Sunday. The prison is located within a few miles of the Parliament building. According to the Associated Press, at least 100 prisoners stormed the roof of the prison and were seen holding what appeared to be 2 dead inmates. Prisoners were also heard chanting "freedom or death" and held a banner saying "Justice." Haitian police and United Nations Peacekeepers arrived on scene shortly after the riot erupted and surrounded the prison. The riot occurred just hours before the inauguration of Hait

The French daily Le Monde, which has a tradition of publishing full texts by politicians and intellectuals, was one of the first organisations to publish the full English text of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's letter to US president George W. Bush on May 9, 2006. On the same day, US daily The Wall Street Journal published a scan of the English text, and the Iranian Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) published the full text. In the UK, The Guardian published the full text two days later. The full text of the letter included discussion

The Italian Parliament in unified session elected Giorgio Napolitano the new President of the Italian Republic on May 10th. Napolitano, 80, was elected on the fourth ballot with 543 valid votes (the threshold to win the election was 505). The number of great electors (the Parliamentarians of both houses and the regional delegates) present was 1,000, of which 990 voted. The election process started on May 8th, but no winner emerged from the previous three ballots, which required a two-thirds supermajority. Italian parliamentary rules allow a

The ruling Left-Front Party in the Indian state of West Bengal retained power in the state after winning 232 out of 294 State Legislative Assembly seats. This is the seventh consecutive victory for the left front in West Bengal. The chief opposition National Aemocratic Alliance managed to bag only 30 seats while the Congress managed to get only 21 seats. In Tamil Nadu, the Democratic Progressive Alliance (DPA) led by Dravida Munnetra Kazagham (DMK) has won 162 seats . The DPA have won a clear majority over it's closest rival, an alliance led b

Marxists retained West Bengal and regained Kerala in assembly elections in 5 Indian states whose results were declared today. Tamil Nadu is likely to have its first coalition government headed by DMK's leader M Karunanidhi. Assam faces a hung assembly, while the Congress-led Front won overwhelmingly in Pondicherry The Left Front, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), won 235 out of the total 294 assembly seats in West Bengal. West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has scored a thumping victory in Jadavpur, winning by a ma

The Australian House of Representatives heard the traditional right-of-reply to the Budget released May 9, from the Australian Labor Party, led by Kim Beazley (Labor, Brand), plus Budget replies from minor parties in the Australian Senate. While the Budget is politically popular, having as one of its main features significant tax reform, Beazley focused on the omissions in the Budget, such as the failure to address a skills shortage. Opposition reply Beazley opened by stating that "This budget fails middle Australia and mortgages our kids'

On May 6, 2006, Lillian Asplund, the last American survivor of the Titanic, died in her home in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. She was 99 years old. "She went to sleep peacefully," said vice president of the Nordgren Memorial Chapel Ronald E. Johnson, which is located in Worcester, Massachusetts. Barbara Joyce West Dainton and Elizabeth Gladys "Millvina" Dean are the two remaining survivors living in England, however they were too young to have a memory of the Titanic sinking. "I could see the icebergs for a great distance around. It was cold an

New Zealand Associate Minister of Health Damien O'Connor has proposed that warnings, both images and text, should cover 60% of the packaging of cigarettes sold in the country. New Zealand is required to do so under obligations to the World Health Organisation. The new images would depict throat cancer, rotting teeth/gums and gangrenous feet. Ashley Bloomfield, Chief Advisor on Public Health, says written warnings aren't as effective as pictures, and that many smokers do not know most of the diseases that smoking can cause. If the proposal we

Australian minister for foreign affairs, Alexander Downer (Mayo, Liberal), told the Australian House of Representatives on Tuesday that Australia would provide assistance to East Timor if the East Timorese government or United Nations requested it. Northern Territory member, David Tollner (Solomon,Country Liberal), who has long had an interest in East Timorese affairs, asked Mr Downer to update the parliament on "recent developments in East Timor". Riots in East Timor's capital Dilli killed five people on April 28 following a march supporting

For the first time in three decades, direct and at least partially public diplomatic communication will commence between the United States (US) and Iran. Iranian government spokesman Gholam-Hossein Elham said that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has sent a letter to the U.S. president George W. Bush proposing "new solutions for getting out of international problems and the current fragile situation of the world". Mr Gholam-Hossein Elham did not say whether the letter mentioned the nuclear dispute, one of the diplomatic problems currentl

President George W Bush has announced US emergency food shipments to Darfur, a province of Sudan. He has asked Congress to approve $225m in aid. Sudan and the biggest rebel group signed a peace deal last Friday to end the three year old civil war, claiming more than 200,000 lives. Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state will address the UN Security Council to help speed up the deployment of UN peacekeepers to the Darfur region. "She's going to request a resolution that will accelerate the deployment of UN peacekeepers into Darfur," Presid