Politics

Beleaguered Karnataka Chief Minister N. Dharam Singh, of the Congress (I) party, resigned on Saturday, in what appeared to be a bid to avert an imminent defeat on the floor of the house. Singh's decision came after he was summoned by Governor T.N. Chaturvedi to discuss the constitutional deadlock arising out of his failure to take the trust vote in the assembly on Friday due to pandemonium that led to its indefinite adjournment. "I have decided to resign after Governor T.N. Chaturvedi expressed his inability to convene the assembly again on t

Former German president Johannes Rau has died on Friday morning in his home in Berlin at the age of 75, his office announced. Rau had been president of Germany from 1999 till 2004. He had a heart disease for a long time and had to undergo twice a surgery after leaving office. He is survived by his wife and their three children. Rau was born on January 16, 1931 in Wuppertal. He first joined the Gesamtdeutsche Volkspartei in 1952. After the party had been dissolved, he followed his political mentor Gustav Heinemann to the Social Democratic Party

The latest poll from Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat in co-operation with Gallup puts the two remaining candidates - incumbent president Tarja Halonen (Social Democratic Party) and former minister of finance Sauli Niinistö (Coalition Party) - in a dead heat, heading into the second and final round of the Finnish presidential election on Sunday. 51% of the respondents supported Halonen, while 49% supported Niinistö. The result is within the margin of error at 3%. Approximately 24% of those questioned refused to state who they will vote for.

The United States Ambassador to India, David Mulford, has reportedly hinted that the U.S. civil nuclear energy pact with India may face problems getting approved by Congress if India refused to vote against Iran at the upcoming meeting of the United Nations nuclear watchdog committee. The nuclear pact was made after a July 2005 policy shift by U.S. President George W. Bush that offered cooperation in India's development of civilian atomic power industry in exchange for its support of the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) nonprolifera

Canada's next Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, said that Canada will be deploying three new armed icebreaking ships to patrol the Arctic passage and assert Canadian sovereignty over those waters. Harper also said Canada will be establishing an underwater network of "listening posts" in the Arctic waters. "The United States defends its sovereignty; the Canadian government will defend our sovereignty," Harper said. "It is the Canadian people that we get our mandate from, not the ambassador of the United States." Harper was responding to comment

The last polls in the Canadian election have closed in BC, and so far reporting polls are indicating a Conservative lead, which would end a 12 year long Liberal Government in Canada. Currently all major TV news networks including CBC have projected a minority government for Harper's Conservatives with the last of BC's polls to decide just how big it will be. Election results from reporting polls are below. Please note these include figures from those leading in polls, so these results could be subject to decreases as well. This early electio

Australian National Party senator Julian McGauran left the party in order to join the Australian Liberal Party. McGauran has made comments to the effect of stating that the Liberals have the best chance of representing regional Australia. The Prime Minister John Howard has said that McGauran was not "poached", over suspicions in relation to an upcoming frontbench reshuffle, and the Federal Treasurer Peter Costello welcomed McGauran's defection, with suspicion he may have orchestrated the move in order to bolster his leadership prospects. Man

The Australian Prime Minister John Howard announced the results of an earlier anticipated reshuffle of the Government cabinet. Brendan Nelson, previously of the Education portfolio, who introduced the controversial Voluntary Student Unionism legislation late 2005, has been promoted to the Defence portfolio. Malcolm Turnbull, who had been in the media several times in 2005 regarding tax law, is now a parliamentary secretary, as is Andrew Robb. The Treasurer Peter Costello, Foreign Affairs minister Alexander Downer, and Health minister Tony Ab

A passenger train carrying at least 250 people, many of whom were children, derailed in Serbia-Montenegro and drove into a ravine Tuesday afternoon. Close to 200 have been injured and the death toll has risen to 44. Most of the passengers were schoolchildren returning from a ski trip. "The accident occurred because of a failure of the train's braking system," said Interior Minister Jusuf Kalomperovic. At about 4 p.m. the four-car train derailed near Bioče, a small village nearly 15 kilometers northeast of Podgorica as it was emerging from a

A recent study led by Dr. Drew Westen, a Professor of Psychology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia has concluded that political partisans use an "almost entirely emotional and unconscious" thought process when digesting damaging information about a favored political candidate. The experiment used fMRI scans of 30 men who self-identified as either a committed Republican or Democrat. The subjects were given a series of conflicting quotes by either President Bush or Senator Kerry, and covered such topics as the Enron scandal and the curren

Marking the growing trend in the rise of Indian nationalism, the Chief Minister of the Indian state of Karnataka, Dharam Singh, has announced that the state government will rename Bangalore to its pre-colonial name, Bengaluru, taking effect from November 1, 2006. The change was suggested by U. R. Ananthamurthy, best known for winning the Jnanpith literary award. Many industrial leaders in Bangalore have declared opposition to this name change. "I am absolutely opposed to the name change. The Karnataka government should concentrate on spending

In an interview with CNN, Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said "There is no evidence, as of half an hour ago, that there were any other people there". United States officials have previously stated that as many as eight al-Qaeda operatives were dining in Damadola when struck by United States missiles. As many as eighteen individuals were killed in the strike. In the interview Prime Minister Aziz labelled a U.S. report that senior al Qaeda leaders were killed in a CIA attack as "bizarre". Mr Aziz said, "The area does see movement of peo