Politics

Kyrgyzstani citizens on Sunday voted on a referendum concerning a proposed constitution ahead of the country's elections this September. Polls are open from between 0800 and 2000 local time (0200 and 1400 UTC) today, with results of the poll expected to be made public on Monday. According to Kyrgyzstan officials, around 55% of the eligible population had participated in the poll, which was announced in April. Under the proposed constitution, Kyrgyzstan would move towards becoming a parliamentary republic, with elections for the parliament he

Fijian Prime Minister Commodore Frank Bainimarama announced Wednesday night that Fiji had joined the Non-Aligned Movement. Bainimarama described this decision as way to refocus Fiji's relationships away from its traditional trading partners of Australia and New Zealand, towards countries outside of the South Pacific. Joining the Non-Aligned Movement would support the “Look North policy which involves developing relationships with countries outside the southern Pacific sphere,” he said. The Fijian Cabinet of Ministers had agreed to start the pr

General Stanley McChrystal, the top military commander for the US army in Afghanistan, was dismissed by president Barack Obama Wednesday, over controversial comments he made in an interview with a magazine. McChrystal will be replaced by General David Petraeus. The move was made after McChrystal and the president held a thirty-minute meeting Wednesday to discuss McChrystal's comments to the Rolling Stone magazine, in which he was portrayed as dismissive about the administration's handling of the Afghanistan war. In one comment, when asked abo

The Australian Labor Party (ALP) caucus has changed their leader and prime minister. The ALP is currently in government holding a majority in the House of Representatives. Julia Gillard will replace Kevin Rudd. It is believed that party instability and a drop in Rudd's popularity was the cause for change. "The new leader elected unopposed is Julia Gillard and the deputy will be Wayne Swan," Senator Michael Forshaw told media after the caucus. The "leadership spill", as it is known, occurred at 9:00am Australian Eastern Standard Time this m

<p>Stockholm, Sweden — On Monday, the German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle visited Stockholm for his first time. He met with Sweden's foreign minister Carl Bildt, to coordinate in-depth views on matters such as the situation in Gaza and Kyrgyzstan. Wikinews was at a press briefing by the ministers. Carl Bildt started by saying: "We work closely together in the European Union, now we had the opportunity to sit down and go through the agenda and coordinate issues. The relations between Sweden and Germany are good, and that is hardly news."

US President Barack Obama was "angry" over General Stanley McChrystal's criticism of some of the nation's top officials, in an article of a future issue of the Rolling Stone. McChrystal was summoned to the capital to explain to Obama. Robert Gibbs described the president as "angry — you would know it if you saw it." The top US general and his staff taunted Karl Eikenberry, Joe Biden, James Jones and Richard Holbrooke. He has apologised and submitted his resignation; Obama is considering whether or not to accept it. Obama reportedly wants to "m

News Corp., the parent company of MySpace, announced Friday that Co-President Jason Hirschhorn has decided to leave the social networking website because he wishes to return to his home city of New York. MySpace is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. MySpace was founded in 2003 by Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe and purchased for $580 million by News Corps. at the height of its popularity in 2005. In recent years, however, MySpace has been losing out in monthly unique visitors to similar sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. A

Sweden's first royal wedding since 1976 took place Saturday when Crown Princess Victoria, 32, married her long-time boyfriend and former personal trainer, Daniel Westling, 36. The ceremony took place at Stockholm Cathedral. Over 1,200 guests, including many rulers, politicians, royals and other dignitaries from across the world, attended the wedding, which cost an estimated 20 million Swedish kronor. Victoria wore a wedding dress with five-metre long train designed by Pär Engsheden. She wore the same crown that her mother, Queen Silvia, wore o

The wreckage of an aircraft carrying eleven mining executives from Australia has been found in Cameroon, according to the country's information minister. According to the official, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, either nine or ten bodies have been recovered from the aircraft, which was reported missing on Saturday and apparently crashed in the Congo. Bakary said that "[t]he wreckage has been found in Congo. Unfortunately there were no survivors." The plane, a Casa C212, was traveling from Cameroon to Congo, where Sundance Resources, an Australian min

Nicolas Sarkozy visited the UK today to celebrate the 70th anniversary since Charles de Gaulle made his war broadcast. The French president and the Prince of Wales laid wreaths at the statue of Charles de Gaulle in London. Earlier, Mr Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni visited the BBC radio studio where the famous broadcast was made on BBC France. The broadcast at the time was said to have been listened to by a very small number of listeners. Carla Bruni and Nicolas Sarkozy unveiled a plaque and viewed a tapestry given to the BBC by France as a

Geoffrey Hill was announced yesterday to have won the election for the post of Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford. Hill, who won by a large majority, is the 44th man to hold the post, but the first one to have been elected by an email-based voting system. Hill, a graduate of Keble College, has won many awards for his poems and other writing. He was described by The Daily Telegraph as "one of the most distinguished contemporary English language poets" and by the former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion as "one of the two or three best p

A report released by the United States noted that Afghanistan has nearly a trillion dollars worth of mineral reserves. The report, authored by the US military, the PPw|US Geological Service}}, and the US Agency for International Development, stated that the total wealth in mineral reserves is upwards of US$900 billion, although Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said the value of mineral reserves in the country could be as much as US$3 trillion. Resources claimed by the report include: 421 billion dollars worth of iron; 274 billion dollars wor