Word: parliament
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...These are words that, in India, one rarely says aloud. Through military force, acts of Parliament and two wars with Pakistan, India has held on tightly to Kashmir, and its attachment has always been a bit romantic. It isn't just the beauty of its lush valleys and jewel-like lakes. Kashmir is a test of the Indian national idea. Insisting that Muslim-majority Kashmir should and can be a part of Hindu-majority India speaks to the notion, admirable but perhaps naive, that a coherent, secular democracy can be fashioned out of dozens of different languages and faiths...
...Thailand's élite, whose financial backing helps pay for all those free drinks and grilled squid at Government House. Indeed, even though the PAD's very name includes the word democracy, many of its supporters are skeptical of electoral politics. Some PAD leaders have advocated replacing an elected parliament with one in which some members are appointed, arguing that widespread buying of rural votes delegitimizes the polls anyway. "It's taken for granted in the West that democracy is the best system," says PAD leader and media tycoon Sondhi Limthongkul, sitting on a blue tarp that serves...
Fukuda's likely successor is Taro Aso, the popular former Minister of Foreign Affairs. The hope is that Aso can not only rekindle the office's appeal but, much more importantly, help break gridlock in parliament, where the LDP heads a coalition in the lower house of the Japanese Diet. Fukuda reshuffled his Cabinet last month to install Aso in the No. 2 spot as the secretary general of Liberal Democratic Party...
...general election is key for the LDP. Divisions between the party and its main coalition partner, the New Komeito party, have been growing. New Komeito is upset at being saddled with an unpopular Prime Minister as well as disapproving of a few of his cabinet choices and wants parliament dissolved in to come up with a whole new government. The DPJ is also pressing for an early dissolution because, it says, Fukuda "threw the administration away" by resigning so soon. Seiji Maehara, vice president of the DPJ, says, "The LDP people hope Aso will be in power," but he says...
...politics in Thailand rarely hew to the playbook of a mature democracy. But the current situation is quickly reaching that of political farce. Members of the PAD, who have been staging protests in Bangkok for months, are pushing for Samak's resignation and calling for a new, largely appointed parliament to take over governmental duties. The protesters accuse Samak, whose party won a national vote last December, of being nothing more than a proxy for former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a bloodless army coup in 2006 and now faces corruption charges. (Earlier in August, Thaksin fled...