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Thailand's already turbulent political landscape was thrown into further turmoil Tuesday when the Constitutional Court dissolved the ruling People Power Party (PPP) and two of its coalition partners for electoral fraud. As the verdict was read that the government leadership, including the current prime minister, would step down, anti-government protesters occupying Bangkok's two main airports erupted into cheers and waived Thai flags. Red-shirted government supporters, who had gathered outside the court building to try and prevent the proceedings, dismissed the decision as a judicial coup d'etat...
...decisions spell the end of Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat's brief term in power, as he is one of the 35-member executive board of the ruling People Power Party. Executive board members are banned from politics for five years as a result of the decision. Somchai said that he accepted the court's call for him to step down shortly after the verdict was announced; the ruling coalition, however, should remain largely intact. Regular members of the three parties - the People Power Party, Chart Thai Party and Matchima Thipithai Party - have 60 days to join another political party...
...thus, what may have been a fun, if revealing, episode of lowbrow television quickly became the latest example of Italy mistaking silliness for something far more serious. Often, of course, it's been the other way around. This is the country whose prime minister himself cracks bad jokes, comments such as his recent quip that Barack Obama is "young, handsome and suntanned." Two weeks' ago, Berlusconi even played a "peek-a-boo" prank on German Chancellor Angela Merkel, hiding behind a monument as Merkel arrived in the Italian city of Trieste for an economic summit and discussions on the global...
Such antics are routinely broadcast into millions of Italian homes, many of them tuned to the three biggest private stations, which are owned by Berlusconi himself. For years Italians have debated the potential conflict of interest involved in the prime minister owning so much of Italy's media. But questioning his current influence might miss the point. Berlusconi's most lasting influence might well have been made before he entered politics: namely, the transformation of Italian television from a gray source of information and family programming into a feast of commercial, and often trashy, entertainment. Isola dei Famosi is broadcast...
...after the terrorists occupied ritzy hotels and killed some 195 people, the BJP printed posters in New Delhi proclaiming itself to be the party that would have prevented such attacks. The turnout for state polls in New Delhi on Nov. 29 was considerably higher than expected. When India's Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, chaired an all-party crisis meeting this weekend to discuss the nation's security situation, his direct rival in the BJP, the 82-year-old L.K. Advani, failed to show up because he had duties campaigning in the western state of Rajasthan...