Thailand’s Election Commission has recommended the Supreme Court disband the Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej’s People Power Party (PPP) for election fraud. It was a unanimous vote by the five-member commission, which found the PPP guilty of buying votes during last December’s general election.

Yasuo Fukuda, whose brief and unsuccessful term makes him unlikely to be one of the most favorably remembered Japanese prime ministers, fumed that he faced an uphill battle almost as soon as he took office. His short stint in office was also marked by a series of missteps and scandals.

The killing of Ingushetiya.ru owner Magomed Yevloyev could incite tensions in the province of Ingushetia west of Chechnya, which has been the site of frequent attacks on police and other officials. Police arrested Yevloyev today, taking him off a plane that had just landed in Ingushetia province near Chechnya, said the site’s deputy editor.

The two sides have remained divided in the negotiations over how President Robert Mugabe, 84, and Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai would share power in a national unity government. A Zimbabwean analyst called the talks “dead”.

In tones that seemed alternately angry and mischievous, the Russian Prime Minister suggested that the Bush administration may have tried to create a crisis that would influence American voters in the choice of a successor to President Bush.

Prime Minister Helen Clark appointed Winston Peters as foreign minister in 2005 in return for support of her minority Labour Party government, and she has been under pressure to suspend him until questions over unexplained donations to his populist New Zealand First Party are resolved.

Flanked by two Russian flags, President Dmitry Medvedev announced he had signed decrees recognising the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the two regions at the heart of the conflict that erupted this month in Georgia. “This is not an easy choice, but it is the only way to save the lives of people,” Mr. Medvedev said in a nationally-televised address.

Beleaguered British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, keen for a fillip from his country’s sporting successes in Beijing, has instead been swamped by more bad news and poor polling. A survey published on Sunday put support for Mr. Brown’s Labour Party at 25%, compared with the opposition Conservatives’ 46%.

Authorities yesterday arrested a separatist leader, Yasin Malik, hours after detaining two others, Sayed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umer Farooq. Meanwhile, three protesters were killed in clashes with police across the Kashmir Valley, and another 80 protesters defying the Government-imposed curfew in towns across the valley were injured.

The Movement for Democratic Change’s Lovemore Moyo had 110 votes, Clerk of Parliament Austin Zvoma said, giving Mr Moyo one of the most powerful positions in Zimbabwean politics at a time of growing doubt over power-sharing talks.