Around the World

Monday, September 8, 2008

CANADA

Prime Minister Calls 3rd Election in 4 Years

Canada's prime minister dissolved Parliament on Sunday, triggering an early election next month that will be the country's third national ballot in four years.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he expects the Oct. 14 vote to produce another minority government, but recent polls show the Conservatives could win the majority they need to rule without help from opposition parties.

Analysts said Harper's party has a better shot of winning now than if it had waited until being forced into a vote later, when the Canadian economy might be worse off, or after Canadians could be influenced by the U.S. presidential election results.

The Conservatives unseated the Liberal Party in 2006 after nearly 13 years in power but have been forced, as a minority government, to rely on opposition lawmakers to pass legislation and adopt budgets.

Electoral legislation that Harper helped enact after he came to power in 2006 fixed the date for the next election in October 2009. But a loophole allows the prime minister to ask the governor general to dissolve Parliament, which Harper did.

GERMANY

Social Democrats Tap Foreign Minister to Run

Germany's struggling Social Democratic Party shook up its leadership Sunday and chose Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier to run against his boss, Chancellor Angela Merkel, in federal elections next year.

Kurt Beck quit as party leader, and Franz Muentefering was named to take his place.

Both Steinmeier and Muentefering are staunch defenders of economic reforms pushed through by former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, while Beck's popularity plunged to record lows during his 2 1/2 -year tenure.

The Social Democrats and Merkel's Christian Democrats formed a governing coalition in 2005, but recent opinion polls show Merkel's party holding a double-digit lead over the Social Democrats.

Steinmeier, 52, was Schroeder's chief of staff before Merkel took office and made him Germany's top diplomat.

This marks the Social Democrats' fifth change of leadership in a little more than four years.

ANGOLA

Vote to Be Contested

The leader of Angola's largest opposition party said Sunday that he was contesting the results of the country's parliamentary election, which showed the ruling party MPLA headed for a landslide victory.

UNITA leader Isaias Samakuva said the two-day vote had been badly flawed, with polling stations opening late or not at all, and officials failing to properly confirm the identity of voters on registration lists.

"The facts suggest that the final results of this election might not rigorously reflect the wishes expressed in the ballot box by the Angolan people," Samakuva told reporters in the capital, Luanda.

Observers from the Pan-African Parliament, affiliated with the African Union, gave the election -- the country's first in 16 years -- the lukewarm endorsement of "credible" Sunday. But a European Union mission has raised concerns about irregularities.

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14 Pirates Captured Off Somalia

An unidentified warship off pirate-ridden Somali waters captured 14 pirates and destroyed their boat, a minister of the northern Puntland region said Sunday. Abdulqadir Muse Yusuf, fisheries minister for the region, said that the pirate vessel met a warship "that we think could be American" and that all the pirates on board were captured and their boat destroyed. The U.S. 5th Fleet, based in Bahrain, said there was no American involvement. Somali gunmen are holding more than 10 ships for ransom at Eyl, a lawless former fishing outpost now used by gangs behind a sharp rise in sea attacks.

From News Services