Yukio Hatoyama has been chosen as leader of Japan’s opposition Democratic Party, in the run-up to parliamentary elections later this year.
The 62-year-old grandson of a former prime minister replaces Ichiro Ozawa, who stepped down amid a fund-raising scandal on May 11.
The Democrats have promised to cut wasteful spending and bureaucracy.
General elections are due by October, and Saturday’s opinion polls suggest the Democrats may be ahead of the long-ruling conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has ruled for about 50 years.

May 3, 2009 – Panama, President and Parliament
May 7, 2009 – India, Parliament (4th Round)
May 9, 2009 – Maldives, Parliament
May 10 2009 – New Caledonia, Parliament
May 13, 2009 India, Parliament (5th Round)
May 16, 2009 – Kuwait, Parliament
May 17, 2009 – Lithuania, President (1st Round)
May 17, 2009 – Switzerland, Referendum
May 17, 2009 – Comoros, Constitutional referendum
May 19, 2009 – Malawi, President and Parliament
May 20, 2009 – Cayman Islands, Parliament and constitutional referendum
May 20, 2009 – Moldova, President (indirect)
May 23, 2009 – Germany, President (indirect)
May 24, 2009 – May: Mongolia, …

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led alliance said on Saturday the ruling Congress party-led alliance had the biggest mandate after a general election.
“The Congress has the biggest mandate,” said senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley.
“I think if Congress wants to compliment some of its leaders in this hour of victory, I think they’re entitled to do so.”
The Congress-led alliance was projected to get about 250 seats of a total 543 parliamentary seats.

The president of Nepal on Sunday called on the country’s political parties to form a majority government, in a bid to end a crisis triggered by the resignation of the Maoist prime minister.
Pushpa Kamal Dahal — known as Prachanda — stepped down last week after failing in his bid to sack the head of the army, whom he accused of refusing to enact reforms following elections last year that brought the rebels to power.
The Maoists and the army had fought a decade-long civil war that claimed 13,000 lives before the …

Yesterday, Jacob Zuma, was sworn in as South Africa’s President. What is instructive is the peaceful transition that South Africans have allowed themselves. Whereas peaceful transitions should be the norm, this has been a rare occurrence in most of Africa.
Transfer of power has in most cases in post-colonial Africa been a violent affair; in the form of military coups or civil war. Despite its history of racial tension and apartheid, South Africans have since 1994, and on many occasions demonstrated a high level of political maturity as evidenced by the …

Riot police officers confronted hundreds of women from Nepal’s Communist Party protesting Thursday in front of the president’s house in the capital, Katmandu.
The women were demanding that the president, Ram Baran Yadav, fire the country’s army chief. The police used bamboo batons on some of the women who had broken through a cordon, injuring several of them. Nepal’s Communist prime minister, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, caused a national crisis on Monday when he resigned and pulled his party from the ruling coalition in protest over the army chief’s failure to integrate …

The name list of the 300 members of Macao Special Administrative Region’s (SAR) Chief Executive (CE) Election Committee was Monday published in the SAR’s latest edition of the Official Gazette.
By law, Macao’s new chief executive will be elected within the 300-member CE Election Committee, the tenure of which is five years and their memberships become effective as the name list was official published on Monday.