Tegucigalpa, Honduras – The month-old mediation effort by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias to resolve Honduras’s political crisis is foundering under the near-universal opposition of Honduras’s top leaders to permitting deposed President Manuel Zelaya to return to power.
Political, business, church, and media leaders say they can’t trust Mr. Zelaya to keep the commitments that would limit his authority under the Arias plan because, they say, Zelaya repeatedly violated the Constitution in the days that led up to his June 28 ouster over a proposed public vote that they think was …

The biggest phase of India’s parliamentary elections is under way amid fresh attacks blamed on Maoist fighters and a heat wave sweeping across much of the country.
As the second of five rounds of polling went ahead on Thursday, suspected fighters launched a bomb attack on a vehicle carrying election officials in the eastern Jharkhand state, authorities said.
A magistrate and a police officer were hurt in the blast, according to SP Pradhan, a Jharkhand government spokesman.
Security forces subsequently launched an aerial raid on a suspected Maoist base in a wooded …

Idle building cranes and empty shop windows reminded Icelandic voters of their country’s economic calamity Saturday as they voted for a new Parliament.
Opinion surveys and interviews with voters suggest they plan to turn to the left and punish the pro-business leaders who brought the country to ruin.
The economic crisis gripping this volcanic island in the middle of the Atlantic just south of the Arctic Circle has emerged as the key issue.

Malaysia’s new Prime Minister, Najib Razak, is facing his first major test, as voters cast their ballots in three local by-elections.
One parliament seat and two state seats are being contested, but the results are also being seen as an indication of support in Mr Najib’s leadership.
Mr Najib took office on Friday, to replace former leader Abdullah Badawi.

North Koreans cast ballots Sunday in parliamentary elections watched by outside observers for hints of who might eventually succeed leader Kim Jong-Il.
Kim himself is running. And his near-certain win would affirm that the 67-year-old leader is firmly in control of the nuclear-armed nation despite a reported stroke in August.
But with Kim’s recent health scare, analysts were looking for signs of whether he was ready to groom one of his sons as an heir to the world’s only communist dynasty.

The US has reiterated it prefers an August date for presidential elections in Afghanistan, despite President Hamid Karzai’s call for polls on 21 April.
The US state department said elections in August would best ensure a free vote in a secure environment.
On Saturday, Mr Karzai called for polls before his term ends in May. The Afghan Independent Elections Commission says elections should be held by 20 August.
The president has no power to unilaterally choose election dates.

Provincial elections that were meant to strengthen democratic rule in Iraq and distribute power more equally are now threatening to upend almost two years of peace in Anbar province, the vast western desert where Al Qaeda in Iraq once operated freely.
With preliminary polling results scheduled for release as early as Thursday, tribes of the Anbar Awakening and other clans that helped U.S. forces crush the insurgency here have charged that last Saturday’s elections were a sham. The tribes insist that they were double-crossed by the region’s sitting government and suggest …

Afghanistan is postponing its presidential elections until August 20 due to security and logistical concerns, the country’s election commission said Thursday.
The balloting was originally scheduled for late May, but the independent election commission laid out several reasons for the delay.
Security is a factor, the commission said. It also cited a lack of trained staff, incomplete voter registration and the weather.

Tens of thousands of policemen and soldiers, doctors at hospitals, prisoners clad in orange jumpsuits and residents forced from contested towns cast early ballots Wednesday in provincial elections that will redraw Iraq’s political landscape.
Regular voting is scheduled for Saturday to choose the equivalent of state legislatures in 14 of the country’s 18 provinces. But early voting was allowed for certain groups, in particular the security forces, which will be deployed as part of a security clampdown. On election day, the government has ordered a nighttime curfew, the closing of Iraq’s …

A special mayoral election will likely be coming in the next several months.
At Thursday’s Committee of the Whole meeting aldermen recommended holding a special election on June 2, with a May 5 primary.
The election would fill the seat that Gary Becker resigned Tuesday, a week after he was arrested on charges of child enticement, possession of child pornography and other related charges.
The aldermen made the decision after about an hour of debate, but it still needs to go to the City Council for final approval. That meeting is scheduled for …