Election officials declared Afghan President Hamid Karzai the winner of a new five-year term Monday, canceling a runoff election scheduled for Saturday just one day after Karzai’s sole challenger quit the race. The decision ended weeks of political drift since a first presidential poll in August was found invalid because of massive fraud.
In the capital, a sense of relief was instant and palpable. Kabul residents honked horns and exchanged celebratory text messages as the news spread. American, European and U.N. officials rushed to congratulate Karzai and pledged to work closely …

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 Honduran interim government defied international pressure on Wednesday and vowed there was “no chance at all” of ousted President Manuel Zelaya returning to office.
World leaders from U.S. President Barack Obama to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez have told the new rulers of the Central American country to restore Zelaya, a leftist who was toppled by the army on Sunday and sent into exile after a dispute over presidential term limits.

Beleaguered by Labor Party plotters hoping to unseat him and by the prospect of disastrous local election results for Labor that are expected on Friday morning, Prime Minister Gordon Brown chose on Thursday to send out aides avowing to reporters, anonymously, that there was “no chance” he would resign.
The prime minister’s move, reported by the BBC and the Web sites of several British newspapers, surprised nobody, given Mr. Brown’s trademark as a political pit bull. He has a reputation for fighting his corner with a tenacity born of the decade …

Afghan President Hamid Karzai registered to run for re-election on Monday, but was criticised for naming a former guerrilla chief accused of rights abuses as his senior running mate.
As the Aug. 20 election draws closer, Karzai appears to be approaching an all but unassailable position, with the opposition struggling to name a contender with a broad enough support base to win.
“I have taken this decision for the welfare and interest of the people of Afghanistan,” Karzai, who has led Afghanistan since 2001, said of his decision to seek a second …

Ukraine’s parliament has dismissed Foreign Minister Volodymyr Ohryzko, who threatened to expel Russian Ambassador Viktor Chernomydrin over an interview in which he said it was “impossible” to agree on “anything” with Ukrainian leaders.
Ambassador Chernomydrin also said that situation could change with different leadership.
His comments came just weeks after Russia and Ukraine settled a high-profile energy dispute over Russian natural gas supplies. Russia cut gas supplies to Ukraine in a price dispute January first. Russia later cut all deliveries through Ukrainian pipelines, causing shortages in several European countries, VOA reports.

Hamid Karzai is the current President of Afghanistan, since December 7, 2004. He became a prominent political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001.

Israel faced what could be weeks or even months of political uncertainty today after an election that ended with both the Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and her rival Benjamin Netanyahu claiming victory.
With more than 95 per cent of the results announced, Mrs Livni’s centrist Kadima party has registered a narrow win, with 28 seats to 27 for Mr Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party in the 120-member parliament. But right-wing and religious parties have won the larger share of the overall vote, and in a divided parliament that depends on coalition government …

More Israelis have cast their ballot in the first few hours of voting than during the 2006 general election, electoral commission officials say.
By 8pm local time [18:00 GMT] on Tuesday, 59.7 per cent of 5.3 million eligible voters had voted, compared to 57.2 per cent per cent in the last parliamentary election.

The awkward issue of democracy in Fiji will dominate a meeting of South Pacific leaders in Papua New Guinea.
There is disagreement on how to respond to the failure of Fiji’s military-led government to hold elections.
Both Australia and New Zealand appear to be losing patience with the Fijian military and are pushing for tougher sanctions.
Smaller island nations, including Tonga and Samoa, have said they will oppose any heavy-handed tactics.
Fiji’s military seized power more than two years ago and shows no sign of returning the country to democratic government anytime soon.