BOSTON (AP) — Massachusetts’ House speaker said Sunday he would resign amid allegations a close friend used their relationship to push ticket-scalping legislation and paid off legal bills for the speaker’s in-laws.
In a letter to colleagues Sunday, Democrat Salvatore DiMasi said his resignation as a state representative and as speaker would be effective at 5 p.m. Tuesday.
“No matter what the critics and cynics will say, all my actions as state Representative and as Speaker were based solely on what I thought was in the best interests of my district and …

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — An inquiry here into the impeachment of Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich met resistance on Tuesday, with federal prosecutors indicating that it might interfere with the criminal case against him and a lawyer for Mr. Blagojevich requesting that the proceedings not move forward without the lawyer in attendance.
Members of the newly appointed House impeachment committee met for less than two hours before adjourning until Wednesday so the lawyer, Ed Genson, could arrive from Chicago and an agreement with prosecutors could be considered about how to proceed.

The FBI is reportedly investigating allegations that a Minnesota businessman tried to funnel $75,000 in campaign contributions to Sen. Norm Coleman through the senator’s wife, Laurie, at the same time Coleman was going into debt because of extensive home renovations.
According to a report from MyFOXTwinCities.com, two lawsuits allege that in the spring of 2007, Nasser Kazeminy began making $25,000 payments from Deep Marine Technology, a Texas company he controls, to Laurie Coleman’s employer, insurer Hayes Companies Inc. of Minneapolis.

The scandal surrounding Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich has sent shockwaves through Illinois political circles — not only casting a spotlight on the state’s reputation for corruption but also potentially tainting the field of likely Democratic contenders for President-elect Barack Obama’s former Senate seat.
The most prominent name on that list of contenders, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., is literally facing howls of protests from some of his constituents. About a dozen protestors stood outside his Chicago office Saturday shouting, “Ho ho ho, Jesse Jr. gotta go.”

Thai Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat acknowledges cheering supporters after a court ruling at his residence in Chiang Mai province, northern Thailand, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2008.
Thailand’s Constitutional Court has dissolved the three biggest parties in the ruling coalition and banned Prime Minister Somchai along with top party executives from politics for five years. (AP Photo/Wichai Tapriew)

The former President of Argentina, Carlos Menem, has been formally charged with involvement in arms-trafficking.
Prosecutors said Mr Menem had illegally sold weapons to Croatia and Ecuador in the 1990s, when they were involved in conflicts. He denies the charges.
Mr Menem, who has been ill, took part in the session on a video-link from the northern province of La Rioja.
He governed Argentina from 1989 to 1999. He has been on trial, alongside 17 co-defendants, since October.

MANILA, Philippines – The Arroyo government is courting public uproar if it refuses to scrap its fresh plans to amend the 1987 Constitution, a senior Catholic bishop said.
Lingayen-Dagupan archbishop Oscar Cruz said pushing for Charter change
(Cha-cha) is tantamount to committing political suicide, especially for the present government.
“I would not advise them to proceed with that because that could trigger something bad to happen. I hope I’m wrong but it might happen,” he said in an article on the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines website.

Anti-government protesters in Thailand blockaded the country’s main international airport late Tuesday halting departing flights amid signs of increasing tensions between pro- and anti-government demonstrators. As Ron Corben reports from Bangkok the violence and civil disobedience has escalated as protesters try to force the ouster of Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat’s government.
Hundreds of anti-government protesters led by the People’s Alliance for Democracy or PAD swarmed into Bangkok’s main international air terminal building Tuesday evening.

BANGKOK (AFP) — Around 10,000 anti-government protesters Tuesday besieged the Thai prime minister’s temporary offices at an abandoned airport, in their latest bid to stop the government functioning, police said.
Yellow-clad supporters of the People’s Alliance of Democracy (PAD) took trucks, buses and private cars to the old Don Mueang international airport on the northern outskirts of the capital Bangkok.

Taiwan’s former president, Chen Shui-bian, has been transferred from his jail cell to a Taipei hospital days after he began a hunger strike to protest against his arrest on graft allegations.
A prison doctor who examined the 57-year-old former leader on Sunday recommended his hospitalisation after detecting an irregular heartbeat, officials said.
Chen had been held in solitary confinement at Tucheng jail since Wednesday while prosecutors investigate graft allegations against him.