If the pro-Thaksin People Power Party (PPP) succeeds in building a coalition, it could pave the way for the self-made billionaire’s return from his self-imposed exile in Britain.

PPP secretary general Surapong Suebwonglee said that the party and its potential partners had not yet discussed proposals for Thaksin’s return, or an amnesty for him and his top political supporters. He refused even to say which parties had agreed to join with PPP, but said he expected they would collectively hold at least 280 of the 480 seats in parliament.

“It would take between 280 and 300 seats to have a stable government, and we believe we can reach that number,” he said.

“People Power will be the core of the new government,” he said. “The political climate is returning to normal.”

He vowed that the coalition would quickly jump start the economy, which has lagged behind the rest of Southeast Asia due to two years of political turmoil here.

“If we form the government, we will place a special focus on tackling the economy, making that our urgent agenda,” he said, vowing to drop controversial currency controls and to boost government spending.

Surapong also said PPP would scale back powers granted to the military in the 15 months since the coup, by amending the army-backed constitution passed in an August referendum and revising a tough new security law.

Unofficial returns from Sunday’s general election gave PPP 232 of the 480 seats in parliament, just short of the absolute majority needed to govern alone.

The party had claimed victory on Sunday and immediately began courting partners for a coalition.

The Democrat Party, which came in second with 165 seats, has already refused to join a PPP-led government.

The remaining 83 seats were divided among five minority parties.

One had previously ruled out a coalition with PPP, but three others had once been part of Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai party, which was disbanded after he was ousted in last year’s coup.

Officials with the minor parties contacted by AFP could not confirm PPP’s claim.

PPP executive Chusak Sirinil said negotiations were still underway with Chart Thai, which has a history as a powerbroker.

The party is known popularly as “the eel” because of its slippery past alliances based more on political convenience than ideology. - AFP/ch

The injuries followed rioting in Villiers-le-Bel and the nearby towns of Sarcelles and Garges-les-Gonesses, a police source said.

Violence erupted in Villiers-le-Bel on Sunday after two teenagers died when their motorbike crashed into a police car. The accident sparked six hours of clashes. - AFP/ir

The in-form England international, who saved a penalty to ensure a 1-1 draw with the Hammers top-flight London rivals Tottenham on Sunday, was overlooked by former national coach Steve McClaren for last week’s key qualifier with Croatia at Wembley.

Instead McClaren gave a competitive debut, in a match where England had to get a point to have a chance of making it through to next year’s tournament in Austria and Switzerland, to Aston Villa’s Scott Carson.

Carson gifted the visitors an early lead when when he failed to get his body behind a 30-yard shot from Portsmouth midfielder Niko Kranjcar.

Croatia were on their way to a 3-2 win and England coach Steve McClaren on his way to the sack.

Following the defeat, all sorts of theories were advanced for England’s poor performance, including a lack of technique and misplaced notions of innate football superiority.

But Green cited an economic cause as a reason for England’s failure.

“We would have the best team if we could go into every household and throw away every PlayStation, Xbox and video game.

“We have the players and the best league in the world. The way the game is played here is so different though.

“Watching the Premier League is like Formula One - it’s that quick - and then you go to an international game and it’s like a game of chess.

“Other countries seem to bring on world-class players, countries like Argentina and Brazil where often it’s football or nothing.

“In contrast we live in a country where we have choices and perhaps the will to do it, the need to escape your own situation, is not so clear.”

Green, given his England debut by Sven-Goran Eriksson, now in charge at Manchester City, said another overseas coach, such as Portuguese former Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho, should replace McClaren.

“For England, it should be the right man for the job. A Swede gave me my debut so I’m not one to say it must be an Englishman.

“I wouldn’t look further than Jose Mourinho. He has the character and know-how to deal with the job as well as the passion.”

- AFP/ir

.

Published: November 10, 2007

Filed at 6:43 a.m. ET

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Police in the Malaysian capital used water cannon and fired tear gas on Saturday to disperse protesters in one of the nation’s biggest anti-government rallies in nearly a decade.

Police arrested at least a dozen people as tens of thousands of protesters, led by opposition icon Anwar Ibrahim, marched in heavy rains to the King’s palace to demand changes to the country’s electoral system.

Hundreds of policemen, including riot police with shields and batons, guarded Kuala Lumpur’s landmark Merdeka (Freedom) Square, the main mosque and the National Palace to foil the rally.

Police sprayed water cannon twice to disperse a crowd of about 500 protesters chanting slogans outside a historic domed mosque guarded by about 50 riot police, as helicopters hovered overhead.

Nearby, more than 2,000 protesters, chiefly teenagers wearing yellow T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan “Bersih,” or “Clean” in Malay, marched in heavy rain towards the city’s colonial-era railway station.

They chanted “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) and “Reformasi,” a reform demand that was the war chant of 1998 opposition protests, while waving banners reading “Save Malaysia” and “Election Commission, stop your tricks.”

Groups of demonstrators later converged on the palace of Malaysia’s king, where opposition leaders handed over a list of election reform demands.

The opposition said it would organize bigger rallies if its demands were not met.

Police minister Johari Baharum said the crowd numbered less than 10,000, but organizers put the figure at more than 30,000.

“I’m happy that the police managed to control the crowd. But they shouldn’t do it again,” Johari told Reuters. “We will come down hard on them.”

Anwar said he was happy with the turnout despite the government’s condemnation of the protest.

“I think this is a major success in the expression of public sentiment against fraudulent practices in the elections,” Anwar told Reuters in a telephone interview.

“We will have to persist in this campaign to send a message to the government that people are tired of this kind of fraud.”

Anwar was speaking after he and several opposition colleagues, including Hadi Awang of the hardline Islamist Parti Islam-se Malaysia and Lim Kit Siang of the Democratic Action Party, submitted their list to a representative of the ruler.

“THE PEOPLE’S RIGHT”

Mohamadiah Sohod, 33, a government worker from southern Johor state, said he was upset because police had refused to issue a permit for the rally. “This is the people’s right, to assemble and air their grievances,” he added.

Police effectively shut down the city centre, throwing up barricades on main roads to halt cars and turn away protesters, although crowds dispersed peacefully after the protest ended.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said on Friday the government would not tolerate street demonstrations. “They are challenging the patience of the people who want the country to be peaceful and stable,” he said.

Previous protests of similar scale were anti-government rallies led by Anwar in 1998 before his arrest and jailing.

The rally was organized by Bersih, a loose coalition of 26 opposition parties and non-government groups that is pushing for reforms to an electoral process it says favors the ruling coalition.

Abdullah won a record victory in a 2004 election, and is widely expected to call snap polls in early 2008.

Two people were seriously injured in September when police opened fire to disperse rioters at a Bersih rally in the northeastern state of Terengganu.

(Additional reporting by Sayed Salahuddin and Jahabar Sadiq; Writing by Clarence Fernandez)

A Chadian judge ordered the release of three French journalists and four Spanish air hostesses who were among 17 Europeans accused of attempted kidnapping in the case.

The foreigners were jailed along with four Chadians after the French Zoe’s Ark charity was stopped from flying 103 children on October 25 from eastern Chad to France where they were to be placed in the care of host families.

After holding talks with President Idriss Deby Itno, Sarkozy said he hoped the six remaining French nationals — all volunteers for the charity — would face trial in France while recognizing that “this organisation acted so very badly.”

The president warmly thanked Deby at the end of his lightning two-hour visit, saying the Chadian leader could count on his “gratitude and friendship” and promising to return to N’Djamena in February for an official visit.

Sarkozy stressed the affair would not affect relations between the two countries or derail plans to deploy a European force to protect refugees in Chad and in the neighbouring Central African Republic.

“Relations between Chad and France are fine and this deplorable venture has nothing to do with the deployment of a European force at the border with Sudan,” Sarkozy said at a joint news conference with Deby.

Sarkozy was to make a stopover in Madrid where the flight attendants were to be reunited with their families before heading to Paris with the journalists, a spokesman for the Elysee presidential palace said in Paris.

The release of the seven Europeans came after Deby last week said he hoped the journalists and air hostesses would be freed soon, adopting a more conciliatory tone after his initial outrage over the charity’s operation.

The Chadian president had accused the charity of trying to “sell” the children to “paedophile NGOs” and attempting to “kill them for their organs” in remarks that brought considerable tension to relations with France.

Zoe’s Ark maintains it wanted to save orphans from the bloody war in Sudan’s Darfur region, across the border from Chad.

But UN humanitarian agencies and the Red Cross cast doubt on the claims, saying most of the children were actually Chadian and may not have been orphans at all.

The French Le Parisien newspaper on Sunday quoted a Chadian father who put his three children in the care of Zoe’s Ark after he was told that they would be educated in a newly-built school.

“They never said they would take away our children,” said Arbab.

The six remaining French nationals face charges of attempted kidnapping, while three other Spanish flight crew members are accused of complicity.

A 75-year-old Belgian pilot who flew the children from the Sudanese border to Abeche has also been charged with complicity.

If convicted, they could be sentenced to between five and 20 years of forced labour.

Chadian judges complained that they had been pressured into ordering the release, with one lawyer saying on condition of anonymity that “we could not allow Nicolas Sarkozy to leave empty-handed.”

The return of the seven Europeans marked a diplomatic coup for Sarkozy after the affair threatened to sour relations with Chad, a former colony that now hosts a large French military base in a volatile area of central Africa.

The three journalists who were released were Marc Garmirian of the Capa television news agency, Jean-Daniel Guillou of the Synchro X photo agency and Marie-Agnes Peleran from France 3 television.

- AFP /ls

Aziz further said that parliament was entitled to delay elections for a year under emergency rule imposed by President Pervez Musharraf, but added that the government had not yet made a decision.

“There have been 400 to 500 preventative arrests in the country,” Aziz told a news conference in Islamabad, giving the first confirmed figure since Musharraf announced the emergency on Saturday.

The arrested activists include Javed Hashmi, acting chief of former premier Nawaz Sharif’s party, leading rights activist Asma Jahangir and cricket legend-turned-politician Imran Khan.

On the subject of elections set for January, he told reporters: “There could be some timing difference on the election schedule but we have not decided yet.”

“We are still deliberating. The parliament could give itself more time, up to a year, in terms of holding the next election,” Aziz said.

“When we decide what the deliberations result in, we will certainly share it with you.”

The prime minister said the government was “committed to pursuing a parliamentary form of government” and added that he wanted the emergency to be over “without too much time being taken.” - AFP/ac

TEHRAN – The leaders of the five Caspian Sea states are preparing for the Caspian Sea summit, which opens in Tehran today.

Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan, plan to discuss how best to divide the resource-rich seabed at the 2nd summit of Caspian Sea Littoral States.

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev arrived on Monday morning and was officially welcomed by Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.

The two presidents also held talks on bilateral ties as well as important regional and international issues.

Ahmadinejad said it is projected that Iran-Kazakhstan trade will hit $10 billion a year in the near future.

In a joint press conference, Ahmadinejad said that Nazarbayev’ visit to Tehran will play a constructive role in the development of ties between Tehran and Astana.

The Iranian president added that the two countries are determined to expand their economic relations.

Iran-Kazakhstan trade currently stands at $2 billion a year.

Nazarbayev said that Kazakhstan has developed significant economic ties with the Islamic Republic over the past 15 years since the Central Asian country gained independence. He added that Astana sees no restrictions to the expansion of comprehensive ties with Tehran.

Putin brushes off assassination attempt rumors

Prior to his visit to Tehran, Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted that he would travel to Iran despite reports about a possible assassination attempt against him.

Russia’s Interfax news agency, citing a source in Russia’s special services, said Sunday that suicide terrorists had been trained to carry out the assassination in Iran. The Kremlin said Putin was informed about the threat.

“”Of course I am going to Iran,”" Putin told reporters at a news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel following talks in Wiesbaden, southwest Germany.

“”If I always listened to all the various threats and the recommendations of the special services I would never leave home.”"

Iranian Foreign Ministry strongly dismissed rumors of a possible plot by terrorists to assassinate Putin during his stay in Tehran.

The Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini called the report a “”psychological warfare”" by the enemies.

Peaceful means

Putin also said direct contact and “”peaceful means”" were the only way to deal with Iran’s nuclear program.

He said the trip was a chance to support direct dealings with Iran — which has no diplomatic relations with the United States — and cited North Korea, which recently agreed to take its nuclear reactor out of service, as an example of the results achievable by diplomacy.

“”We were patient and consistently looked for solutions and it looks like we are finding them. The same has to be applied, we believe, in the case of the Iranian nuclear program,”" Putin said.

“”We can and must be patient and look for a way out. Can we do it without having a dialogue with the Iranian leadership and people? I think it’s impossible, unlikely.”"

Putin underlined that Russia planned to work with Europe and the United States, which are also stressing negotiation with Iran

document.write(cnnRenderT1TimeStamp(1190862360725));

Researchers who launched an experimental cyber attack caused a generator to self-destruct, alarming the federal government and electrical industry about what might happen if such an attack were carried out on a larger scale. Sources said the same attack scenario could be used against huge generators that produce the country’s electric power. full story

Viggo Mortensen is known for doing extensive research on his characters — work that comes in handy when he’s playing, say, a Russian gangster in “Eastern Promises.” He’s also found a simpatico collaborator in director David Cronenberg. full story

An Iraqi police colonel was gunned down near his home in Afak on Sunday, marking the third government official killed in the Iraqi Shiite town in five weeks, an Interior Ministry official said. full story