New York Times: “In the 12 years since the United States helped oust the Taliban, Afghanistan has held four national elections. But Afghans are only now experiencing a phenomenon that has been upending conventional wisdom in more established democracies for decades: polling.”

“Three recent polls are giving Afghans a crash course in front-runners, horse-race coverage and candidates who eagerly dismiss any numbers that do not put them out front, topics familiar to Americans.”

President Vladimir Putin issued a decree “to free Russia’s most famous prisoner, Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, the former chief executive of Yukos Oil whose arrest and imprisonment 10 years ago punctuated an authoritarian turn in Russia’s modern history,” the New York Times reports.

“Mr. Putin, who commands singular political authority here, now appears to have the confidence to risk freeing a man who even in prison has persisted as one of his harshest political critics and who still has the will and financial resources to challenge not only the seizure of his company’s assets but Mr. Putin’s power.”

New York Times: “In the coming months, the African National Congress will face what may be its most fiercely competitive election since it came to power in 1994 — and, for the first time, will do so without its most important moral figure, Mr. Mandela.”

“South Korea’s spy agency believes that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s powerful uncle may have been dismissed from his posts last month and that two of his aides were executed,” the AP reports.

Jang Song Thaek “has reportedly been purged in the past, only to return to power. He has held a slew of top posts and is married to Kim Jong Un’s aunt, Kim Kyong Hui, the younger sister of late leader Kim Jong Il.”

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford told Fox News that wants to be prime minister, despite admitting that he has smoked crack cocaine.

Said Ford: “Yes, one day I do want to run for prime minister.”

However, Ford reiterated that he had made mistakes and was getting professional help: “I’m training every day. I’m in the gym for two hours every day. I’m seeking professional help. I’m not an alcoholic. I’m not a drug addict.”

He said that he isn’t getting help for substance abuse problems because he is not an addict. Instead, he said his weight was “a huge issue.”

“Angela Merkel’s conservatives won enough votes to secure a third term for her to remain chancellor for a third term in Sunday’s general election, initial exit polls showed,” Der Spiegel reports.

“But she is likely to have to ditch her preferred coalition partner, the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP), and form an alliance with the center-left Social Democrats instead in a so-called ‘grand coalition’ of the two biggest parties. It would be a repeat of the right-left alliance with which she governed in her first term from 2005 until 2009.”

However, Reuters reports Merkel’s conservatives are “on track for absolute majority in Parliament after German election.”

Der Spiegel: “A tight race is shaping up between German parties ahead of the federal election, which could make for a suspenseful evening on Sunday. The latest polls suggest incumbent Chancellor Angela Merkel’s current coalition government has a slight lead and could gain re-election on Sunday. But that outcome is far from certain, with polls showing her junior coalition partner, the business-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP), just barely eking out the five percent of the vote required to stay in parliament.”

Politico: “Germany is in the heat of election season: in just over a week, voters will head to the polls to determine whether Chancellor Angela Merkel and her party get a third term leading the government. So where are the TV ads?”

“The comparative lack of political advertising on the airwaves here would be almost inconceivable to an American swing-state voter, who during presidential election season is bombarded by round-the-clock political advertising. Here in Germany, the air war isn’t really an air war: it’s more of a minor disagreement (and a polite one, of course). And instead of myriad ads on different topics featuring different people, each party in Germany typically releases just one main minute-and-a-half ad for the entire election.”

“Tony Abbott will be Australia’s 28th prime minister after a decisive swing to his Liberal National party Coalition, with voters casting a brutal verdict on a divisive Labor era that lasted just six years,” The Guardian reports.

“A court in Egypt has ordered that former President Hosni Mubarak, who has been detained on a variety of charges since his ouster in 2011, should be set free, according to state media and security officials on Monday, but it remained possible that the authorities would find a way to keep him in detention and his release did not appear imminent,” the New York Times reports.

“The development threatened to inject a volatile new element into the standoff between the country’s military and the Islamist supporters of the deposed President Mohamed Morsi, as Egypt entered the sixth day of a state of emergency following a bloody crackdown by the military in which hundreds of people have been killed.”

Iranian politician Nina Siakhali Moradi had her city council election overturned by religious conservatives, who barred her from office for being too pretty, Iran Wire reports.

“In a gaffe that has attracted plenty of media attention in the heat of Australia’s election campaign, opposition leader Tony Abbott told a gathering of conservative party faithful on Monday that no one is “the suppository of all wisdom,” the AP reports.

“Abbott, a Rhodes scholar, apparently meant to say ‘repository’ — a storage place — rather than a medication inserted in the rectum.”

Stephanie Banister, of the Australian One Nation movement “did her campaign no favors” in a television nterview, “mistaking Islam for a country, confusing haram with Koran and drawing a blank on the nationwide disability scheme,” the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

She also claimed that ”Jews follow Jesus Christ”.

[Read more…]

“Although he has vowed to fight on, Silvio Berlusconi’s conviction for tax fraud has fuelled speculation that his eldest daughter Marina, head of his $6.6 billion business empire, could take his place as leader of the center-right in Italy,” Reuters reports.

Magglio Ordonez, a six-time Major League Baseball All-Star who earned $133 million with the Chicago White Sox and Detroit Tigers, will run for mayor of a Venezuelan oil town on the socialist party ticket of the late President Hugo Chavez, Businessweek reports.

Australian Liberal Party parliamentary candidate Jaymes Diaz was stumped when asked by Channel Ten News about his six point plan for addressing immigration issues.

[Read more…]

Britain’s governing Conservatives have hired Jim Messina, President Obama’s former campaign manager, to advise them ahead of the 2015 general election, the AP reports.

Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf “will be charged next week with the alleged murder of ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, his lawyer said, the latest turn in a political drama that has unfolded since his return from exile in March,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Mr. Musharraf is alleged to have not provided Ms. Bhutto with sufficient security at the time of her assassination, when she was campaigning for coming elections. He is also alleged to have threatened her before she returned to Pakistan in October 2007.”