KATHMANDU: Nepal’s Maoist party, which swept the country’s first post-war polls in 2008, was routed in a second election earlier this month and the Nepali Congress is emerging as winner, partial results showed yesterday. The Maoists, who swapped guns for politics after a 10-year “People’s War” against the state, won just 26 seats out of 240 up for grabs in the first round of counting. The Nepali Congress, one of the oldest parties which led pro-democracy protests in the 1950s, won 105 seats while the Unified Marxist-Leninist party secured 91 seats, according to a final first-round toll. A second round of counting, in which another 335 seats will be decided, also places the Nepali Congress as the largest party, according to an incomplete tally.
I’m no saint or icon: Suu Kyi
SYDNEY: Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi yesterday insisted she was no saint or icon, saying she disliked the titles and had always seen herself as an honest politician. The celebrated activist and democracy champion endured years of house arrest at the hands of Myanmar’s military regime and has been feted since her release, but she insisted she was an ordinary person. “I always thought that I was a politician, I look upon myself as a politician, not as an icon,” she told an audience in Sydney, adding she disliked being called a saint more than an icon.
Tan website ‘hackers’ held
SINGAPORE: Two Singaporean men have been arrested for allegedly defacing President Tony Tan’s website during a recent rash of cyber attacks in the city-state, police said yesterday. The men, 17 and 42, were held following a complaint by website administrators of the Istana, the official residence of Tan. The website was hacked and displayed a crude image on November 8 about an hour after Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s website displayed mocking messages and pictures from hackers’ group Anonymous. Police said the two attacks are unrelated. agencies
