Asia, Prime Minister | featured news

Indian officials scrambled Thursday to salvage the rapidly approaching Commonwealth Games as a growing number of competitors delayed their arrival to allow organizers time to finish their frantic preparations.

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan has a slight edge over powerbroker Ichiro Ozawa ahead of a party leadership vote next week, NHK public TV said on Friday, but with many party lawmakers undecided the outcome is too close to call.

South Korean prime minister-designate Kim Tae-ho and two other nominees announced their resignations Sunday, amid corruption allegations that surfaced during their confirmation hearings, the state-run Yonhap news agency reported.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Sunday that he will not resign, even as early results showed his Democratic Party heading for a major political setback in a midterm election.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva presented what he called a “letter to the Thai people,” calling for reconciliation in a country shaken by months of political unrest and scores of deaths.

As its leader, Kim Jong-il, was watching, North Korea’s rubber-stamp Parliament fired its prime minister and elevated his brother-in-law to the regime’s No. 2 post on Monday in a sweeping government reshuffle analysts said was aimed at defusing public anger over a disastrous revaluation of its currency while consolidating Mr. Kim’s power.

Both the upper and lower houses of Japan's parliament elected Finance Minister Naoto Kan to be the nation's new prime minister Friday, following the resignation of Yukio Hatoyama from the post earlier this week.

Japanese television is reporting that Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama is meeting with parliamentary officials and is expected to resign.

Japan's prime minister said Tuesday that it will be impossible to move all parts of a key U.S. Marine base out of Okinawa, breaking with past promises to relocate the facility outside the southern island.

Hopes for a quick, peaceful resolution to Thailand's political crisis dimmed Sunday after the prime minister rejected a compromise ...