Putin wins with almost 64 pc of vote

Russian leader Vladimir Putin crushed his rivals in presidential elections with almost 64 percent of the vote, according to results published yesterday based on an almost complete vote count. Putin won 63.97 percent of the vote in Sunday’s polls, well ahead of his nearest rival the Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov who won 17.18 percent, based on a count of the vote from 98.47 percent of polling stations. Third place went to tycoon-turned-politician Mikhail Prokhorov with 7.7 percent, a performance seen as a breakthrough as the billionaire had only announced his intention to run late last year.

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Indian surveys predict Congress setback

In crucial state of Uttar Pradesh:

India's ruling Congress party failed to make a breakthrough in recent elections in the politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh, according to voter surveys published on Sunday. Congress, which has struggled to implement planned reforms since it held onto power in the 2009 general election, campaigned hard in a state that is seen as a key pointer towards the next national poll due by 2014.

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Bangkok’s number two airport to reopen

After a more than four-month closure:

Bangkok’s second largest airport will reopen this week after a more than four-month closure owing to the kingdom’s worst floods in decades, an official said Monday. “We are 100-percent ready to resume services on Tuesday,” the general manager of Don Mueang International Airport in the north of the city, Kanputt Mungklasiri, told AFP.

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China must increase ability to win ‘local wars’- Wen

China must enhance the ability of its military to win “local wars”, Premier Wen Jiabao said Monday, as Beijing grows increasingly assertive about its territorial claims in Asia. Beijing lays claim to large swathes of the South China Sea which are also claimed by its smaller neighbours, and must also secure supply routes and new sources of raw materials to fuel its booming economy.

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At least 163 bodies found in Libya mass grave

A Libyan committee on missing persons said on Sunday that it had recovered the bodies of 163 people who were killed in the 2011 conflict that toppled the regime of Moamer Kadhafi. “The discovery of 163 bodies out of 400 missing from the regions of eastern Libya is an incredible achievement,” Maher Warfalli of the committee of missing persons told AFP, without specifying when the grave was found.

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