Boyung Blog

Three people died Thursday related to the elections that were held that day.

One of those who died was one of the candidates, who was shot dead outside a voting station in a small town in the south of Nepal. A political activist also died during some clashes between parties in the Sunsari District, and a man was shot and killed by police when he tried to steal ballot boxes being transported to the voting headquarters in the southern Siraha District, according to sources in the Nepal ministry.

These are only the most recent in over 20 deaths related to the elections. Three of the deaths have been election candidates.

The tensions are believed to be because of the Madhesi people's discomfort with the agreements reached between the Nepal government and the rebel Moaists in 2006, according to a CNN report. Moaists were seen on Thursday not allowing people into polls if they were voting for other parties, and several ballot boxess were stolen or burned.

Despite the violence, the election in Nepal has been seen as a success internationally and was hailed by former President Jimmy Carter as a "revolutionary and wonderful experience."

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A high-end hotel in Bangkok, Thailand offered a group of guests a free 10-course meal on Saturday, the only requisit being that they first toured a town in one of Thailand's poorest areas.

The event was hosted by the lebua Hotel in Bangkok, and the invitees were 35 bankers and corporate executives from the U.S., Europe and Asia. They were offered the elaborate dinner as long as they spent the afternoon in Ban Tatit, a village of 600 people where they raise elephants. The village is made up mostly of run-down wooden shacks, and where as they used to support their village with agriculture and the raising of hundreds of elephants, the now only have five elephants and most of their fields are to parched and dry to support even the village and it's elephants.

A great deal of controversy surrounded the event, according to a Pioneer Press report on it, with some saying it was a cheap and tasteless trick for publicity and others saying it was "a novel approach to helping the needy." Outcries in French media prompted three of its top-rated chefs to back out of the event after initially agreeing to it, and 20 other chefs from France, Germany and Japan followed suit in fear of damaging their reputations by participating.

"You can't see people living in misery and then go back to Bangkok to eat foie gras and truffles," said Paris chef Alain Soliveres, one of the three French chef's who opted out first.

Despite the controversy, four top-rated chefs of Europe still participated on Saturday. Three left the night with 8,000 dollars, and one gave all his pay from the event to the Ban Tatit village. The event has also already produced 50,000 dollars in advance donations for the village, and the hotel is setting up a foundation to manage all future donations.

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A mass grave with approximately 100 bodies in it was dicovered in Iraq on Saturday about 50 miles north of Baghdad. The region has been the location of years of battling between Shiites and Sunni members of Al-Quaida in Iraq.

Police Col. Sabah al-Ambaqi said the grave was found in an orchard near Al-Bu Tumaa, a Sunni village outside Khalis. Khalis is a predominantly Shiite city surrounded by Sunni communities, and has witnessed a great deal of battles, attacks and deaths in the past years.

The site was uncivered during a search by U.S. military and Iraqi soldiers. The investigation is still ongoing, but a spokesman from the U.S. military said the remains appear to be rather old, and it is still unclear as to how they all died.

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A suicide bomber in northwestern Pakistan detonated the bomb on him Sunday while standing among thousands of tribal members discussing solutions to the problems with al-Qaida and the Taliban. Forty people were killed in the blast, the third suicide bombing in the area in three days.
More than 100 others were injured in the blast at Darra Adam Khel, a town in North West Frontier Province about 25 miles south of the provincial capital, Peshawar.
The tribal people at the site were members of five different tribes who were meeting to finalize a resolution that would punish anyone who sheltered or gave aid to Islamic militants, including al-Qaida and Taliban soldiers, according to the statement given to the Associated Press by Javed Iqbal Cheema, Interior Ministry spokesman.
According to an Associated Press writer, this series of bombing displays the weakening control of President Pervez Musharraf over the region, despite the thousands of troops he has had patrolling for Islamic militants.

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A suicide bomber killed up to 80 people in a field outside of Kandahar, Afghanistan on Sunday.
The crowd was gathered to watch a dog-fighting competition, and included several Afghan militia leaders and various members of the nation's police.
One prominent leader of the Afghan militia was killed in the bombing, and according the Associated Press it is believed by some that this militia leader was the target of the bombing.
The tolls of how many died have flucuated slightly between sources, with the Kandahar Gov. Asadullah Khalid stating that 80 people dies, and the Health Ministry said that 70 died and that 70 were wounded in the blast.
Khalid claimed that the attack was the work of the 'enemy of Afghanistan,' which has been accepted as synonomous with the Taliban.
Qari Yousef Ahmadi, spokesman for the Taliban, denied publically that the Taliban militia had anything to do with the suicide bombing outside of Kandahar.
Kandahar was formerly the greatest stronghold of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the attack has been called a cowardly act of terrotism by the leaders of various countries around the world.

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