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World News Highlights 1800 GMT, Dec 2

Published: 02 Dec 2008 19:24:48 PST

BANGKOK - Thai Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat was banned from politics for five years and his party disbanded on Tuesday, spurring jubilant anti-government protesters to end their blockades of Bangkok's airports.

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NEW DELHI - India demanded Pakistan hand over 20 of its most-wanted fugitives as a sign of good faith, while both sides on Tuesday tried to cool tensions over the Mumbai attacks before a visit by Washington's top diplomat.

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NEW YORK/BRUSSELS - U.S. automakers rushed to submit restructuring plans to secure government aid on Tuesday while European ministers and Japan took steps to pump credit into the economy.

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BAGHDAD - Bombs killed 14 people across Iraq on Tuesday, police said, including a child hit by a blast outside his primary school in the north of the country.

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OTTAWA - Canada's minority Conservative government may seek the temporary suspension of Parliament to stop opposition parties from voting it out and taking power, an aide to Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Tuesday.

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DULUTH - The U.S. state of Georgia votes in a run-off election for U.S. Senate on Tuesday that will help decide whether Democrats gain a big enough majority in the chamber to ram through legislation virtually at will.

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BRUSSELS - European states urged the United States on Tuesday to agree to an early relaunch of NATO ties with Russia that were scaled backed after Moscow's August war with Georgia.

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HARARE - The death toll from Zimbabwe's worst recorded cholera epidemic has risen to nearly 500, the World Health Organisation said on Tuesday, in a sign of the rapidly deepening crisis.

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GAZA - An Israeli air strike killed two Palestinians on Tuesday in the southern Gaza Strip, where mortar bombs were fired at Israel earlier, witnesses and hospital officials said.

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TOKYO - The top U.S. negotiator for multilateral talks on ending Pyongyang's nuclear programme said on Tuesday he saw a way forward at the next meeting, but details on verification must still be clarified.