Thailand

Prime minister’s victory may lead to mandate

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra claimed victory in Sunday’s elections in what appeared to be a massive mandate for a second term, propelled by strong support from Thailand’s rural poor and his adroit handling of the tsunami disaster.

With more than half the votes counted, the Election Commission projected Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai party had captured 374 of the 500 parliamentary seats, while the rival Democrat party managed 91.

Official results were not expected until later in the week.

“The numbers are more than enough to establish a one-party government,” Thaksin declared Sunday after it became clear that he had won an unprecedented second term.

The Democrat party all but conceded defeat before balloting began, but had hoped to gain enough votes with its potential allies to mount censure motions and stop amendment of the 1997 constitution, the fruit of decades of sometimes bloody struggle against dictatorial regimes.

Wassana Permlab, chief of the Election Commission, said more than 70 percent of the 44.8 million eligible voters cast ballots.

Spain

18 die from gas leak in mountain hostel

Eighteen people gathered in a mountain hostel in eastern Spain for a birthday party died in their sleep from an apparent gas leak, officials said Sunday.

The victims — ages 20 to 40 — were part of a larger group of about 50 people who had converged on the hostel for the party Saturday night. Most went home. But some decided to stay and slept in one of several large rooms at the hostel.

To keep themselves warm at night, they turned on a butane gas heater in the room, according to Valencia regional emergency workers. An apparent gas leak, or bad combustion from the heater, killed the revelers.

Two other people who slept in a separate room survived, Todolella Mayor Alfredo Querol told the private Radio SER.

The bodies were found by hostel workers Sunday afternoon. No details were released about how many of the dead were men or women.

The bodies were to be taken to a hospital in the nearby provincial capital of Castellon for autopsies later Sunday, police at the scene said.