National Front

A leading Sunni party announced Saturday that it will boycott Iraq's upcoming elections because its leader was barred from participating, casting into doubt the inclusiveness of a vote that the U.S. military hopes will finally stabilize the country enough for its troops to go home. The Iraqi National Dialogue Front, whose leader, Saleh Mutlak, has been forbidden to run because of his alleged expressions of sympathy for Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, cited what it called "Iranian interference" for its decision not to participate in the March 7 parliamentary elections.

Utah has emerged as an improbable battleground in the fight for the future of the GOP, as the party's veteran U.S. senator -- with nary a whiff of personal or political scandal -- has become one of the most threatened lawmakers up for reelection next year. Robert F. Bennett is no Northeast liberal. Raised in Salt Lake City, he built a business, manufacturing day-planners, that made him wealthy. His grandfather was a president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His father served four Senate terms -- meaning that, combined with Bennett's own three terms, father and son have held the seat for the better part of 60 years.

Far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen rocked the political landscape in the first round of France's presidential election Sunday, upsetting Prime Minister Lionel Jospin and setting up a runoff with President Jacques Chirac. Le Pen, a former paratrooper who has been accused of neo-fascism and racism throughout a rowdy political career, is the first far-right candidate in French history to advance to the final round in a presidential election.

Accusing him of behaving like an aging tyrant and siphoning off party finances to pay for a lavish lifestyle, mutinous followers of Europe's most notorious right-wing figure, Jean-Marie Le Pen, plunged his party into crisis Sunday by splitting it into rival factions.

It was a sorely tested but generally respected tenet of French public life: Mainstream conservatives did not curry favor with the extremist, covertly racist National Front. But the rule has now been breached, and French politics may never be the same. In five of the country's administrative regions, members of traditional conservative parties have been elected to regional presidencies with votes of Front politicians after giving tacit support for some elements of the far-right party's platform.

"Racists! Fascists!" shouted the angry protesters. "Yes to democracy, no to Le Pen!" Oblivious to the yells and insults and protected by three strapping bodyguards, Marie-Caroline Le Pen, candidate of the extreme-right National Front and daughter of its founder, moved briskly through the outdoor market of this old town on the River Seine, handing out campaign tracts and stopping here and there for a word with merchants and shoppers.

Malaysia's ruling National Front won a crushing landslide victory in national elections Tuesday, leaving the country's tiny opposition in disarray, according to returns broadcast from Kuala Lumpur. The Front, headed by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, took 162 seats in the 192-member national Parliament, increasing its majority from 125 held since 1990. The opposition Democratic Action Party, or DAP, saw its 20-seat presence in Parliament cut to just nine seats.

A civilian prosecutor's charges against eight soldiers accused in the disappearance and deaths of nine students and a university lecturer are testing this nation's Supreme Court, which must rule whether the military men will face civil or military hearings.

In this city, where debate is a way of life, not even trees are beyond the reach of politics. These particular trees line the Mall--that grassy, museum-lined park that stretches about a mile between the Capitol and the Washington Monument. Sometimes called the nation's front yard, it's the city's most popular tourist attraction and an irresistible backdrop for political demonstrations and cultural events. But the U.S.

Pushing its hate-filled, anti-Establishment message across a politically disillusioned France, the National Front Party of extreme right-wing leader Jean-Marie Le Pen had its best showing ever in nationwide regional elections on Sunday.