Germany's ratification of the European Union's fiscal pact on budgetary discipline and the permanent bailout fund, ESM, will be delayed at least by two months.It was due to country's highest court decison that it will rule on fiscal pact and ESM constitutionality only by mid-September. The decision by the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe yesterday freezes the plans to implement two main initiatives to resolve the euro-zone debt crisis until it delivers verdict on September 12. In september the court will decide whether these initiatives are in line with the German constitution. The court has been examining since last Tuesday a number of petitions filed by lawmakers of the ruling and opposition parties, the Left party, a group of leading economists and the citizens' group "more democracy", urging the court to issue a temporary injunction on the fiscal pact and the ESM

A Thai criminal court on Wednesday sentenced former defence minister and deputy leader of the defunct Thai Rak Thai Party, Gen. Thammarak Issarangkul-na- Ayutthaya along with three other co-defendants to three years and four months in jail without suspension for electoral fraud.


An Election Commission (EC) official who had been involved in the election fraud was sentenced to a five-year jail term.


Gen Thammarak was alleged of paying an EC official to tamper with the EC's database to enable members of the Pattana Chart Thai Party to run in the April 2, 2006 election which was boycotted by the then opposition Democrat Party . 

This election fraud later led to dissolution of Thai Rak Thai Party and a five-year ban for its 111 members in May 2007.