Bangkok - Pojaman Shinawatra, the former wife of Thailand's fugitive ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra, has appealed a court verdict that found her guilty of tax evasion and carried a sentence of three years in jail, her attorney said Friday. The appeal was accepted by the Criminal Court Thursday and sent to the Appeals Court, lawyer Viraphat Srichaiya said.

The Bangkok Criminal Court found Pojaman guilty July 1 of deliberately avoiding payment of 546 million baht (15.9 million dollars) in taxes on the transfer of 4.5 million shares in the family-run Shin Corp to her stepbrother Bannapot Damapong.

Pojaman and Bannapot had claimed the shares were a "gift" and, therefore, not taxable.

Moscow - A Kremlin bill to extend the presidential term from four to six years was a vote shy of being unanimously approved by lawmakers in its third and final reading Friday in Russia's lower house of parliament.

The bill was backed by 449 of the 450 seat house dominated by pro-Kremlin party United Russia, esaily more than the two-thirds majority needed for constitutional amendments.

While President Dmitry Medvedev launched the draft law, constitutional experts say the law would not apply to him.

Many analysts say he is just a seat warmer setting the way for 12 more years of Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin. Currently serving as prime minister, Putin has not ruled out another presidential term.

Berlin/Johannesburg - Zimbabwe's prime minister-designate Morgan Tsvangirai said he would meet Friday in South Africa with former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan and ex-US president Jimmy Carter on the eve of their high-profile visit to Zimbabwe.

Tsvangirai confirmed the meeting during an interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa in Berlin Thursday.

New Delhi, Nov 21: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has said that India needs to restore economic confidence hit by the global credit crisis by helping struggling industries, boosting infrastructure spending and dramatically improving governance.

BJP''s senior leaders including leader in parliament Lal Krishna Advani held a meeting with industrialists to have a better understanding of the impact of the global crisis on the Indian economy.

During the meeting, Advani said that India was facing a serious economic crisis as it heads into elections in 2009.

BJP leader Yashwant Singh said the economy could take a hit if the government did not manage its finances properly.

Stockholm - The Swedish parliament ratified the European Union reform treaty late Thursday after a nine-hour debate.

The Lisbon Treaty was approved by 243 legislators while 39 voted against. Thirteen members of the 349-seat legislature abstained while 54 members did not attend the vote.

EU Affairs Minister Cecilia Malmstrom, who had urged legislators to ratify the treaty, said it contained "new rules" and offered a "more efficient and open EU."

Rejecting the treaty would mean that Sweden would have "poorer means of influencing decisions" and would lose its say, Malmstrom said.

Birgitta Ohlsson, member of Malmstrom's Liberal Party, earlier said the treaty would make the EU more up-to-date.

Paris  - Former French presidential candidate Segolene Royal beat out two other candidates in Thursday's election to head the Socialist Party but fell short of gaining a winning majority, French media reported early Friday.

Royal will face off later on Friday in a run-off against the mayor of Lille, Martine Aubry, as party members go to the polls again to decide who will succeed Royal's former partner, Francois Hollande, as Socialist leader.