HUA HIN (Thailand) - ASIAN countries should club together to boost their influence on the global financial stage and find 'co-ordinated positions' ahead of key world meetings, a summit statement said on Sunday.

Leaders of 16 countries agreed at the East Asia Summit (EAS) in Thailand that they should try to work out how to increase their influence in important decision-making bodies like the G-20.

TOKYO - JAPAN'S Democratic Party won two by-elections for parliament's upper house on Sunday, media projections showed, a nod of voter approval in the first national polls since the party took power last month.

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) ousted the long-dominant conservative Liberal Democratic Party to usher in a government that promised to focus spending on consumers rather than companies and steer a diplomatic course less subservient to security ally Washington.

BAGHDAD - TWIN suicide vehicle bombs blamed on Al-Qaeda shattered the justice ministry and a provincial office in Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 99 people and sparking turmoil in the embattled Iraqi capital.

More than 700 people were wounded in the near-simultaneous attacks at around 10.30 am (3.30 pm Singapore time), which left streets littered with charred bodies and torn-off limbs, and buildings in ruins.

THOSE who want the H1N1 flu vaccine should let their doctors know now as the Health Ministry (MOH) has started going to clinics and hospitals to ascertain how many doses they need.

Already, clinics and hospitals have started compiling wait lists of patients who want the vaccine, said Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan on Sunday. Some of these lists are running into the hundreds or thousands.