World Report

Actually, quite a few things have been brewing on the world stage over the past couple days, and so, you know, here they are:

• I've heard this Osama bin Laden is dead canard several times, but not from a Taliban commander in Pakistan. Of course, there's not really any accountability for this, and no telling whether or not it's true.

• Ehud Olmert, the Prime Minister of Israel, may be bumped right out of the government after new allegations that he took over a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in bribes from an American businessman over fifteen years, much of which funded his personal lifestyle. Ehud Barak and others have called upon Olmert to resign. This could completely upset any hope for peace talks and change the complexion of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Major news, stay tuned.

• The Presidential candidates are saying all the right things on Darfur. One of the three isn't exactly trustworthy, but hopefully the next Presidency will reflect a change in policy.



• After an IAEA report criticizing Iranian behavior and potential concealment of their nuclear weapons program, the Iranians have threatened to limit their access even further, which was the whole point of the IAEA report. This threat came from Ali Larijani, the former top nuclear negotiator who is now the new Speaker of the Parliament, which is an odd place for a major critic of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, if you believe that he's a dictator and not merely a functionary in a government ruled by the Supreme Leader. With any luck, Bush will leave in favor of Obama in January 2009, and Ahmadinejad, who is unpopular due to economic difficulties, will be voted out the same year, and we'll have a chance for a saner policy between both nations.

• Good news in Nepal, where the monarchy has been abolished, to a massive celebration in the world's most recent secular republic. Freedom is on the march - especially if you don't intervene in sovereign countries and demand it.

• Bad news elsewhere. Somalia is as close to a state of total anarchy as there is in the world, and when you add global economic recession and a world food crisis to that mix, you could have a total collapse with mass death. There's almost no hope there.

• There's been a spasm of violence against immigrants in South Africa, leading the government to consider refugee camps for those displaced by rioting. I hope this isn't a sign that global hate is on the rise.

• Oh, and there's Iraq. The Sunni bloc has suspended talks to re-enter the government, and Muqtada al-Sadr has very cannily called for the Iraqi people to vote on any security arrangement between Iraq and the United States, burnishing his carefully cultivated image as a nationalist man of the people.

That's a lot of stuff!