This is an Open Thread: All thoughts are welcome
PM Howard concedes Australia poll
Australian Prime Minister John Howard has admitted defeat in the country’s general election, and looks set to lose his parliamentary seat.Mr Howard said he had telephoned Labor leader Kevin Rudd “to congratulate him on an emphatic victory”.
USA
New York loses mean streets image as murder rate plunges
The city of New York, once widely feared for its mean streets scarred by random violence, is on course for its lowest murder rate in four decades with this year’s total expected to be below 500.Aided by burgeoning affluence and a decade of “zero-tolerance” policing, a steady decline in the Big Apple’s violent crime rate has left the city basking in a new-found glow of safety. Criminologists suggest that killings by strangers have become so rare that the police cannot reasonably be expected to stamp out the problem any further.
In Bush’s Last Year, Modest Domestic Aims
WASHINGTON, Nov. 23 – As President Bush looks toward his final year in office, with Democrats controlling Congress and his major domestic initiatives dead on Capitol Hill, he is shifting his agenda to what aides call “kitchen table issues” – small ideas that affect ordinary people’s lives and do not take an act of Congress to put in place.Over the past few months, Mr. Bush has sounded more like the national Mr. Fix-It than the man who began his second term with a sweeping domestic policy agenda of overhauling Social Security, remaking the tax code and revamping immigration law. Now, with little political capital left, Mr. Bush, like President Bill Clinton before him, is using his executive powers – and his presidential platform – to make little plans sound big.
Wal-Mart Extends Its Influence to Washington
Under Siege, Retailer Engages OpponentsBy Ylan Q. Mui
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 24, 2007; Page A01When Conservation International wanted to educate the world about Brazil’s indigenous Kayapo Indians, whose Amazon home is threatened by deforestation, it brought an unlikely advocate to Washington: S. Robson Walton, chairman of Wal-Mart Stores.
A partnership between Wal-Mart, reviled by labor unions and their allies as the enemy of the little guy, and an environmental nonprofit group was unthinkable just a few years ago. Critics had long accused Wal-Mart of treating its workers badly and crushing independent businesses with its mammoth stores. Its relentless focus on low prices has been blamed for the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs and deadly pollution in underdeveloped countries. To some, Wal-Mart symbolized capitalism at its worst.
Asia
Bombers kill up to 35 in Pakistan
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Militants struck at the heart of Pakistan’s security establishment Saturday, killing up to 35 people in suicide attacks on a checkpoint outside army headquarters and a bus carrying intelligence agency employees, officials said.The brazen early morning attacks in Rawalpindi coincided with the announcement that Nawaz Sharif, a former prime minister overthrown in 1999 by the country’s current military leader Gen. Pervez Musharraf, would return from exile Sunday.
‘Blasphemous’ feminist writer hounded out of home by violent Muslim protests
By Andrew Buncombe in Delhi
Published: 24 November 2007For more than a decade, the writer Taslima Nasrin has been fighting; fighting against the courts, fighting to be heard and fighting for her life. Last night, the Bangladeshi-born author was struggling again as violent protests in one city – and the purported threat of further violent protests in another – saw her shuttling across India to avoid angry Muslims who have accused her of insulting Islam.
“I have no place to go. India is my home and I would like to keep living in this country until I die,” the Sakharov Prize winner told The Hindu newspaper. “Here in this country, I have got the love and sympathy of the people for which I am grateful.”
Africa
Across the desert to Timbuktu in a car fuelled by chocolate
By Jerome Taylor
Published: 24 November 2007One might think a chocolate-powered vehicle would be as much use as a chocolate tea cup – but two British adventurers have embarked on a trek across Europe and west Africa which aims to show that it could be a new, clean mode of transport.
Andy Pag and his co-driver John Grimshaw left Mr Grimshaw’s home town of Poole, Dorset, on a cross-Channel ferry yesterday. They are travelling in a Ford Iveco Cargo lorry powered by fuel which began life as chocolate, in an attempt to raise awareness of “green” biofuels. Their 4,500-mile (7,250 km) trip across the Sahara desert to Timbuktu in Mali should take about three weeks.
Middle East
President Emile Lahoud calls out army and quits amid a tense stand-off
Émile Lahoud, the Lebanese President, charged the army last night with maintaining security in the crisis-stricken country as he stepped down from office after Parliament failed to elect his successor.Declaring that “risks of a state of emergency” prevailed over the nation, Mr Lahoud ordered all Lebanese security agencies to be at the disposal of the army until a “legitimate government is formed”. The Government called on the army to ignore the outgoing President’s order, raising the risk of violent confrontation between rival factions.
Eyes Will Be on Bush At Talks on Mideast
Delegates to Gauge President’s Support For Rice’s EffortsBy Glenn Kessler and Michael Abramowitz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, November 24, 2007; Page A01When the Middle East peace conference kicks off Tuesday in Annapolis, President Bush will deliver the opening speech and also conduct three rounds of personal diplomacy with Israeli and Palestinian leaders. Such an active role is notable for a president who has never visited Israel while in office, who has made only one trip to Egypt and Jordan to promote peace efforts, and who has left the task of relaunching the peace process largely in the hands of his secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice.
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The election in Venezuela is a week from tomorrow. Chavez has apparently argued that anybody who votes against his proposed Constitutional changes is a traitor. Meanwhile, student opposition mounts. And there are now polls that show a growing disadvantage to Chavez’s proposed Constitutional changes.
And has very nice implications for our upcoming.