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World News Once a Week |
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| Published Thursday, January 3, 2008 |
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| Reuters/Sanjib Mukherjee: The start of a new year in Puri, India |
Issue 80
Meteorology meets politics today as Iowa voters tromp out — under the sway of sunny skies — to pick their early-bird presidential choice. Not all countries are experiencing a smooth road to democracy, however. The death of Benazir Bhutto created paroxysms of chaos, forcing Pakistan's long-awaited election to be postponed. Not dissimilar violence broke out in
Kenya, where controversial election results fused with ethnic enmity to devastating effect. The nature of political violence emerges
in this week's Q&A, where we sit down with two filmmakers to talk about their groundbreaking documentary on the insurgency in Iraq.
Computer geeks bid a nostalgic goodbye to an Internet oldie but goodie, while space geeks are placing bets on a galactic smashup. Meanwhile, a new vaccine may take the oomph out of Colombia's number-one export.
- Catherine New |
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 A Note on
Our Sources |
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| The Activate Q&A |
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Meet the Iraqi resistance
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| Molly Bingham |
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He smokes Miami cigarettes and chases them with Ricola cough drops. With his identity obscured, these are habits that make
him human. He is the Warrior, one of the characters in the new documentary Meeting Resistance. Filmmakers Steve Connors and Molly Bingham spent nearly a year from 2003 to 2004 in Baghdad locating and interviewing the
men and women responsible for the car bombs and market attacks on the "American enemy." In the gritty, unfiltered footage,
the Iraqis discuss their motivations for fighting. War reporting at its best, the film shows a point of view too often lost
in mainstream journalism. We spoke with Bingham and Connors about the making of the film.
AT: You stopped filming in May 2004. How do you respond to critics who say that your film is outdated or that the situation in
Iraq has changed?
SC: All the dynamics that are driving the violence in Iraq are precisely the same as the ones in the film, only the volume has
been turned up. There are lots of hidden issues, but the reasons for the violence are the exactly same. The underlying factor
is that Iraq is an occupied country.
MB: The insurgency is still targeting the occupation forces and their allies. If you look at how and where the attacks are being
done today, what the consequences have been, and you look at the violence through a political spectrum instead of a sectarian
one — as in who's going to be controlling the country, who wants to unify versus who wants to divide — these become political
attacks, not sectarian ones.
Keep reading the Q&A »
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Assassination delays Pakistan elections
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Violent protestors continue to ransack government buildings and banks across Pakistan following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. The former prime minister's motorcade was sabotaged by a gun-and-bomb attack — the government blamed al-Qaeda — as she left a political rally last Thursday. Her 19-year-old son, Bilawal, with her husband Asif Ali Zardari acting as regent, has stepped in to fill her role as chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party.
The election commission delayed the parliamentary vote until February 18 as the country regroups following the chaos. The
election — the first democratic vote since 1999's military coup — has been laced with drama since former prime ministers Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif returned from exile to challenge Musharraf. (CN)
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Iowa gets ready for its closeup
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Iowa finally goes caucusing on Thursday, with its Byzantine caucus rules a big factor in who will emerge victorious. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama are locked
in a close race; Edwards has the most to lose by not coming in first. Whoever wins, Iowa may not give a clear indication of the Democrats' eventual presidential nominee.
The Republican field is just as unsettled. Iowa is essentially a two-man contest between Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney, who
have traded barbs with increasing ferocity in recent days. John McCain is hoping that a third-place finish will give him a boost in New Hampshire, whose primary looms on January 8. (BH)
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| Newswire |
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Violence sidetracks Kenya elections
Brutal political violence — including the burning of refugees in a church — has killed at least 300 people in Kenya. The turmoil began with last week's disputed defeat of opposition leader Raila Odinga by incumbent Mwai Kibaki in the presidential election. (CN)
| Telegraph | BBC |
Hong Kong must wait for democracy
Democratic elections must wait at least ten years, Beijing told Hong Kong residents. According to the agreement made between
the UK and China after the 1997 handover, however, the region would be eligible to vote for its own chief executive sooner, in 2012. (CN)
| The Australian | China Daily |
Turkey fights PKK along Iraqi border
The Turkish army has launched a series of raids on PKK, the Kurdish rebel organization in northern Iraq. Iraq's Kurdish president,
Jalal Talabani, condemned the attacks — though he was careful not to alienate Turkey, an Iraqi ally. (BH)
| TIME | International Herald Tribune |
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| Business |
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Netscape surfs into the sunset
AOL will discontinue development of Netscape Navigator in February, effectively ending the landmark software's 13-year run. The first mass-marketed web browser, Navigator dominated the field before being edged out by Microsoft's Internet Explorer
and, more recently, Mozilla Firefox. (AP)
| San Jose Mercury News | PC World |
Eastern Europe has a beer boom
Heineken has purchased a major brewery in Belarus to expand its reach in the fast-growing Eastern European market and offset
the slowdown in Western beer consumption. The Dutch company purchased breweries in the Czech Republic and Serbia earlier this
year. (CN)
| Scotsman | Guardian |
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| Science & Technology |
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Cocaine vaccine makes addiction less fun
A new cocaine vaccine, designed to help addicts quit, is currently in clinical trials. By attaching cocaine molecules to inactive cholera proteins, researchers can trick the body's immune system into recognizing the drug and preventing it from reaching the brain. (AB)
| Health Jockey | Toronto Star |
Mars on alert for asteroid smash
A space rock the size of a football field is hurtling toward Mars. Scientists currently say the odds of the asteroid hitting
the planet are 1 in 25; if the impact does happen, it would have the force of a nuclear bomb. (AB)
| LiveScience | Cleveland Morning Journal |
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| The Week in Pictures |
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Click to see the full-size image and caption.
 Reuters/China Daily
 Reuters/Johannes Eisele
 Reuters/Mike Stone
 Reuters/Santiago Ferrero
 Reuters/Petr Josek
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*Unless otherwise noted, all photos are courtesy of Reuters.
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| Local Stories |
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Walking like an Egyptian may cost you
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| Aladin Abdel Naby |
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A proposed Egyptian law would copyright the country's ancient relics, such as the Sphinx. Those who produce exact replications of the copyrighted antiquities would be expected to pay a fee, though it's unclear whether the law would hold any international
sway. (BH)
| Der Spiegel | Guardian |
Caste, religious violence in India
Christmas violence in Orissa, India, during which Hindus burned Christian houses and churches, has underscored a deep unease between the two religions. An increasing number of low-caste Indians are converting to Christianity, sparking tension with Hindu nationalists. (CN)
| TIME | The Hindu |
Chinese home for your old computer
Guiyu, a town in China, has become a world repository of discarded electronics, or e-waste. Workers melt down the old devices and repurpose them, but at a price — lead poisoning and increased dioxin levels have been reported in the region's women and children. (BH)
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Editors
Anna Balkrishna
Benjamin Hart
Doug Levy
Gerry Mak
Catherine New
Contributors
Eli Dvorkin
Mark Mangan
Andrew Phillips
Production
Anjuli Ayer
Morgan Croney
Andrew Steinmetz
Design
Nicholas Feldman
Jessica Bauer-Greene
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A Note on Our Sources
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