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World News Once a Week |
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| Published Thursday, January 10, 2008 |
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| Reuters/Darrin Zammit Lupi: Sports fans in Valletta, Malta |
Issue 81
The game is on. Obama got Iowa, Clinton snatched New Hampshire, and what happens from now until February 5 will test the skills of even the savviest campaign managers. In contrast, the
Republican field remains in wait-and-see mode, even after McCain's bite proved worse than his bark. As we sort through the
winks and nods of the TV pundits, we find it refreshing to offer some news in written form. The breathless chattering heads
— almost all from the 50-something white-guy demographic — seemingly never tire of catchphrases and cloying historical comparisons.
Print, at least, never smirks.
In other parts of the world, the Kenyan political morass showed few signs of improving (and prompted a call from Obama, whose grandma still lives in Nairobi). Meanwhile, in the Hague,
Liberian warlord Charles Taylor got his first round of justice.
- Catherine New |
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| Top Stories |
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Clinton, McCain nab New Hampshire
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Hillary Clinton defied the polls and her own campaign's expectations with a stunning victory in New Hampshire's Democratic primary. Five days after Barack Obama's surprise Iowa win, another
defeat for Clinton probably would have crippled her campaign. Now, the race will remain up for grabs before "Tsunami Tuesday" on February 5. John Edwards finished a distant third but will stay in the race.
On the Republican side, winner John McCain, whose campaign was left for dead months ago, boasted of a true Cinderella story. As in Iowa, Mitt Romney finished second; his strategy of winning early states
upended, he is concentrating on upcoming Michigan. Mike Huckabee finished third but is polling well elsewhere, while Rudy Giuliani looked increasingly irrelevant in fourth. (BH)
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Kenya hopes to end bloodshed
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Rioters turned up the volume again on Tuesday after Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki partially announced his cabinet choices, which excluded any members of his main opposition party. Talks between the president and opposition rival, Raila
Odinga, have also fallen apart, despite pleas for negotiation from the international community. Hundreds of people have been
brutally killed and 250,000 displaced in riots following last week's disputed presidential election.
Under the surface of the recent political violence are long-brewing tribal tensions. Some see last week's bloodshed as a
manifestation of resentment toward President Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe, which has dominated politics since Kenya declared independence in 1963. (BH)
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$100 laptop struggles amid Intel spat
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Last week's split between Intel and One Laptop Per Child is the latest hamstring for Nicholas Negroponte's ambitious but beleaguered project. Negroponte charged that Intel was competing with his company's XO device with its own
cheap Classmate machine; Intel responded by withdrawing from the partnership. Since OLPC's inception in 2005, canceled orders,
a steeper-than-expected price tag, a clunky operating system, and lack of teaching manuals have prevented widespread adoption of its laptops.
OLPC aims to bridge the digital divide between rich and poor by distributing low-cost, user-friendly computers to kids in
developing countries. Despite setbacks, development of the XO has fostered many technical breakthroughs in open-source computing, battery engineering, graphics, and mesh networking. (CN)
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| Newswire |
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Georgia rule: prez re-elected
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili secured his re-election with almost 52% of the vote — a far cry from the 96% he received in 2004. The West-friendly Saakashvili
has cut corruption in Georgia, but last year's crackdown on protesters dimmed his popularity. (BH)
| TIME | Washington Post |
Execution cocktail goes before Supreme Court
The Supreme Court heard arguments about whether two Kentucky prisoners' death by lethal injection — a three-drug combination outlawed for animal use — is cruel and unusual punishment. The court appeared unlikely to overturn the status quo. (CN)
| Slate | San Francisco Chronicle |
War-crimes tribunal tries Taylor
Appearing before a special tribunal in the Hague for the first time this week, former Liberian president Charles Taylor faced crimes-against-humanity charges. He is accused of committing atrocities during the decade-long civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone. (AP)
| Guardian | CNN |
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Japan says sayonara to auto sales
Vehicle sales in Japan have fallen to their lowest point in 35 years, despite the success of companies like Toyota in foreign
markets. A shrinking Japanese population, increasing gas prices, and consumer unwillingness to replace old vehicles all contribute to the malaise. (BH)
| BBC | CNN |
Oil plays footsie with Ben Franklin
Oil briefly hit $100 per barrel on the international market for the first time ever, before settling just below that price
last Thursday. Analysts predict the price could shoot as high as $150 in five years. (CN)
| AllAfrica.com | Times, UK |
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| Science & Technology |
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Sex tip for men: circumcision is ok
Circumcised men experience sexual satisfaction similar to their non-circumcised counterparts, according to a new study. Though
circumcision can lower HIV transmission rates, many men — particularly in African countries — have shunned the procedure for fear that penile sensitivity will be
lost. (CN)
| BBC | ScienceDaily |
Blu-ray the new VHS?
After Warner Brothers announced it will back the Blu-ray optical disc technology over rival HD-DVD, the "format war" between the two — reminiscent of VHS versus Betamax — may be coming to a close. Blu-ray discs currently outsell HD-DVD two to one in the US. (BH)
| Times, UK | Seattle Post Intelligencer |
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| The Week in Pictures |
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Click to see the full-size image and caption.
 Victor Ruiz Caballero
 Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
 Hannibal Hanschke
 Ilya Naymushin
 Jeff Xu
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*Unless otherwise noted, all photos are courtesy of Reuters.
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| Local Stories |
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Cosa grosstra: rubbish crisis in Naples
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| Reuters/Tony Gentile |
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The Italian government has called in the army to clean up Naples, where garbage has piled up since a city dump closed at the
request of local residents. The local mafia's control of the waste-management industry complicates matters. (BH)
| CNN | Guardian |
Mexico's latest passion goes on ice
Mexico City mayor Marcelo Ebrard recently commissioned the world's largest ice-skating rink to be erected in the city's town square. The warm-weather rink's free admission and skate rental have attracted crowds of
up to 12,000 primarily poor Mexicans on peak days. (TG)
| Washington Post | Chicago Tribune |
Waxen corpses spook German burials
Overused cemeteries and poor soil conditions in Germany have caused the fatty tissue of many buried bodies to form a wax-like
substance called adipocere. Because it prevents corpses from rotting, the phenomenon impedes the reuse of graves, which is common in Germany. (CN)
| Der Spiegel |
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| Masthead |
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Editors
Anna Balkrishna
Benjamin Hart
Bryony Roberts
Gerry Mak
Catherine New
Contributors
Eli Dvorkin
Todd Goldstein
Mark Mangan
Andrew Phillips
Production
Anjuli Ayer
Morgan Croney
Andrew Steinmetz
Design
Nicholas Feldman
Jessica Bauer-Greene
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