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World News Once a Week |
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| Published Thursday, July 17, 2008 |
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| Reuters/Ronen Zvulun: An Israeli woman leans on a wall near Rosh Hanikra. |
Issue 108
Fannie Mae. Freddie Mac. The names may bring to mind a pair of flapper girls, but the embattled mortgage giants' woes mean
that nobody on Wall Street is dancing the Charleston. President Bush hopes the government's bailout package will remind skittish consumers that the country can still party like it's 1999 — not '29. Speaking of forceful gestures,
a prosecutor at the International Criminal Court slapped Sudan's president with genocide charges (too bad Slobodan Milošević isn't around to defend him); Russia's propaganda division found a great place to make iced vodka; and Heathrow's would-be bombers tried to convince a court that they merely meant to set off explosions as a publicity stunt.
Back in the States, W declared his allegiance to offshore drilling, but Congress could ultimately render his opinion hot air.
Finally, could one week pass without an overblown Obama story titillating the chattering classes? If you said yes, you must be tripping on increasingly rare peyote.
- Benjamin Hart |
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| Top Stories |
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Government grabs a bucket and starts to bail
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The US Treasury responded to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's financial SOS call — which came in the form of their stocks' sudden tumbles — by proposing a confidence-building emergency bailout on Sunday night. The companies, which securitize mortgages issued
by direct lenders, own or guarantee more than $5 trillion in loans. The government's proposal to keep them afloat includes an open-ended line of credit and a cash boost, which could arrive in a housing-relief bill.
Historically, the government had sworn off interfering with the operations of the congressionally chartered institutions to
avoid nationalizing the companies' debts. This latest move contradicts years of free-marketeering and signals a new willingness to foist the fiscal burden onto taxpayers. (CN)
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Attacks signal Taliban resurgence
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In a clear sign of the Taliban's renewed strength in Afghanistan, a well-organized band of fighters stormed a newly established
US combat outpost in the eastern part of the country, killing nine American soldiers and wounding nearly a third of the small
defense force. Army commanders speculate that Taliban insurgents staged the operation across the border in Pakistan.
The attack comes amid a renewed stateside debate on the urgency of the US mission in Afghanistan, where the American force numbers 32,000. Barack Obama is proposing a phased redeployment of troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, while John McCain is advocating for the deployment of NATO reinforcements. (BH)
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Sudanese president faces genocide charges
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The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor is seeking an arrest warrant for Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir on charges of orchestrating genocide in the country's Darfur region. The president has denied the allegations, while his parliamentary allies warned that the ICC's indictment could worsen the situation in Darfur. As the Sudanese government refuses to recognize the Court's
jurisdiction, it appears highly unlikely that al-Bashir will stand trial in the Hague anytime soon.
Sudan's conflict stems from historical animosities between Sudan's Arab nomads and non-Arab agriculturalists. The Sudanese military — and government-backed janjaweed militias — are accused of terrorizing Darfur's farming communities, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians and displacing more than two million people. (ED)
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| Newswire |
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| Politics |
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Turkey uncovers coup plot
Turkish prosecutors charged 86 people — including retired generals and prominent journalists — with plotting a government coup. Supporters of the Islamic-rooted ruling party championed the indictment as a victory for democracy, while
others decried it as a political purge of secularist opponents. (ED)
| Today's Zaman | Globe and Mail |
Offshore oil sets up US political fight
President Bush lifted a moratorium on offshore oil exploration in a symbolic gesture of concern for rising fuel prices. However, the Outer Continental Shelf is likely to remain intact, as Congress has approved its own ban every year since 1980. (CN)
| Washington Post | NPR |
Syria seeks diplomatic thaw
Syria has boosted its diplomatic reputation by participating in a summit for a newly organized group of Mediterranean countries.
The meetings led to two historic firsts for Syria: sharing a negotiating table with Israel, and agreeing to exchange ambassadors with Lebanon. (ED)
| New Scotsman | Asia Times |
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| Science & Technology |
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Monkeying around with basic rights
Spain's parliament passed a resolution in support of the Great Ape Project, which grants some simians limited legal rights. However, this unprecedented measure has ethicists divided over how to define
discrimination — and even debating whether animals have souls. (CN)
| Slate | New York Times |
Fortunate sun
Scientists have invented a new kind of solar-power system that may capture ten times more energy than existing models. An
organic "solar concentrator" solution is coated onto glass, which directs energy at photovoltaic cells while still allowing light to pass through. (BH)
| New Scientist | Independent |
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| Blogosphere |
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Obama jokesters at wit's end
The New Yorker's latest cover, which features a fist-jabbing caricature of Barack and Michelle Obama, is the talk of the web. While some debated the drawing's satirical appropriateness, others simply knocked it as not funny — but when it comes to Obama, what is? (ED)
| Huffington Post | Political Punch (ABC News) |
"King of Beers" flies new flag
Belgian megabrewer InBev — maker of Stella Artois — will purchase Anheuser-Busch for $52 billion, in the latest sign of a
euro-sunk dollar. While aspiring first lady Cindy McCain's beer-distribution fortune may swell from the sale, some red-blooded American swillers are less than enthused. (CN)
| Notion's Capital | AdRants |
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| The Week in Pictures |
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Click to see the full-size image and caption.
 Reuters/Eloy Alonso
 Reuters/Christian Hartmann
 Reuters/Khaled Abdullah
 Reuters/Stringer
 Reuters/Beawiharta Beawiharta
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*Unless otherwise noted, all photos are courtesy of Reuters.
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| Local Stories |
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Peyote providers low on supply
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| Reuters/Jeff Franks |
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Native American Church members and Castaneda devotees searching for meaning through psychedelics may have to find an alternative to peyote. Legally available through only three authorized peyoteros in Texas, the supply is in danger of being over-harvested as a result of increased land privatization. (CN)
| El Paso Times | Freakonomics (New York Times) |
Would-be Heathrow bombers plead guilty
Several men on trial for a 2006 airplane-bombing plot pled guilty to secondary charges in a bid to dodge attempted-murder raps. Some defendants maintain that they only intended
to set off nonfatal explosions as a protest against British Middle-East policy. (BH)
| International Herald Tribune | Guardian |
Russia seeks Pole position
In a bit of political theatre, Russia deployed warships to the Arctic waters around Norway's Svalbard islands. The patrol is part of Russia's efforts — along with last year's North Pole flag-planting — to cast itself as a dominant power in the region. (BH)
| TIME | BarentsObserver |
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| Masthead |
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Editors
Jennifer Chen
Eli Dvorkin
Benjamin Hart
Doug Levy
Catherine New
Contributors
Mark Mangan
Production
Andrew Steinmetz
Daphne Yang
Design
Groundwave Design Corp.
Production Design
Jonathan Rahmani
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