Issue 6 (May 23, 2011)

United States

• GOP 2012 Candidate
  • Pawlenty has officially announced he is running for President. The entire world yawned.
  • Mitch Daniels, former Governor of Indiana, has announced he is not going to be running for President. While his national name recognition is fairly low, he was considered one of the top potential candidates with significant ability to raise money. People speculate he thinks his chances of winning vs Obama are low in the current environment and we may hear more from him in 2016.
  • Donald Trump bowed out of the race. On a personal note, I'm extremely disappointed in this since he would have been hi-larious in the debates.
• Tornadoes
  • Sunday saw more tornadoes in Missouri and MN. Last count I heard was 116 dead in Missouri and expected to climb. Continuing thunderstorms and lightning have hampered efforts of rescue and cleanup.
• Mississippi Floods
  • The US Army Corps of Engineers opened the Louisiana spillway a week or so ago to relieve flooding from more populated and industrial areas of Louisiana, including New Orleans. They essentially purposefully flooded an area roughly the size of Delaware that consisted mainly of agricultural crops and various energy related industries (couple refineries etc.).
• Arnold
  • The terminator had some love child with his house keeper or some shit, doesn't really matter.

International

• DSK Rape Case
  • The head of the IMF, Dominique Straus-Kahn, was arrested in New York after allegedly sexually assaulting a hotel maid in the hotel he was staying in.
  • DSK was the front runner to be the Socialist Party's candidate for the French presidency against current President Nicolas Sarkozy.
  • He has a long history of sexual philandering and other past allegations from 2 different woman have surfaced since his arrest.
  • There's been an odd feeling in France and various part of Europe (Italy mostly) that this is an unjust arrest for one of the most powerful men in the world and/or the allegations have no merit. Political figures in France and Italy have much more leeway for extra-martial sexual adventures (Pres of Italy was accused of paying for sex with an underage girl and no one really cared), but given the nature of the charges the public "outrage" comes off as incredibly crass and weird.
• Palestinian Protests
  • 11 Palestinian protestors were shot dead last week by the Israeli military as they protested the anniversary of the creation of the state of Israel. Palestinians refer to the day as al-Nakba meaning "the catastrophe". The worst happened in the Golan Heights along the border with Syria. It's fairly widely believed Syria's govt had a hand in busing protestors to the border, as the internal strife in the country would prohibit any large number of people organizing or traveling together.
• Obama Mid-East / Israel Speech
  • In an unexpected move, Obama tried to reignite the Israel-Palestinian peace process during a speech saying that the process should be one of "two states and two people" with borders based largely on the pre-1967 borders (pre Six Day War) with mutually agreed land swaps.
  • Netanyahu and the Israeli right didn't appreciate his comments and said it went too far. Israeli's left generally liked the comment as it puts pressure on Netanyahu to abandon his coalition's hard-right (religious) allies and work with the more moderate Kadima party. Netanyahu and the hard right were generally responsible for torpedoing Obama's last attempt at negotiations when they refused to halt settlement building in the West Bank.
  • Keep in mind that what Obama said was an almost mirror image of Clinton's peace plan, which came the closest to achieving a workable peace deal in recent history.
• Greek Debt Crisis, part deux
  • Worries spread throughout Europe and the US that Greece will need to restructure their debt (effectively default). As the ECB (European Central Bank) and IMF say they are committed to continuing the previously agreed upon bailout, widespread criticism of this plan has continued and people are urging the ECB/IMF to reconsider and do an orderly restructuring of their debt.
• Spanish Youth Protests
  • Large scale protests by the youth in Spain were seen ahead of municipal elections. The main grievance among the crowd is the youth unemployment rate is around 40%, despite being the most educated, multi-cultural young adult population the country has ever seen. They are politically disenfranchised without a particular ideology but want serious reform among their politicians.
  • Extremely strict and sticky labor laws are widely seen as the major culprit in limited economic growth, productivity and jobs. They have even been referred to as Spain's "lost generation".
• Syrian Sanctions
  • The US and EU have put sanctions and froze assets of leaders of Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria as the violent crackdown on demonstrations and anti-government protests continue.
  • The total toll is impossible to pin down, but it is estimated that upward of 900 people have died since the unrest began (in February I believe).
• Iceland Volcano
  • Another impossible to pronounce volcano in Iceland erupted on Saturday (rapture!) sending a large ash cloud into the sky and heading towards Ireland and the UK. Flights have been canceled and airlines are nervous as they remember the chaos that the 2010 eruption caused for flights all across Europe.

As reported by Jason Van Thiel.

Issue 5 (May 5, 2011)

Believe it or not, more things happened over the past week than the Osama jazz.

UNITED STATES

Osama
-Not sure if you heard or not, but the CIA led an operation using 2 dozen Navy SEALS to storm Osama's "secret" compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan and shot him in the chest and the fucking eye.

-The White House has stated that it will not release the pictures of Osama, giving the reason that they are extremely gruesome (piece of skull missing and visible brain matter) and could provoke attacks against troops and more anti-American rhetoric. He made the analogy that it would be like spiking the football after a touchdown and that we don't want to release it as a "trophy".

-Pakistan is under widespread western criticism about how close Osama was to the capital, Islamabad and to the Pakistan's version of West Point, which was located in the same city as his compound.

-Reaction across the Arab world as been relatively quiet with regimes issuing reserved statements, if at all, in fears they could provoke protests in their own countries about becoming an American lackey. There were a couple of street groups hailing Osama as a hero, but they were rare and each were small groups.

-In information found at his compound, there apparently were idea notes on to attack the US's railroad system by trying to derail trains over bridges and by valleys on the anniversary of 9/11. The administration stressed that these were only preliminary ideas and pose no credible threat.

-In a hilarious street group interview, a group of local Pakistani's told a CNN reporter they didn't believe Osama was killed in Pakistan and that he died in Afghanistan 10 years ago. They then said if it really happened why wouldn't the US release the pictures but then the CNN reported asked if the pictures were released would they believe it and they all said "no".

-Beyond that, do me a favor and ignore 90% of the media coverage on this, beyond any new information on who in Pakistan's military/intelligence agencies knew where Osama was or al-Qaeda's reaction is all politicking and bullshit.

White House Correspondents Dinner
-If you guys didn't see Obama's or Seth Myer's (from SNL) speech at this dinner, you should watch them, they are both hilarious.

INTERNATIONAL

Iranian Power Struggle
-As of April 30th, Ahmadinejad has apparently boycotted his official duties for 8 days (thus far), cancelling cabinet meetings and not showing up at his office. Supposedly it is in response to the Ayatollah Khamenei reinstating a cabinet member he had ousted, spurring rumors there is a power struggle underway between the President and the Ayatollah (the Ayatollah holds power over the Presidency).

Syria
-The government of Bashar al-Assad has pretty much all legitimacy in the south of the country as over 600 people have been killed by the security services. Of the 600, over half have been killed in Deraa (where the protests started).

-Reports that tanks have surrounded the city and cut off supplies to the city and have been occasionally shelling the old city.

-UN is considering economic sanctions against the country, the US have frozen assets of top officials and Turkey has become louder in its criticism on the violence the regime has been using, however large scale crackdowns on dissent, including wholesale massacres, is relatively frequent in Syria's history.

Libya
-Pretty much still a stalemate, Misrata still sucks balls to be in, although it is still controlled by the rebels. Reports that an aid ship taking in foreign oil workers and injured out of the city was attacked by government forces.

-A NATO missile struck a Qaddafi compound killed a few of his grandchildren and one of his prominent sons, Saif, who commanded an elite unit of Qaddafi troops.The move was largely seen as a shot across the bow of Qaddafi to get him to stop being a jackass.

Brazil Has More Gay Rights Than the US Does
-Brazil's Supreme Court has ruled that gay couples should have the same rights as married heterosexual couples.

-Yes, an emerging country that is largely Catholic has more rights for gays than American does. Thanks America's religious right.

France Tries to Be Relevant
-Sarkozy stated that France could recognize the Palestinian state (with the Hamas-Fatah unity government I mentioned the other week) if the Israel-Palestinian peace negotiations continued to go nowhere.

-While this is meant to coax Israel back to the negotiation table, this could backfire monumentally if it emboldens the Palestinians to not offer up any concessions to return to the negotiations, as it would be a HUGE milestone if a western country recognized the territory as a sovereign state.


As reported by Jason Van Thiel.