Politics this week

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Sep 11th 2008
From The Economist print edition



Asif Zardari was sworn in as president of Pakistan after easily winning indirect election in the provincial and federal parliaments. During the voting a bomb killed more than 30 people in Peshawar, in North-West Frontier Province. Mr Zardari’s swearing-in was attended by Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai. At a joint press conference, Mr Zardari stressed his commitment to defeating terrorists. See article

The Nuclear Suppliers Group, a 45-country cartel governing trade in nuclear goods and technologies, agreed to a waiver for India. This forms part of India’s agreement on civilian nuclear co-operation with America, first announced in 2005. America’s own Congress has yet to give its final nod. See article

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North Korean officials denounced as a conspiracy reports that their leader, Kim Jong Il, was seriously ill. Mr Kim has not been seen since August 14th. Speculation mounted when he missed massive celebrations to mark the 60th anniversary of the country’s founding. See article

In Bangladesh, Khaleda Zia, a former prime minister, was freed on bail after a year in prison on corruption charges, ahead of elections planned for December to restore multi-party democracy.

Thailand’s Constitutional Court ruled that the prime minister, Samak Sundaravej, must resign for having breached the constitution by doing paid work as a television chef. Anti-government protesters continued their sit-in at his office. See article

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The Palin factor
America’s presidential election turned nasty, as John McCain accused Barack Obama of being sexist and Mr Obama responded that Mr McCain was expressing “phoney outrage”. Amid the gibes about lipstick and pigs, both men agreed to be nice for a day on September 11th and travel to New York for events marking the 2001 terror attacks. Post-convention polls gave Mr McCain a sizeable “bounce”, vaulting him into the lead.

Kwame Kilpatrick said he would step down as Detroit’s mayor. Mr Kilpatrick pleaded guilty to obstructing justice in proceedings that stem from a whistleblower lawsuit and will spend four months in jail.

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A landslide in Angola
The ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) won the country’s first multi-party general election for 16 years, getting 80% of votes cast to 10% for the main opposition party, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). Observers noted shortcomings in the conduct of the election but reckoned it was a big step towards democracy. See article

Negotiators in Zimbabwe said they were close to a power-sharing deal between President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change led by Morgan Tsvangirai, who would become prime minister. But it was still unclear who would call the final shots.

President George Bush said that 8,000-odd American troops, out of the 146,000 currently in Iraq, would be withdrawn by February, and reinforcements would be sent by January to bolster the 33,000 American troops already in Afghanistan. The next president will have to decide on large-scale changes in deployment.

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The American secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, became the most senior American to visit Libya since Muammar Qaddafi took over the country in 1969. Relations between the two countries have warmed since Libya dropped its nuclear-weapons programme in 2003.

A prominent member of Somalia’s parliament, Mohamed Osman Maye, an ally of the country’s beleaguered president, Abdullahi Yusuf, was shot dead outside a mosque in the town of Baidoa, where the parliament sits.

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Storm surge
AP




Coming on the heels of Hurricane Gustav and two tropical storms, Hurricane Ike swept through the Caribbean, wreaking havoc in Haiti—where it caused more than 170 deaths—and forcing mandatory evacuations in Cuba.

Venezuela and Russia announced they would hold joint naval manoeuvres in the Caribbean. America, whose recently revived Fourth Fleet has begun patrolling the area, professed to be unimpressed. See article

The presidents of Argentina and Venezuela, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Hugo Chávez, were cited in evidence in a trial opening in Miami in which the accused are said to have operated in America as unregistered agents of foreign governments. The case stems from the arrest in Buenos Aires last year of a man carrying $800,000. The cash was allegedly a campaign contribution from Mr Chávez to Ms Fernández. Both presidents say the trial is politically motivated.

Canada’s prime minister, Stephen Harper, called an early general election. It will be held on October 14th.

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Europe’s new peacebroker
AP




France’s Nicolas Sarkozy went to Moscow to secure yet another peace deal between Russia and Georgia. The Russians promised to pull their troops out of Georgia within a month, though they will reinforce their troops in the two enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The European Union is to send monitors to help keep the peace. See article

At a European Union summit with Ukraine in Paris, the EU promised to sign an “association agreement” with Ukraine next year, but will not offer any promise of future EU membership, something of a break with tradition. See article

Germany’s Social Democratic Party agreed to nominate Frank-Walter Steinmeier as its candidate for chancellor. Mr Steinmeier will take on the Christian Democrat incumbent, Angela Merkel, in next September’s federal election. See article

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Three British suspected terrorists of Muslim origin were convicted of conspiracy to murder. But a jury could not decide whether they had also conspired, with four others, to blow up airliners using bombs disguised as soft drinks. Prosecutors want a retrial of all seven men on all the charges. See article

After decades of planning and construction, the first protons were circulated around the Large Hadron Collider. The LHC, the world’s biggest scientific experiment, has been built just outside Geneva in a circular tunnel with a circumference of 27km. It is designed to find the Higgs boson, which is needed by physicists to explain the existence of mass, and to explore a branch of physics called supersymmetry. See article