Politics this week

Mar 8th 2007

From The Economist print edition





AFP

Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice-President Dick Cheney, was convicted on four out of five counts of lying to FBI agents and obstruction of justice. The charges had arisen from the leaking of the name of a CIA
agent to the press, in an attempt to discredit an opponent of the
invasion of Iraq. Mr Libby's conviction added to the administration's
growing embarrassment about the war—and about Mr Cheney, one of its
chief promoters. See article
Reports of dilapidated facilities and patient neglect at America's foremost military hospital, the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre,
where many casualties of the Iraq war are being treated, caused uproar
in Congress. On March 1st the man in charge of the hospital,
Major-General George Weightman, was fired, and the next day the army
secretary, Francis Harvey, was forced to resign. President George Bush
announced that he was setting up a bipartisan panel to look into the
treatment of wounded soldiers. See article

Old wounds

Shinzo Abe, Japan's
prime minister, caused offence in neighbouring countries and elsewhere
by suggesting there was no clear evidence that some 200,000 women who
worked as prostitutes for the Japanese army in the 1930s and 1940s had
been coerced. See article

China's parliament, the National People's Congress,
opened its annual 12-day session. The budget was announced, including
an unusual 18% increase in spending on defence. In his “work report”,
Wen Jiabao, the prime minister, promised to reduce inequality. The NPC is expected to pass a controversial law enshrining private property rights. See article
A powerful earthquake struck the Indonesian island of Sumatra,
near the city of Padang, killing more than 50 people. The next day,
more than 20 died in a plane crash at Yogyakarta, on the neighbouring
island of Java. See article
After last month's agreement on steps towards ending its nuclear programme, North Korea started
bilateral talks on normalising relations with both America and Japan.
The talks with Japan ended abruptly on their second day, after a North
Korean walkout, apparently in anger at Japan's stance on North Korea's
abduction of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s.

Plans for peace

Jordan's King Abdullah gave an address to both houses of the American Congress, urging new diplomacy to solve the Palestinian conflict.
Reports suggested that a quartet of Arab states—Egypt, Jordan, Saudi
Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—could join Israel, the Palestinian
president and the United States in talks.
AFP

After a slight drop in Iraq's sectarian
killings, two suicide-bombers, presumed to be Sunni insurgents, killed
at least 117 Shia pilgrims on their way to a festival in the holy city
of Karbala, where more than 1m had gathered; at least 40 others were
also killed in attacks en route. See article
A former deputy defence minister of Iran,
Ali Reza Asghari, a retired general, was reported to have disappeared
last month in Turkey; a Saudi newspaper claimed he was being questioned
“in a northern European country” before being flown to the United
States. It was not clear whether he had defected or been kidnapped.
The first African Union peacekeeping troops, from Uganda, arrived in Somalia's
capital, Mogadishu, to replace Ethiopian troops who helped the
country's transitional government defeat the Islamist militias earlier
this year. They were greeted at the airport by mortar fire from
insurgents.
Three Britons, a British-Italian woman and a French woman disappeared in eastern Ethiopia; their vehicles were found, shot up. Rebels of the Afar tribe were suspected of kidnapping them. See article
Côte d'Ivoire's
president, Laurent Gbagbo, and the main rebel leader, Guillaume Soro,
signed an agreement to end the divided country's civil war. The accord
sets out a timetable for disarmament, voter registration and fresh
elections. See article
The Nigerian
ruling party's presidential candidate, Umaru Yar'Adua, who has a kidney
illness, flew to Germany for a medical examination, casting more doubt
on his suitability as the front-runner in next month's election.

Avuncular Sam

Before departing for a week-long trip to five Latin American countries, George Bush emphasised his commitment to helping the region with social justice, including health, education and housing.
Oscar Berger, the president of Guatemala,
ordered a purge of the police. Four police officers, including the head
of the organised-crime unit, were accused of the murder last month of
three politicians from El Salvador; the police concerned were
themselves murdered days later in jail.
An outbreak of dengue fever in
central South America worsened. Ten people have died in Paraguay;
Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina have also suffered outbreaks, prompted by
heavy rains and flooding.

Once there were peers

Getty Images

Britain's House of Commons voted to create a fully elected House of Lords. Tony Blair, the prime minister, and Jack Straw, the Commons' leader, had favoured a half-elected, half-appointed upper house. See article
European Union leaders held a summit in Brussels to discuss climate change, energy policy and the progress of economic reform.
Estonia's centre-right
prime minister, Andrus Ansip, is likely to remain in office after his
party and its coalition partner took the most votes in the country's
parliamentary election. This is a rare case of a government being
re-elected in eastern Europe.
Planned job cuts at Airbus became an issue in the French presidential election.
As some 15,000 workers went on strike in Toulouse, both of the main
candidates, Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal, promised to pump more
public money into Airbus's parent company if need be to protect jobs in
France.
Ramush Haradinaj, a former prime minister of Kosovo
who was a leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army in the 1998-99 war, went
on trial before the war-crimes tribunal in The Hague. The chief
prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, gave warning that some witnesses against
Mr Haradinaj were being intimidated.