3/15/2010

News round up

Posted by Andrew |

Here's a look at some of today's news:

1. US Secretary of State Clinton has given Netanyahu a list of demands which must be satisfied to restore "strained" US-Israeli relations.

She also called for an official Israeli declaration that talks with the Palestinians will deal with all of the conflict's core issues, including borders, the status of Jerusalem, refugees, and settlements, the paper reported.

Clinton had earlier told Netanyahu that his government was putting US ties at risk by failing to take action towards renewed Middle East peace talks.

2. Opposition leaders in Egypt are demanding that the next grand sheikh of Al-Azhar be voted on by a group of scholars. The spot was vacated last week with the death of the late Grand Sheikh Tantawi, 81.

Opposition leader Ayman Nour wrote in the daily al-Dostour: “May God have mercy on Sheikh Tantawi for his religious knowledge, and forgive him for working in politics.

“We hope that a respected scholar would come to lead al-Azhar, modernize its role and regain its status,” added Nour.

3. A coalition of business groups led by the US Chamber of Commerce has spent over $11 million this month alone (and could reach $30 million) on advertising targeting certain Democrats, pressuring them to vote against health care legislation.

Not only are these swing Democrats being pummeled in the new spate of advertising — which could total $30 million before week’s end — but extensive efforts are under way in Congressional districts, where groups on both sides of the issue are using tactics similar to get-out-the-vote drives to urge constituents to contact their lawmakers. Mr. Obama is calling lawmakers, too, and on Monday is traveling to Ohio to open a weeklong campaign to close this act of the health care debate

4. Panic in the country of Georgia as a news channel broadcast a fake report claiming the Russians were invading the state. Resulting in a public reaction similar to that of Orson Welles' War of the Worlds, citizens rushed to the supermarkets, called loved ones on their cellphones (crashing the network), and some had heart pains.

Looking nervous and fumbling with papers as if juggling the chaos of a breaking news story, the anchor announced that sporadic fighting had begun on the streets of Tbilisi, the capital, that Russian bombers were airborne and heading for Georgia, that troops were skirmishing to the west and that a tank battalion was reported to be on the move.

The broadcast showed tanks rumbling down a road, billowing exhaust, along with jerky images of a fighter jet racing out of the sky and dropping bombs.

5. Some people are asking why the ultra-conservative commentator Glenn Beck hates Jesus, after he recently said on his show that Christians should leave their churches if there is any talk of "social justice."

When Glenn Beck told listeners of his radio show on March 2 that they should "run as fast as you can" from any church that preached "social or economic justice" because those were code words for Communism and Nazism, he probably thought he was tweaking a few crunchy religious liberals who didn't listen to the show anyway...

6. Just as the US contemplated bombing China in the 1960s to prevent it from getting the bomb, conservative commentators are still calling for an attack on Iran citing their alleged irrationality and suicidal ambitions. However, should Iran get the bomb, containment works.

So what is the argument for containment? Basically, it assumes that if China and Russia changed over decades, so might Iran. And nuclear weapons can handcuff a nation as easily as they can empower it. Last week, at the University of Oklahoma, Mr. Brzezinski argued that either an Iranian bomb or an attack on Iran would be “a calamity, a disaster.” He said containment could work because Iran “may be dangerous, assertive and duplicitous, but there is nothing in their history to suggest they are suicidal.”

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