News of Note
A Zimbabwean government spokesman is accusing Britain of taking advantage of the cholera epidemic raging through the south of the country to rally western support for an invasion. Illustrative of the Mugabe regime's usual paranoia. While it torments its indigent populations and celebrates its incompetency. Meanwhile, it is the newly-elected president of Kenya, Raila Odinga, who underwent his own electoral disagreement, who is calling for South Africa and others to come to the aid of Zimbabweans by finally unseating Robert Mugabe.Three million faithful have descended upon Saudi Arabia for the annual Mecca pilgrimage, representing a record number of pilgrims travelling to the Islamic holy sites in the country. In a sermon, Saudi Grand Mufti Abdul Aziz al-Sheik, addressing a crowd of worshippers couldn't resist a dig at the West by denouncing them for ignoring God's rules on usury, resulting in the global financial meltdown. Far more important, he urged the Muslin world to unite in battling the scourge of terrorism. More emphasis, more frequently, please.
And in Ghana, voters went to the polls to elect a successor to their president, John Kufuor, who relaxed his parliamentary rule, satisfied he had done his best for his country, and urging the electorate to do their duty. There were no incidents of violence or intimidation. "I have finished my two terms ... on a good note", Mr. Kufuor remarked. "It's up to my successor to take the mantle from where I have left and Ghana will be a beacon in Africa and the world at large." Amen and Hallelujah!
China is once again in monumental high dudgeon over France's President Nicholas Sarkozy, temporary head of the European Union, slighting its fragile feelings by meeting with the Dalai Lama. China accuses Mr. Sarkozy of harming relations between China and the European Union by this gratuitous insult. Claiming that the meeting between the statesman and the man of peace has undermined Beijing's relations with France and Europe. Too sad.
Where are the world-renowned philosophers of yore when Greece most needs them? Hard to believe a cultured society with glorious intellectual, artistic, architectural, political and social history has trudged into the present with the same kind of wild violence as occurs in Paris's refugee slums. With violent riots on a large scale erupting right across the country, impacting on central Athens, Salonika, Patras and Ioannina. Youths and university students in the thousands protesting the police having shot a young protester who was pelting them with rocks. Does this represent civilization's thin veneer? The incendiary flint of bored and restless youth?
Labels: World News
posted by Pieface @ Monday, December 08, 2008
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