worldpoliticsdaily.com

U.S. President Bush came to solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but political analysts believe that it is too complicated to be resolved with just a visit like this.  Core difficult and complex issues are the following: sovereignty of Jerusalem (east), return of refugees from Palestinian, and the borders of the future Palestinian state.

This year is a presidential campaign for the United States.  There will also be an upcoming federal election for Dimitry Medvedev, Russia‘s first deputy prime minister.This year is also very vital for Europe as their nations will head for integration and ratify the Lisbon Treaty, which is a new strategy for the European Union.

The US will be releasing $200 million in emergency aid to countries, largely affected by the soaring cost of basic food necessities resulting to riot and chaos such as Africa, Egypt, and elsewhere. Chaos and rioting from Haiti to Bangladesh to Egypt to Mozambiquehas gained global attention to their plight. 

This was largely in response to the appeal made by the World Bank President, Robert Zoellick. 

“While many are worrying about filling their gas tanks, many others around the world are struggling to fill their stomachs, and it is getting more and more difficult every day,” Zoellick said late last week in a speech opening meetings with finance ministers.

Hopefully this will somewhat ease the affected country’s woes.

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According to counterterrorism officials yesterday, the Senior al Qaeda Planner Abu Obeida al Masri has died. He was identified as the key person in the London transit bombings in 2005 and a failed 2006 plot to blow up U.S. bound commercial airliners.

al Qaeda decided to hold off the announcement of the death in the hopes that they could claim martyrdom as part of the terrorist operation, but none materialized. There was no comment on how the chief planner died. Unfortunately, his position has now been taken by another Egyptian, Sheik Sayed al Masri, a finance official at al Qaeda’s organization.

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The Zimbabweans are going to vote for their next President. Some voters slept at the polling stations, most got in line before dawn. A guard has left his post at a mall and walked for two hours before he got to the polling station, and even teenagers are now flocking to vote. One of them said, “The young people were not really interested because they had no real concerns. Now things are hard for us. Most of us are unemployed and our parents cannot support us because they have younger children (our siblings) to send to school.”

Will this be President Robert Mugabe’s last few days as President? A lot of critics say that it is. Here are just some of the reasons why they think so:

• 100,000% increase in inflation
• HIV/AIDS cases have increased
• Currency is now worthless
• Food and Fuel shortages

His two opposition candidates, Morgan Tsvangirai and Simba Makoni believes that they will win because of the reasons above. However, if no one wins more than 51 percent of the votes, the two may likely unite and go for a second round.

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The six major world powers which includes Germany, Russia, France, Britain, United States and China, has circulated a proposal for resolution of third sanctions against Iran to call for vigilance on all banks, asset freezes, and travel bans.  This is because Iran pressed on with its nuclear work, despite UN sanctions.

The crisis in Kenya showed no sign of ceasing. The post-election economic damages cost up to 1 billion USD, left almost half a million homeless and 486 dead. Fortunately, international mediation looks like it is progressing, when political groups have decided to cooperate with Kofi Annan, UN secretary-general, to settle the problems.

The U.S. aids Iraq’s Prime Minister by sending in an airstrike against the Shi’ite militias last Thursday and Friday. This happened amidst the escalating violence and political infighting within the nation.

Although American officials said that this campaign is lead by the Iraqi forces, they have been unable to secure Basra and requested for assistance from both the American and British military. Help came in the form of Helicopters. It exchanged fire with the ground-based Shi’ite militia in Baghdad. Rockets smashing the Sunni Vice President’s office, killing one person.

Currently the nation is under curfew, as the Mahdi Army fighters and the combined American and Iraqi soldiers fight it out.

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Not so good. According to reports, they say that the North Korea’s Missile Testing the other day was a, …kind of activity is not constructive, rather their government should concentrate on completing their list of nuclear weapons activities and finishing the disablement of its nuclear program.

Last Friday morning, North Korea launched test missiles three ship-to-ship missiles. This came a day after South Korea commented that any further expansions of the project in Kaesong would happen once the North resolved the nuclear weapons issue. South Korean President, Lee Myung-bak said they will be closely monitoring the situation.

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