Weekly Round Up: Bush - The Worst President Ever, US Embraces Socialism, New Hope In N'Ireleand And British Firms Finance Mugabe Regime!

It’s been a quiet week in the world of politics, the main focus of the week has been the midweek speech by President Bush and the criticisms on trying send additional troops to their death beds in Iraq. Critics from around the world (including foreign governments) have long been saying he is sticking with a failed policy by send in more American troops it didn’t offer anything new. In Russia, Kremlin-connected political analyst Sergei Markov told the RIA-Novosti news agency that the Iraq plan could make Bush "the worst president of the USA in the past 100 years." I wonder if he cares. Another President in trouble is that of Israel. Moshe Katsav temporarily relinquished his powers as Israel's president, but defied demands from officials to quit outright and spare the nation more anguish over rape and sexual assault allegations levelled against him. Dozens of lawmakers, meanwhile, pressed ahead with a move to oust him. Veteran statesman Shimon Peres is expected to get this the prestigious post that slipped from his grasp seven years ago. Staying in Israel, the government had appointed a Arab Muslim to the cabinet for the first time in the history of the Jewish state, despite opposition from ultra-nationalists and some Arab lawmakers. Ghaleb Majadleh, 53, from the centre-left Labour party, becomes minister without portfolio in the coalition government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The bad news is that Majadleh, replaces former culture minister Ophir Pines-Paz who resigned in October in protest against racism.

Here is all the other news from around the world…

North America
Canada offers rendition victim compensation
The Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper, apologised and announced a C$10.5m (£4.5m) compensation package to Maher Arar, a victim of extraordinary rendition, who was sent to Syria and tortured.

Mr Harper repeated his call for the US government to remove the Ottawa engineer from any of its no-fly or terrorist watchlists and reiterated that his government would keep pressing Washington to clear Mr Arar's name.

The US government has repeatedly insisted it has reasons to leave the 37-year-old wireless technology consultant on its watchlists. The issue has grown into an unpleasant diplomatic row between the world's largest trading partners and closest allies. The new Democratic chairman of the US Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Patrick Leahy, earlier this month publicly scolded the US attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, for refusing to explain why the United States had sent a Canadian citizen to Syria.

Mr Arar, who came to Canada from Syria with his family when he was 17, is the best known case of rendition, a practice in which the US government sends foreign terror suspects to third countries for interrogation.

US urges scientists to block out sun
The US wants the world's scientists to develop technology to block sunlight as a last-ditch way to halt global warming.

It says research into techniques such as giant mirrors in space or reflective dust pumped into the atmosphere would be "important insurance" against rising emissions, and has lobbied for such a strategy to be recommended by a UN report on climate change, the first part of which is due out on Friday).

The US has also attempted to steer the UN report, prepared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), away from conclusions that would support a new worldwide climate treaty based on binding targets to reduce emissions. It has demanded a draft of the report be changed to emphasise the benefits of voluntary agreements and to include criticisms of the Kyoto Protocol, which the US opposes.

Scientists have previously estimated that reflecting less than 1 per cent of sunlight back into space could compensate for the warming generated by all greenhouse gases emitted since the industrial revolution. Possible techniques include putting a giant screen into orbit, thousands of tiny, shiny balloons, or microscopic sulfate droplets pumped into the high atmosphere to mimic the cooling effects of a volcanic eruption. The IPCC draft said such ideas were "speculative, uncosted and with potential unknown side-effects".

South America
Argentina may reveal Dirty War secrets
Argentina on Friday authorized officials to reveal state secrets if called to testify in human rights trials, a move intended to speed up prosecution of atrocities committed during the country's 1976-1983 military dictatorship.

In other developments, a federal judge probing right-wing death squads that operated during the chaotic, 20-month presidency of Isabel Peron issued a new warrant for her arrest in Spain.

President Nestor Kirchner's decree lifts the ban on former and current military, police and government officials from revealing state secrets in certain court cases.

Nearly 13,000 people are officially listed as missing from the dictatorship era's state crackdown on leftist dissent. Human rights groups say the toll is closer to 30,000. Dirty War cases took on new life after Argentina's Supreme Court annulled 1980s amnesty laws two years ago. Those laws had shielded former military and police agents allegedly allied with the junta.

Former President Isabel Peron, who has lived in Spain since her 1981 exile, is awaiting an extradition request in connection with death-squad killings during her 1974-1976 rule.

Tijuana officers get their guns back
Police in this violent border city got their guns back Saturday three weeks after they were forced to turn over weapons to federal authorities because of allegations they were colluding with drug traffickers.

Tijuana Public Safety Secretary Luis Javier Algorri said soldiers returned all 2,130 guns to his department. The officers handed in their guns Jan. 4 after President Felipe Calderon sent 3,300 soldiers and federal police to Tijuana to hunt down drug gangs.

Tijuana police initially stopped patrols after their guns were taken, saying it was too dangerous, but most later returned to work. In some cases, officers were accompanied by armed state police. Others patrolled in larger numbers than normal. One officer was seen holding a slingshot that he said was for his protection.

Drug gangs were blamed for more than 2,000 murders nationwide in 2006 and have left a particularly bloody trail in Tijuana, where more than 300 people were slain last year.

Europe
Sinn Fein votes to back police - a 1st
Sinn Fein members overwhelmingly voted Sunday to begin cooperating with the Northern Ireland police, a long-unthinkable commitment that could spur the return of a Catholic-Protestant administration for the British territory.

The result — confirmed by a sea of raised hands but no formally recorded vote — meant Sinn Fein, once a hard-left party committed to a socialist revolution, has abandoned its decades-old hostility to law and order.

The vote, taken after daylong debate among 2,000 Sinn Fein stalwarts, represented a stunning triumph for Sinn Fein chief Gerry Adams, the former Irish Republican Army commander who has spent 24 years edging his IRA-linked party away from terror and toward compromise.

It strongly improved the chances of reviving power-sharing, the long-elusive goal of the 1998 Good Friday peace pact, by Britain's deadline of March 26.

Some IRA veterans recalled beatings inflicted on them by detectives during interrogations. Others noted they had served long prison sentences for attacks on police, more than 300 of whom were killed during the IRA's failed 1970-1997 campaign.

Ex-spy's killers likely to slip the net
British police have told the widow of murdered Russian ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko that their two main suspects will escape prosecution, even though they have enough evidence to charge them.

The Sunday Times reported that officers believe they have "no chance" of securing the extradition of the former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoi and businessman Dimitri Kovtun.

"Marina [Litvinenko] was told that officers were very confident they knew who had done it and had cracked the case, but had no alternative but to close the file because they had no chance of extraditing their suspects," the paper quoted an unnamed source as saying.

Mr Litvinenko, an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin's Russian Government whose associates blame the Kremlin for his death, died in a London hospital on November 23. He was found to have large doses of the highly radioactive isotope Polonium-210 in his body.

On November 1, Mr Litvinenko drank tea with Mr Lugovoi and Mr Kovtun at the Millennium Hotel in London. He first complained of feeling unwell later that day after meeting an Italian contact in a nearby sushi bar. Police believe he was poisoned with a fatal dose of radiation in a cup of tea he drank at the hotel, according to reports on Britain's Sky News and ABC television in the US on Friday.

Government's proposed Olympic site is 'radioactive'
The Government's proposed site for the Olympic village which will house athletes at the 2012 London Games is contaminated by potentially dangerous levels of radioactive waste.

A report commissioned 14 years ago revealed that quantities of radium and uranium uncovered on land where the showpiece complex will be built are three times higher than recommended safety guidelines.

But the London Development Authority (LDA), which is preparing the land on which the venues will be built, received the document only last year.

The disclosure is a further embarrassment for Labour, which has been hit by a string of controversies since London won the bid in 2005 to host the Games.

Last year Jack Lemley, the US engineer hired to run the building scheme, quit after claiming the Government had ignored the high levels of radiation on the sites. A total of £220million has been allocated to clean up the area where the Games will be staged but experts have warned more cash will be needed.

Rift widens among nations over Kosovo
Russia is pressing for more time to examine a U.N. proposal for the future of Kosovo, Western and Russian officials said Friday, underscoring a widening rift between Moscow - a key ally of Serbia and the United States and its European allies.

Russia is a traditional ally of Serbia, which considers Kosovo the heart of its ancient homeland and insists that it remain part of Serbian territory. Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority has been pushing for outright independence.

Kosovo has been under U.N. control since mid-1999 when NATO airstrikes ended former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists and is currently patrolled by a 16,000-strong NATO-led peacekeeping force.

International mediators have held yearlong talks between ethnic Albanian and Serbian leaders on issues such as giving self-rule to Serbs in areas where they form a majority, protecting their religious and cultural monuments and offering them constitutional guarantees so they are not overruled.

Fat people 'are given a slimmer wage packet'
Fatter people pay the price of being overweight by earning less, a Europe-wide study has found.
For every 10 per cent increase in body mass index (BMI), a man loses 3.27 per cent in earnings, and a woman 1.86 per cent.

The effect is much stronger in the countries of Southern Europe — the Olive Belt — than it is in the “beer belt” of Northern Europe, say the authors, Giorgio Brunello, of the University of Padua, and Béatrice D’Hombres, of the European Commission’s research centre in Ispra, Italy.

One explanation is that fatter people are so common in the beer belt that they are less likely to be discriminated against than are those living in the svelte world of the “olive belt”. But the issue is fraught with difficulties. The most obvious is distinguishing cause from effect: does being overweight reduce earnings, or do lower earnings cause people to be overweight? Poorer people may have an unhealthier diet, or do less exercise, for example.

Middle East
U.S. may censure Israel for misuse of cluster munitions
The U.S. State Department has completed a preliminary report on whether Israel misused American-made cluster bombs in civilian areas of Lebanon.

State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper said Saturday the report will be forwarded to Congress on Monday, but declined to disclose the findings, emphasizing that they are preliminary. The Israeli government is also taking quite seriously their responsibility in providing information, Cooper said. We are not making a final judgment.

The New York Times reported on its Internet site Saturday evening that the report will say Israel may have violated agreements with the United States by its use of American-supplied cluster munitions during last year's war in Lebanon.

A congressional investigation found Israel improperly used U.S.-made cluster bombs during its 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Then-President Ronald Reagan's administration then imposed a six-year ban on further sales of the weapons to Israel. Such sanctions are largely symbolic, however, since Israel also makes its own cluster munitions.

US to reopen Iraq's factories in $10m U-turn
US officials in Iraq are planning to re-open lumbering state industries set up as part of Saddam Hussein's command economy in an attempt to bring jobs to the country's most troubled areas.

Moribund government-owned plants, including ageing tractor factories, tyre manufacturers and cement companies, have been earmarked for a multi-million dollar scheme designed to lure Iraqis away from the insurgents' payroll.

The plan represents an extraordinary U-turn on the part of President George W Bush's officials in Baghdad, who in 2003 insisted on an aggressive privatisation programme which forced Iraq's 240 public enterprises to operate without subsidy, or close.

They viewed the bloated state sector, with its inflated workforce of 300,000 people, as little more than a tool of patronage used by Saddam to cement the rule of his Arab Ba'ath Socialist Party.

Now, however, with the country facing civil war, such Stalinist state enterprises are to get a second lease of life, this time courtesy of a Republican administration better known as a staunch advocate of free-market economics.

Mr Brinkley admitted that some sceptics had jokingly branded him a "Stalinist," but said: "We've looked at some of these factories more closely and found they aren't quite the rundown Soviet-era enterprises we thought they were.

Report: Iran almost ready to launch spy satellite into space
Iran has converted a 30-ton ballistic missile into a satellite launch vehicle that will soon be used to send a reconnaissance satellite into space, a move that could have wide security implications, Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine reported on its Web site on Thursday.

Alaeddin Boroujerdi, the chairman of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, spoke about the upcoming launch to religious students and clerics in Qom, the industry trade publication said.

The launcher is a version of the Shahab-3 missile that has a range of 800 to 1,000 miles (1,285-1,600 kilometers), the magazine said, citing unidentified U.S. agencies. A missile of its kind could reach Saudi Arabia and as far west as Turkey, the report said.

Additionally, improvements in space launches could help Iran build an intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of almost 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers), according to the magazine.

Iran's satellite launch will likely increase Western concern over its strategic capabilities and intentions, the magazine said.

The former head of the Israel Missile Defense Organization, Uzi Rubin, said that, "ultimately, [Iran's] space program aims to orbit reconnaissance satellites like Israel's 'Ofek,' using an Iranian satellite launcher from Iranian territory."

Asia
India to set up aerospace defence command
India will set up an aerospace defence command to shield itself against possible attacks from outer space, officials said. The announcement came three days after Russia backed India's response to a Chinese satellite-destroying weapons test that demanded a "weapons free outer space."

Indian Air Force (IAF) chief Shashi Tyagi said it was in the process of establishing an aerospace defence command "to exploit outer space," the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency reported. Tyagi said IAF would seek civilian help for the project.

Military sources said the IAF would try and replicate the North American Aerospace Defence Command set up by the United States and Canada which detects and tracks threatening man-made objects in outer space.

The Indian command's charter will also include ensuring air sovereignty and air defence, they said. The IAF, the world's fourth largest with around 800 combat jets and some 400 support aircraft, plans to establish air superiority in Asia with the acquisition of 126 latest war jets at a cost of some seven billion dollars.

The IAF has developed air-launched cruise missile systems. It also has a key role in the deployment of India's nuclear arms arsenal. China, which fought a bitter border war with India in 1962, destroyed an orbiting satellite this month using a ballistic missile -- making it the third country after Russia and the US with such capabilities.

Psychologist evaluates 'jungle woman'
A Spanish psychologist met Tuesday with Cambodia's "jungle woman," hoping to unravel some of the mystery surrounding the woman who emerged from the forest, naked and unable to speak, after what may have been nearly two decades in the wild.

Hector Rifa, a doctor of psychology from Spain's University of Oviedo, said his priority was to ensure the woman was receiving proper treatment for whatever traumatic experience she has undergone.

But it was possible he may find clues to the woman's true identity — whether she is indeed a girl who disappeared in 1988 while tending water buffalo, as claimed by a family in northeastern Cambodia who has taken her in as their long-lost daughter.

Rifa said he plans to spend several days at the home of village policeman Sal Lou, who claims the woman is his 27-year-old daughter Rochom P'ngieng.

Rifa has been working with indigenous people in Rattanakiri province over the past four years for the Spain-based group Psychology Without Borders. He told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he thinks the woman's behavior shows she is having difficulty adapting to normal life, as would be expected if she had been lost in the jungle for an extended period of time.

Africa
British firms have financial links to Mugabe regime
Three British firms, including Barclays Bank, are reportedly providing millions of pounds (euros, dollars) worth of financial support to Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe.

Standard Chartered Bank and the insurance firm Old Mutual are the other firms reportedly linked to the regime, condemned by human rights organisations worldwide for its oppressiveness.

Citing an investigation by London-based newsletter Africa Confidential, the Observer said that Barclays provided a 30 million pound (46 million euro, 59 million dollar) loan to a state facility which aims to sustain land reform.

One of the most controversial of Mugabe's policies, this has seen the government seize at least 4,000 farms for redistribution to landless blacks.

In total, the three companies provide more than one billion pounds' (euros', dollars') worth of direct and indirect funding to the Mugabe regime, according to the Observer.

Rwanda to release 8,000 more suspects
Rwanda will release more than 8,000 prisoners convicted or awaiting trial in the country's 1994 genocide, many of them elderly and sick, the justice minister said.

There have been several similar prisoner releases since 2003, when President Paul Kagame ordered them as part of an effort to decongest Rwanda's crowded prisons and promote reconciliation. Justice Minister Tharcisse Karugarama said Friday the new releases will begin in February.

Some 63,000 genocide suspects are detained in Rwanda, and justice authorities say at least 761,000 people should stand trial for their role in the 100-day slaughter, in which more than 500,000 minority Tutsis were killed by Hutu extremists.

The suspects represent 9.2 percent of Rwanda's estimated 8.2 million people. A U.N. tribunal in Tanzania is trying those accused of masterminding the genocide.

Rwanda has the death penalty for crimes such as murder, but many of those convicted of genocide have been given lesser sentences because they proved they were forced to kill or did not plan the slaughter.

Rwanda's genocide began hours after a plane carrying President Juvenal Habyarimana was mysteriously shot down as it approached the capital, Kigali, on April 6, 1994. The slaughter ended after rebels, led by Kagame, ousted the extremist Hutu government that orchestrated the killings.

Australasia
Australian cop charged over Aborigine's death
A decision to charge an officer over an Aboriginal prisoner's death, hailed as a watershed for Australian indigenous relations, prompted police Saturday to threaten industrial action.

The attorney general of Queensland state, Kerry Shine, said charges would be laid early next week against Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley over the death in custody of Cameron Doomadgee on Palm Island in November 2004.

Queensland's Director of Public Prosecutions, Leanne Clare, sparked widespread protest last year when she ruled there was there was not enough evidence to warrant any charges, despite a coroner finding the policeman was responsible for the death of Doomadgee -- also known as Mulrunji.

However, public outrage prompted an independent review by Sir Laurence Street, the former chief justice of New South Wales, which found enough evidence to charge Hurley with manslaughter.

The small island, with a population of about 2,000, lies 65 kilometres (40 miles) northeast of Townsville, off Australia's east coast. The Guinness Book of Records in 1999 described the island as the most violent place on Earth outside a combat zone, a claim disputed by the Queensland government.