News Roundup

I'm going to try and start a daily tradition of providing a brief news roundup everyday.

Domestic News

(1) Lewis Libby, a senior aide to Vice President Dick Cheney who was indicted in the CIA leak investigation, has resigned and left the White House. Libby was indicted on five criminal counts of obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements after a two-year investigation into the leak of a covert CIA operative's identity.

The Toronto Star provides the details. Also consider USA Today and Slate.

(2) The debate over Harriet Miers continues. Yesterday, White House Counsel Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination to the the Supreme Court. President Bush reluctantly accepted it. MSNBC provides the details.

(3) Libby and Rove are not the only Republicans under fire these days. A coin dealer and major GOP donor, Tom Noe, finds himself at the center of a scandal in Ohio. He was charged Thursday with illegally funneling $45,400 in contributions to President Bush's re-election bid. MSN Money provides the details.

(4) People in Deleware mistake a woman who hung herself for Halloween decorations.(Did the realism tip anyone off?) BBC News has the details.

World News

(1) The details of the oil-for-food scandal keep emerging. The Post-Gazette explains.

(2) Iran's radical comments about Death to Israel and burying the Zionist enemy yesterday spurned widespread condemnation from many major political leaders in Europe and in America. News network Al Jazeera provides those details. With continuing pressure from the EU and the US toward Iran's nuclear programme, Xinhua reports that the Security Council is considered a British-drafted presidential statement to denounce the leader's comments. Given that Israel called for the ejection of Iran from the United Nations, Kofi Annan's comment that "Israel, a long-standing member of the United Nations, had the same rights and obligations as every other member" might be either a direct response to Israel or Iran.

(3) Al Jazeera provides the details on the Israeli bombings of the Islamic Jihad in Palestine.

(4) The International Herald Tribune reports that North Korea may be returning to the world again.

(5) ABC News: the Sunnis will take part in elections and are fielding candidates.

(6)The Security Council is truly busy with the Middle East as that body is consider a Franco-American resolution against Syria. Forbes provides the info. With Britain also sponsoring the bill, most of the opposition in the council is coming from countries like Algeria. At issue is "the paragraph containing an implicit threat of economic or diplomatic sanctions under article 41 of the UN Charter." The article continues: "The potential sanctions themselves have also been toned down, especially those dealing with travel restrictions and the freezing of funds and assets that UN members are called to comply with. Travel restrictions would not apply 'on grounds of humanitarian need, including religious obligation' or where the monitoring committee deems an exemption is justified, according to the new draft. Funds and other assets would be exempted from freezing when they are deemed 'necessary for basic expenses, including payments for foodstuffs, rent or mortgage, medicines and medical treatment, taxes, insurance premiums, and public utility charges' or for payment of some legal fees."

(7) France decides that its farms are more important the free trade and global justice. News Telegraph provides the details.

(8) Lastly, Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi, in the name of regional peace, is urged to stop his controversial visits as a head of state to the Yasukuni war shrine, which is host to many Japanese military dead including WWII war criminals.

Posted by John Stevenson at 11:28 AM |