1 | Seoul
Stakes High at Global Summit
Global unease over the U.S. Federal Reserve’s quantitative-easing plan, which will inject $600 billion into the economy, created a tense diplomatic environment ahead of the Group of 20 summit in Seoul. Big exporters such as China and Germany voiced frustrations with QE2 (as the Fed’s plan is known), claiming the flood of money will devalue the dollar and imperil the competitiveness of other economies. President Obama challenged such claims, saying that stimulating spending in the U.S. was in everyone’s interest. Other macroeconomic sore points, including banking and exchange rates, are also expected to dominate the G-20 discussion. While China wants to spur domestic consumer spending, the odds of Beijing’s agreeing to allow its undervalued currency to rise are very low.
2 | Jakarta
Muslim Outreach, Part II
More than a year since he addressed the Muslim world from Cairo, President Obama reached out once again during his visit to Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country. Speaking before thousands at a Jakarta university, Obama repeated the now familiar refrain that the U.S. is not at war with Islam and extolled Indonesia’s pluralistic democracy as an example to other Muslim-majority nations. But polls suggest that the tide of goodwill generated earlier by Obama has ebbed, with many Muslims disappointed by the U.S.’s continued wars overseas and its inability to get the Middle East peace process going.
3 | Guinea
An Election At Last
After weeks of violent clashes between rival ethnic groups, Guineans peacefully cast ballots to determine who would be the African nation’s first democratically elected President. The vote comes after 52 years of military rule, which ended last fall following the massacre of 157 antigovernment protesters in a stadium.
4 | China
Political Crackdown Intensifies
Beijing imposed more travel restrictions on Chinese rights advocates in an attempt to prevent activists from attending this year’s Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Norway. The new measures include detention and surveillance and accompany a steady drumbeat of anti-Nobel rhetoric. The prizewinner, prominent dissident Liu Xiaobo, remains behind bars, and his wife is under house arrest in Beijing.
5 | Oklahoma
Shari’a-Law Ban Blocked
Though more than 70% of Oklahomans voted in an Election Day referendum to ban considering or using Shari’a or international law in state courts, a federal judge temporarily blocked the measure after a lawsuit was filed by a Muslim resident of the state. The suit claims that the law violates the First Amendment’s establishment clause concerning religion and that it has no secular purpose. But the law’s supporters say the judge’s decision goes against voter will.
6 | Paris
A New Gas Guzzler
Global energy use will grow 36% by the year 2035, spurred mostly by China’s rapid increase in energy consumption, according to the International Energy Agency’s annual report. China overtook the U.S. in 2009 to become the largest energy user, and its per capita consumption–currently one-fifth the U.S.’s–is expected to rise over the coming decades, with automobile use projected to increase tenfold.
Primary energy demand in the U.S. and China
(MTOE: energy output equivalent to 1 million metric tons of oil)
USA
CHINA
3,500 MTOE
2,500
1,500
500
SOURCE: INTERNATIONAL ENERGY AGENCY
7 | Yemen
Pursuing Al-Awlaki
A Yemeni judge ordered the arrest of Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical cleric linked to several U.S. terrorist plots. Two days later, a video was released of the American-born al-Awlaki–believed to be a force in the Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula–calling for death to Americans. But his followers will see less of him: YouTube has removed videos of some of his sermons.
8 | Burma
A Vote Without Hope
In a foregone conclusion, the main political party backed by Burma’s ruling junta claimed an overwhelming victory in the country’s first election in 20 years. Foreign journalists and observers were barred from monitoring the vote, which has been widely dismissed abroad as a rubber stamp for Burma’s repressive military regime.
9 | Congo Republic
Polio Emergency Declared
The U.N. prepared to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of people as a polio scare swept through the port city of Pointe-Noire. More than 200 cases of paralysis–one of the disease’s main symptoms–and about 100 deaths were reported; officials blamed the lack of recent immunization campaigns on the country’s political instability. The disease was thought to have been eradicated in the Republic of the Congo in 2000.
10 | Western Sahara
CLASHES BREAK OUT
The long-disputed territory saw its worst violence in decades after Moroccan security forces dismantled a protest camp set up by thousands of Saharawi. The flare-up arose as another round of U.N.-mediated talks between Morocco and the pro-independence Polisario Front–both of which claim sovereignty over the area–were about to commence. The meetings ended without a resolution.
* | Who’s Rapping in Zimbabwe:
President Robert Mugabe, 86, is the unlikely star of several music videos by African group the Born Free Crew. According to the Guardian, the group set a recording of the aged leader mocking “old white folks’ behinds” to a dance beat. He is also shown using a Shona-language slang equivalent of “Wassup?” Although the despot didn’t create the videos, he reportedly approves of them as a way to appeal to young voters ahead of next year’s elections.
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