The UN said that nearly 800 people had died of cholera in Zimbabwe;
suspected cases rose to over 15,000. South African officials said part
of their border with Zimbabwe was subsequently a “disaster area”.
Zimbabwe’s government continued to hound human-rights and opposition
campaigners, 18 of whom have gone missing since October.
In a so-far-peaceful presidential election in Ghana
the candidate of the ruling party, Nana Akufo-Addo, got just over 49%
of the vote, while his rival, John Atta Mills of the main opposition
party, got nearly 48%. A run-off will take place on December 28th.
In South Africa
a breakaway faction of the ruling African National Congress, facing its
first test at the polls, won many seats in by-elections for local
councils across the country.
Israel’s outgoing
prime minister, Ehud Olmert, described recent attacks by Jewish
settlers on Palestinians in and around the West Bank city of Hebron as
a “pogrom”, after Israeli security forces forcibly removed militant
settlers from a disputed house in the city.
Michael Ignatieff, a former writer, took over as leader of Canada’s opposition
Liberals from Stéphane Dion. Mr Dion had hoped to oust Stephen Harper’s
Conservative minority government by forming a centre-left coalition; Mr
Harper dodged that by securing a short suspension of Parliament. Mr
Ignatieff is cooler towards the coalition plan.
In a provincial election in Quebec,
Jean Charest, the Liberal premier, won a majority and a third term, but
the separatist Parti Québécois did better than predicted.
Mexico’s Congress
approved a bill to rationalise police powers, allowing undercover
agents and wiretap evidence but also requiring officers to register all
arrests more quickly. The government is trying to strengthen the police
in the face of violence from drug gangs in which nearly 5,400 people
have died this year.
In Argentina,
forensic anthropologists confirmed that more than 10,000 bone fragments
found inside a former detention centre were human remains. At least
10,000 people disappeared at the hand of a military dictatorship in the
late 1970s and early 1980s as part of a “dirty war” against leftist
guerrillas.
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Federal prosecutors arrested the Democratic governor of Illinois for corruption. Rod Blagojevich
was charged, among other things, with trying to “sell” the Senate seat
vacated by Barack Obama on his presidential win. The United States
attorney leading the investigation stressed that Mr Obama was not
involved.
The events in Illinois were an unwelcome distraction for Mr Obama, who earlier provided details about his plans for a public-works programme, describing it as the largest new investment since road-building projects in the 1950s.
Eric Shinseki
was nominated to be secretary for veterans’ affairs in the Obama
administration. As army chief of staff in 2003, General Shinseki gave
prescient testimony to Congress that more troops would be required to
stabilise Iraq, leading to a public falling-out with the then defence
secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.
At a pre-trial hearing in Guantánamo, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,
the self-confessed mastermind behind the September 11th 2001 terrorist
attacks, and four co-defendants said they wanted to plead guilty. They
were told that doing so could mean they would not be sentenced to
death, an outcome they ardently desire.
The Republicans won a special election for a New Orleans
seat in the House of Representatives. The nine-term Democratic
incumbent, William Jefferson, had become ensnared in a bribery
investigation; $90,000 in cash was found in his freezer. The district’s
new representative will be Anh “Joseph” Cao, the first
Vietnamese-American to serve in Congress.
A military jet on a training mission from the USS Abraham Lincoln crashed into a San Diego neighbourhood, killing four people on the ground. The pilot ejected to safety.
In China,
year-on-year exports fell by 2% in November, with imports down by 18%.
The shocking data suggest an unprecedented slowdown—between 2000 and
2006 Chinese exports grew at an annual average rate of 26%.
Partly thanks to China’s slowdown, Japan’s
economy shrank at an annualised 1.8% in the three months to September,
worse than expected. The popularity of Taro Aso, prime minister since
September, continued to slide, as doubts about his future grew.
China celebrated the 60th anniversary of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights by arresting dozens of peaceful protesters
In the latest struggle between followers and opponents of ousted prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, Thailand’s
opposition claimed to have the support of enough members of parliament
to form a new anti-Thaksin government when parliament convenes for a
special session.
Pakistan
arrested a score of Islamist militants, including two members of the
banned Lashkar-e-Taiba. One of them is said by India to be the
mastermind behind the recent terrorist attack on Mumbai.
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An orgy of riots broke out across Greece after
a policeman shot a teenager dead in Athens. The government wobbled, the
opposition called for a new election and the trade unions staged a
general strike.
European Union
leaders gathered in Brussels for the final summit of France’s six-month
stint in the EU presidency. President Nicolas Sarkozy hoped to secure
last-ditch deals on climate change and economic stimulus measures, plus
an Irish promise to hold a second referendum next year on the Lisbon
treaty.
Vandals desecrated some 500 graves of Muslim war veterans in northern France. Mr Sarkozy called it “the expression of a repugnant racism”.
Ukraine’s
pro-Western “orange” coalition government, which collapsed in
September, was re-formed in a different guise, averting a possible
general election. The Ukrainian economy is tottering and the country is
borrowing $16 billion from the IMF.
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