Happy New Year!

The second half of the back-to-back political extravaganza that is the Iowa caucuses and the State of the Union address (and the Democratic reaction) is the major news item today. I actually haven't seen the whole thing yet since I was out at a bar last night and despite attempts to watch it on TV, it was mostly drowned out by the music. Therefore I leave it up to others to do the analysis in the meantime.

Given that we're talking about the State of the Union address though, one of the 'axis of evil' countries, in this case Iran, is still in the middle of a political crises over whether the Guardian Council will disapprove reformist candidates in the upcoming elections. The latest chapter in this story features the en masse resignation of Iranian MPs in protest of this decision. I think this story really shows the problem of the Bush administration's dumbing down of foreign policy. Here we have a country that is definitely not a totalitarian state, having a functioning parliament and a politicized civil society going through the growing pains of demanding more and more freedom from the ruling clerics. Despite all of this going on, the Bush administration decides not to aid in the growth of what could be a fledgling democracy by increasing their ties, but unilaterally rejects the country as a whole by putting them in the axis of evil. The problem is that every other country knows the complexity of the situation and is therefore even more put-off by this brand of foreign policy. This can make for problems, especially when the Bush administration then needs help from the global community to pursue its goals.

This is definitely not Ariel Sharon's week. Admist allegations of using the intelligence service to spy on the Labor party, another scandal has broken concerning bribery. Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is also having problems with the opposition parties after sending Japanese troops to Iraq. There apparently are many concerns that the troops could take part in aggressive operations that are forbidden by the Japanese constitution, which only allows troops to be used in self-defense.

Since I had mentioned it before in passing, I thought I'd add this piece by the Christian Science Monitor that reports on the heavy toll that civilians have been forced to take in the Iraq war. In another interesting story, they detail how Chicago has been using alternative methods to deal with youth crime.

In Canadian news, it seems like firing and suing your former CEO is the way to go for companies, as Hollinger Inc.'s stock price climbed a whopping 97% on Monday. Ed Broadbent easily won the NDP nomination in Ottawa Centre last night. Brad was in attendance, and he said that Mr. Broadbent's speech reminded him of why he was a member of the party in the first place. However, in a move that shows that huge government scandals that put half of your cabinet in jail and cause your party to dissolve itself are irrelevant after enough time has passed, former Saskatchewan premier Grant Devine has indicated that he will seek a federal seat for the new Conservative Party.

In France we have continuing anarchy over the new law prohibiting religious symbols in schools, with the Minister of Education, Luc Ferry, mentioning that both beards and bandannas will be under consideration for the ban. At what point does this whole thing just get silly? Oh yeah, that happened weeks ago.

Finally with the theme of interference in civil liberties we have Saudi Arabia, where a prominent businesswoman attended a conference without a burka or veil, thereby angering Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul-Aziz al-Sheikh, the highest religious authority in the country. It's understandable that this is where France is coming from when they try to ban religious symbols from schools, but it's unfortunate that they do it at the expense of sacrificing other civil liberties.