Just when you thought the Troubles were over

Little bit of a disturbing piece in the New York Times today about the rise of race-based attacks in working-class Protestant enclaves in Northern Ireland. Apparently the Good Friday Agreement has issued in a period of relative piece which has caused an uptick in immigration and thus some social instability as a country that is 99% Caucasian reacts to this growing trend.

A Council of Europe report criticizes the Russian government for systematically ignoring thousands of reports of human rights abuses in the Chechen republic. About 70 000 civilians have been killed since 1994 when the republic claimed independence, only to be put down by the Russian military.

I guess Sharon's bribery scandal is bigger than I thought, since he made headlines in most news organizations. According to a poll conducted by the newspaper Maariv, 53% of Israelis believe that he was involved in some type of misconduct. This might account for the lack of support he has been receiving from his own party, since no Likud MKs have yet to speak publicly in support of his innocence.

Looks like Bush II is trying to avoid the fate of Bush I, dropping the talk of going to Mars and focusing rather on economic issues. Unfortunately his plans seem a little bit skimpy, partially to do with the large budget deficit that he is already running. The other proposals he discussed run the gambit of everything I disagree with but are very popular with the Christian right: drug testing in schools, a constitutional amendment barring gay marriage, abstinence education, etc.

In what could create a future breakthrough for the economically ravaged state of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe has agreed to enter formal negotiations with opposition politicians with the help of South African Prime Minister Thabo Mbeki. However, the road is going to be long in this case, as farm land appropriated from white settlers will have to be put back into good use after it was divided up among the Mugabe's supporters.

It looks like Conservative candidate Belinda Stronach is turning out to be more superficial than I thought. The Globe reports that even her own supporters were very unimpressed with her performance in a recent radio interview -- and this was after they had specifically chosen an interviewer with little experience in covering national politics. On the other side of the house, Paul Martin is planning on bringing a message of international development and private investment in developing countries to the Davos forum this week.

In updates:
- The New York Times seems to agree with my prior assessment (not that it was overly profound) that part of the purpose of the Mars announcement was to respond to China's recent statements about putting a man on the moon.
- Pressure from Supreme Leader Ayat Allah Ali Khamenei has led to the reinstatement of 300 previously banned candidates, though on 10% of the amount banned. Current Iranian MPs continue their threat to boycott the election if more reinstatements are not issued.
- An American journalist has made the (obvious) statement that if Vajpayee and Musharraf manage to put together a permanent peace plan for India and Pakistan, they deserve the Nobel prize.

Finally, in the strangest story I've read today, a radio station has been shut down for 30 days in Hungary after the host of a Christmas Eve program suggested that all Christians should be exterminated. What makes this unusual is the use of legislation that was originally designed to protect minority groups in Hungary such as Jews and Gypsies -- in a country where the majority is Roman Catholic.