Hamid Karzai has issued a decree calling for presidential elections to be moved to April. He says that’s in line with the country’s constitution.
The Independent Election Commission has already said it wants the vote to be held in late August, citing concerns over security and possible delays caused by winter weather.
Al Jazeera’s James Bays reports from the Afghan capital. More from the New York Times.
One year has passed since Kenya’s leaders signed a peace deal to end post-election violence that killed at least 1,000 people.
While those behind the killings are waiting to be brought to justice, Al Jazeera’s Yvonne Ndege in Nairobi reports on how other contending issues have made the coalition government increasingly unpopular.
A funky, psychedelic fish that bounces on the ocean floor like a rubber ball has been classified as a new species. The fish is found off Ambon in the Moluccas.
“I didn’t come here to do the same thing we’ve been doing or to take small steps forward. I came to provide the sweeping change that this country demanded when it went to the polls in November. That is the change this budget starts to make, and that is the change I’ll be fighting for in the weeks ahead.” — President Barack Obama
The President in his Weekly Address speaks on the Budget, calling it a “a threat to the status quo in Washington.” He first notes how it meets the promises made on the campaign trail in addition to reflecting the values of the country and the stark realities facing the nation. The President also acknowledges that powerful forces are gearing to fight the changes proposed in the Budget but notes that so is he. President Obama is casting himself as a populist crusader willing to do battle with special interests.
More from the New York Times.
The address hinted at the strategy the White House intends to employ to push for the spending plan released last week, a return to a more traditional Democratic approach of positioning the party as fighting against the rich and powerful. In Mr. Obama’s telling, he is taking on entrenched interests in the form of banks, insurance companies, large agribusinesses, oil and gas companies and others.
Beyond the $3.6 trillion budget for the 2010 fiscal year, the president’s spending plan outlines an array of ambitious initiatives for the next several years that collectively would transform American society. He wants to extend health coverage to the more than 40 million uninsured, revamp industry so that it stops producing so many emissions that cause climate change, develop alternative energy sources and invest billions of dollars more in education.
At the same time, he wants to restructure the tax code to shift more of the burden from lower- and middle-income workers to the rich to reverse the widening income gap of recent years. And he promised to bring the skyrocketing federal deficit, projected to reach $1.75 trillion this year, under control in his first term.
The president said his plan already had “special interests” gearing up for battle. He said that “the insurance industry won’t like the idea” that he would force competitive bidding for Medicare coverage, that “banks and big student lenders won’t like the idea” of ending subsidies for student loans, and that “oil and gas companies won’t like” the end of certain tax breaks.
“The system we have now might work for the powerful and well-connected interests that have run Washington for far too long, but I don’t,” he said. “I work for the American people.”
He sure does and it is really nice to have him on the job.
Thousands of people from Myanmar have fled the country over the years in search of asylum, risking their lives in the hope of escaping poverty and persecution. Over the past year, it is the plight of the Rohingya, a Muslim minority from western Myanmar, that is beginning to capture increasing attention.
Al Jazeera’s Tony Birtley reports from Malaysia on the lives of those refugees, some successful, others living in constant fear of deportation.
The conflict in Southern Thailand has seen an explosion of violence over the last five years, with an estimated 3500 killed as Muslim rebels and the Thai security forces struggle for control of the region. Two policemen were recently beheaded by Yala Islamist insurgents.
Yala and the neighbouring provinces of Pattani and Narathiwat were a Muslim sultanate until annexed by predominantly Buddhist Thailand a century ago. More from the Council on Foreign Relations:
Over the past four years, an insurgency in Thailand’s southern, predominantly Muslim provinces has claimed nearly three thousand lives. The separatist violence in these majority Malay Muslim provinces has a history traceable back for more than half a century. Some experts say brutal counterinsurgency tactics by successive governments in Bangkok have worsened the situation. Political turmoil in Bangkok and tussle between supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and the country’s military have further contributed to the instability, working to stymie any serious initiatives for a long-term solution to the crisis.
Historical Grievances
Thailand has faced secessionist movements since it annexed the independent sultanate of Patani [Note: Thailand's annexed sultanate is spelled "Patani"; the country's southern province is spelled "Pattani"] in 1902, making the area the southernmost tip of the country. A policy of forced assimilation enraged the ethnically Malay Muslims, who represent the majority in the region. Many of the region’s Muslims adopted Thai names and the national language. But local traditions were secretly cultivated, and between the 1940s and the 1980s separatists staged a series of opposition uprisings. The insurgency is largely confined to the three provinces of Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat and five districts of Songkhla province—Chana, Thepa, Na Thawi, Saba Yoi, and Sadao. An August 2008 report by the International Crisis Group says the religious, racial, and linguistic differences between the minority Malay Muslims and the Buddhist majority in Thailand have led to a deep sense of alienation (PDF). Malay Muslims also harbor resentment against the country’s security forces for past and continuing human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances, the report says. Poor socio-economic conditions add to regional discontentment with the Thai government.
The Pakistani Supreme Court barred Nawaz Sharif, a former prime minister and an opposition leader and his brother Shahbaz from holding elected office. Pakistan now faces the prospect of rampant political infighting that will further undermine the country’s stability.
More from the New York Times:
The intensifying political battle between the pro-American president and the main opposition leader is shaping up as a potential crisis for the Obama administration as it tries to focus the government on fighting the Qaeda and Taliban insurgency here.
The domestic struggle will almost certainly deflect attention from that fight as President Asif Ali Zardari and his archrival, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, duke it out and as street protests persist, politicians and analysts said.
It could also result in shifting political alliances, including new opportunities for the religious right that would be inimical to Washington’s interests, and even serve to make the Pakistani military restive for power again if the situation continued to worsen, they said.
The crisis was set off by a Supreme Court ruling on Wednesday that bars Mr. Sharif, and his brother, Shahbaz, from elected office. The decision was widely interpreted in Pakistan as a raw political maneuver engineered by Mr. Zardari to diminish the power of the two popular opposition figures.
India’s largest drug maker, Ranbaxy Laboratories, has falsified lab tests for some of its drugs.
Since 2006, investigators from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration at one plant have reportedly turned up reams of laboratory tests that were inaccurate or missing information, according to the Food and Drug Administration.
Peter Eisner, the former deputy foreign editor of the Washington Post, produced and reported the story on how contaminated drug imports threaten Americans. He joins Martin Savidge to discuss the threat level posed by this particular generic drug manufactured in India, the FDA’s role overseas and prospects for improvement.
Three days of talks to try and find new ways of dealing with Taliban fighters have ended in Washington. However, Al Jazeera has learned of separate secret negotiations being held with a key Taliban ally.
Al Jazeera’s James Bays reports from Kabul.
A Colombian immigrant was recently denied her investor’s visa, forcing her to shut down her U.S. company and fire her six employees. Does immigration help or hurt American workers?
This video is part of a weekly series, Global Ethics Corner. To learn more, go to: Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Policy.