Politics this week

5th - 11th November 2005

Veteran Israeli politician Shimon Peres unexpectedly lost a ballot for the Labour Party leadership. The winner, Amir Peretz, wants Labour to withdraw from the coalition government of Ariel Sharon.

A second defence-lawyer in the trial of Saddam Hussein was killed in Baghdad, bringing demands that the trial, due to resume on November 28th after an adjournment, be held outside Iraq. Meanwhile, at least 30 people were killed in a suicide-bomb attack on a restaurant in the city.

Iran's government, sounding more conciliatory after the belligerent comments of its new president in the past few weeks, said it would like to restart negotiations with Britain, France and Germany. Those countries had previously suspended talks in response to Iran's decision to resume uranium-enrichment activities.

A tense stand-off continued in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, following last week's killing of 46 protesters by government security forces. The prime minister, Meles Zenawi, who won disputed elections in May, says that detained opposition leaders and two journalists will now stand trial for treason.

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a former banker, seemed set to beat George Weah, a former footballer, in a run-off election for Liberia's presidency. If she wins, she will be Africa's first elected female leader.

The rioting in France that began in the suburbs of Paris spread across the country. The government drafted in extra police and invoked a 1955 law to authorise curfews. It also said it would deport any foreigners found guilty of rioting.

Tony Blair's Labour government suffered its first serious defeat in eight years, when the House of Commons rejected legislation that would have extended the period that terrorist suspects can be detained without charge to 90 days.


Germany's planned “grand coalition” partners agreed to raise value-added tax, cut public spending and relax rules that make it hard to fire unwanted workers. Critics said the plans would knock Germany's hesitant economic recovery on the head.

Azerbaijan's parliamentary election was won by the ruling YAP party of President Ilham Aliev. But international observers said the poll had been fraudulent, and the opposition started protests calling for another election.

The European Commission recommended that Macedonia should be invited to talks on joining the EU. It also criticised Turkey, with which talks began last month, for its continuing human-rights abuses.

Seventeen alleged Islamic militants were arrested in co-ordinated raids in Sydney and Melbourne. The arrests came days after Australia's prime minister, John Howard, gave warning that a major terrorist operation was being planned.

Indonesian officials reported that one of Asia's most wanted men, Azahari Husin, died in a police operation. Husin is wanted for involvement in the 2002 Bali bomb attacks and other atrocities.

A new round of six-country talks aimed at defusing the crisis caused by North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons got under way in Beijing.

China's president, Hu Jintao, visited Britain and Germany. Next week, he will attend a regional summit meeting in Seoul, before hosting President George Bush in Beijing.

Two crossing-points between Indian- and Pakistani-occupied Kashmir opened, a month after the earthquake that has claimed at least 74,000 lives.

California's voters rejected all four of Arnold Schwarzenegger's initiatives in a special election that the governor had called to shore up his reform agenda for the state. The electorate also rejected a separate proposal, endorsed by Mr Schwarzenegger, on parental notification for abortions.

Elsewhere, Democrats won the governor's race in both New Jersey and Virginia by much wider margins than recent polling had suggested. On the plus side for the Republicans, Michael Bloomberg easily won re-election as mayor of New York, and in San Diego's third mayoral election in a year, Jerry Sanders, a former police chief, trounced Donna Frye, a maverick surf-shop owner who contested November 2004's result by claiming her populist write-in campaign had won.

The Supreme Court said it will hear an appeal from Osama bin Laden's former driver, who is being held at Guantánamo Bay, on the constitutionality of Mr Bush's policy of detention and military tribunals for terrorist suspects.


The Summit of the Americas, in Mar del Plata, Argentina, was a flop, as expected. The continent's squabbling leaders made little progress on the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas or anything else. Venezuela's populist president, Hugo Chávez, also addressed a big “anti-summit” of anti-American protesters.

Mexico's President Vicente Fox said the summit's host, Argentina's President Néstor Kirchner, was more concerned with pandering to his voters than with the meeting's success. Mr Kirchner told him to mind his own business.

Peru's disgraced ex-president, Alberto Fujimori, unexpectedly left his Japanese exile and turned up in Chile, from where he hoped to run his comeback campaign. Chilean authorities arrested him and refused an application for bail.

Canada's New Democratic Party withdrew its support for prime minister Paul Martin's minority Liberal government, increasing the chances of early elections.

A record number of countries voted in the UN General Assembly for the United States to end its decades-old economic embargo on Cuba. While 182 countries backed the motion, only Israel, Palau, the Marshall Islands and America itself voted against.