Weekly Review

By Paul Ford

CIA Director Porter J. Goss claimed that the war in Iraq is making it easier for terrorist organizations to find new recruits,¹ and Sunni Arab tribal chiefs insisted that they be given a role in the new Iraqi government. “We made a big mistake,” said a sheik, “when we didn't vote.”² Eight suicide bombings killed ninety-one people in Iraq, and United States Marines and Iraqi security forces were fighting insurgents in Ramadi, seventy-five miles west of Baghdad.^{3 4} An Episcopal priest who fought in Vietnam, distraught over the war in Iraq, killed himself in Wenatchee, Washington,⁵ and President George W. Bush nominated John Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, as the first director of national intelligence. Negroponte was ambassador to the U.N. from 2001-2004 and ambassador to Honduras from 1981-1985; he is alleged to have turned a blind eye to human rights abuses in Honduras and to have helped the Nicaraguan Contras find funds. Negroponte will oversee fifteen separate intelligence agencies and will deliver the daily intelligence briefing to the president.^{6 7} In Venezuela, where floods and mudslides killed thirty-seven,⁸ Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez claimed that the United States had plans to kill him. “If, by the hand of the devil, those perverse plans succeed . . . forget about Venezuelan oil, Mr. Bush,” Chavez said.⁹ In England, a nuclear power plant was unable to account for nearly thirty kilograms of plutonium, enough to make seven nuclear bombs; the discrepancy was said to exist only on paper.¹⁰ Ariel Sharon announced plans to withdraw 8,500 settlers from Gaza and several hundred settlers from the West Bank. The Knesset ratified the plan, setting aside $870 million for resettlement, even though some Israeli parliamentarians compared the withdrawal to the deportation of Jews during the Holocaust.^{11 12 13} Israel freed five hundred Palestinian prisoners,¹⁴ and guards were placed around the grave of Sharon's wife, Lily, to protect it from desecration by outraged settlers.¹⁵ Syria denied any role in the assassination of Rafik Hariri, former Prime Minister of Lebanon and critic of the Syrian occupation, who was killed in a Beirut bombing. The United States withdrew its ambassador to Syria, and 100,000 mourners turned out for Hariri's funeral. ¹⁶ Syria and Iran announced that they would form a “common front” to face mutual threats, but Syria's ambassador to the U.S. said that this had nothing to do with the United States.¹⁷ In Egypt, a team of thirteen doctors removed a second, “parasitic” head from a baby girl,¹⁸ and NASA researchers studying the methane signatures of Mars found evidence of life below the Martian surface.¹⁹ Lawrence Rawl, head of Exxon during the Valdez spill, died from Alzheimer's,²⁰ and Texas executed another prisoner.²¹ Two paintings of dogs playing poker sold for $590,000.²²

A study showed that 310,000 Europeans die from air pollution each year,. ²³ and the Kyoto Protocol went into effect. The treaty, which calls for a 5.2 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2012, was ratified by 155 countries. The world's top polluter, the United States, did not sign, citing costs.²⁴ The House approved a measure to limit class-action lawsuits, redirecting large lawsuits from state to federal courts, ²⁵ and the Pentagon allocated $127 billion to build a robot army. Some of the robots will look and walk like humans, some will hover in the air, and some will make their own choices during battle. “The lawyers tell me there are no prohibitions against robots making life-or-death decisions,” said a representative from the U.S. Joint Forces Research Center.²⁶ It was revealed that the Army, seeking to avoid scandal, destroyed photos of U.S. soldiers holding mock executions of hooded Afghan detainees.²⁷ Chinese scientists announced the development of a new process that turns sewage water and mud into organic fertilizer and pesticide, ²⁸ and North Korea celebrated Kim Jong Il's sixty-third birthday. “The Americans swagger like a tiger around the world,” said North Korea's Pyongyang Radio, “but they whimper before our Republic as the tiger does before the porcupine.” ²⁹ Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that U.S. policies on Iran and North Korea are inconsistent, and that no evidence exists to implicate Iran in the development of nuclear weapons. ³⁰ Togo's President Faure Gnassingbe promised to hold elections within sixty days; Gnassingbe took control of the presidency after the former president, his father, died in office.³¹ The Ugandan army admitted that it had recruited eight hundred child soldiers who had escaped from serving in the opposition Lord's Resistance Army.³² Avalanches in Kashmir killed over one hundred people,³³ and archeologists were excavating an ancient Indian city uncovered by the December tsunami.³⁴ Six Indian students killed themselves because they were anxious over their upcoming board exams.³⁵ A car bomb in Thailand killed five.³⁶ Ecuadorean President Lucio Gutierrez fired most of his country's supreme court,³⁷ a tanker spilled thirteen tons of oil into Tunisian waters,³⁸ and the body of Cecilia Cubas, the kidnapped daughter of Paraguay's ex-president, was found in an underground chamber.³⁹ Sudan refused to allow war-crimes suspects from Darfur to be tried at The Hague, insisting that they instead be tried at home in Sudan,⁴⁰ and a scientist in Chicago used stem cells to grow fat tissue, which can be used in breast implants.⁴¹

Scientists were waiting for H5N1, an avian flu virus that has killed forty-one people in Thailand and Vietnam, to mutate into a form that can spread more rapidly among humans. If that happens, the flu is expected to kill tens of millions worldwide. Thailand rejected a plan to slow the spread of the flu because the plan's execution—which called for the destruction of millions of possibly infected ducks and chickens and the distribution of face masks—would alarm the public. ⁴² The Socialist Party won a landslide victory in Portugal,⁴³ and a mine explosion in Fuxin, China, killed 203.⁴⁴ Secret tapes made of George W. Bush between 1998 and 2000 indicated that Bush once considered John Ashcroft for Vice President and that he most likely smoked marijuana in the past.⁴⁵ Speaking in Brussels, Bush called on Syria to end its occupation of Lebanon; he also said it was time for Europe and the United States to work together.⁴⁶ An expert witness in the Robert Blake murder case testified that he once crawled into a cage filled with crack-smoking monkeys,⁴⁷ and two former caretakers of Koko, the gorilla that can speak in sign language, sued for harassment. The caretakers claim they were pressured into exposing their breasts to satisfy Koko's nipple fetish.⁴⁸ The ban on fox hunting went into effect in England and Wales and was expected to be widely ignored.⁴⁹ A poll found that Americans believe Ronald Reagan to be the greatest president in history,⁵⁰ and Hunter S. Thompson killed himself with a .45.⁵¹ The British Navy was actively seeking gay recruits,⁵² dogsDogs in Australia were licking toads to get high,⁵³ and a luxury hotel was scheduled to open at Berchtesgaden.⁵⁴ An eighty-year-old Australian doctor had “DO NOT RESUSCITATE” tattooed across his chest,⁵⁵ and in Hong Kong, the bough of a lucky “wishing tree” broke off, scratching a four-year-old boy's head and breaking a man's leg.⁵⁶