Greek prime minister George Papandreou agreed to step down following a week in which he proposed a referendum on EU measures to save his country’s collapsing economy, narrowly won a confidence vote, retracted his referendum proposal, and signed a coalition deal to approve the bailout. “I am not tied to my chair,” said Papandreou. ReutersCNNReutersGuardianAmid sex scandals and corruption allegations, and ahead of a key budget vote, Silvio Berlusconi denied rumors he would step down as Italian prime minister. Berlusconi was also reported to have delayed the release of his Greek-folk-influenced album, “True Love,” over concerns about the European financial …

An American cattleman. With 112 missiles fired at Libyan military targets, the United States and allies commenced Operation Odyssey Dawn. The military attack followed a United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing military action against Muammar Qaddafi’s regime and demanding that attacks against rebel troops cease immediately. “You have proven to the world that you are not civilized,” said Qaddafi, in response to the allied air strikes, “that you are terrorists�??animals attacking a safe nation that did nothing against you.”CNNABC NewsNew York TimesThe confirmed death toll from Japan’s earthquake and tsunami rose to about 8,400, and the final death toll was …

The Group of 20 met in Seoul. World leaders accepted new policies meant to avoid “currency wars,” but Barack Obama�??s proposal of a 4 percent limit on national trade deficits was stymied by China and Germany, and the summit was largely a failure. “Instead of hitting home runs, sometimes we�??re going to hit singles,” Mr. Obama said. “But they�??re really important singles.” NYTimesIsraeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to push his cabinet to freeze most construction on West Bank settlements for 90 days�??in exchange for a $3 billion package from the United States in security incentives and fighter jets�??so that …

An American cattleman. At the World Trade Center site, bells tolled at 8:46 a.m. to commemorate the exact moment that the first plane struck the north tower, and the names of nearly 3,000 victims of the 2001 terrorist attacks were read. Many victims’ relatives used the occasion to protest plans to build a Muslim community center near the site. “A mosque is built on the site of a winning battle,” said Nick Chiarchiaro, whose wife and niece worked in the north tower. “They are symbols of conquest.”New York TimesNew York TimesIn Amarillo, Texas, 23-year-old skateboarder Jacob Isom stole a Koran …

An American cattleman. In one of the largest spy swaps since the Cold War, ten Russian agents who pleaded guilty to espionage in the United States were flown to Vienna, where they were exchanged for four men who had been found guilty of spying for America and Britain. Asked whether the United States has any spies as “hot” as 28-year-old agent Anna Chapman, who was included in the swap, Vice President Joseph Biden said, “Let me be clear, it wasn’t my idea to send her back.”BBCBBCPresident Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in Washington, D.C., where they …

In New York City, a Nissan Pathfinder filled with gasoline, propane, dud firecrackers, alarm clocks, and eight bags of fertilizer failed to explode in Times Square. Janet Napolitano, U.S. secretary of homeland security, characterized the attempted car bombing as a “one-off,” not indicative of an organized terrorist plot, while New York City police commissioner Raymond Kelly called it a “sober reminder” that “people want to come here and do us harm.” A “furtive” man in a red shirt was being sought in connection with the bombing, and in Albany, Kevin Parker, an African-American state senator, claimed that he was “fighting …

Barack Obama claimed that the same groups that attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001, were “plotting to do so again,” that the eight-year conquest and occupation of Afghanistan were a “necessity,” and that free-spending congressional legislators were conspiring with the military-industrial complex to weaken national security with “exotic” defense projects.NY Times and Yahoo NewsThe White House shut down an email tip box intended to receive reports of “fishy” claims about Obama’s health-care reform effort.Politico via DrudgeAfghanistan’s Interior Ministry was trying to determine whether it was terrorists, robbers, or thieves that attacked a bank in Kabul, and international forces in …

A Christian martyr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner of Iran’s presidential election. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called the election results a “divine miracle,” but fraud and voter irregularities were reportedly rampant; Ahmadinejad’s main opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, asked the ayatollah for an investigation into the results. “They didn’t rig the vote,” said an official with Iran’s interior ministry, which conducted the election. “They didn’t even look at the vote. They just wrote the name and put the number in front of it.” Iranians protesting the results took to the streets, where they were attacked with clubs, metal batons, …

An American cattleman. President Barack Obama visited Cairo and addressed the Muslim world in a 55-minute speech that the White House arranged to be televised, text-messaged in four languages, and posted to Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter. Obama quoted from the Koran, spoke in Arabic, recognized Palestine, and said that “the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.” He visited the Sphinx and pyramids, then spent a night at the desert stallion farm of Saudi Arabian King Abdullah, who presented him with the King Abdul Aziz Order of Merit, a thick gold chain with a very large …

An American cattleman. After much bargaining with the largest banks in the United States,Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner announced the results of the Treasury’s “stress tests,” studies that estimate how the banks will fare if the economic crisis deepens. Ten banks, said Geithner, including Bank of America, Citibank, and Wells Fargo, must collectively raise $75 billion in extra capital by November; the rest, however, are fine. Analysts questioned Geithner’s conclusions, which assume a worst-case unemployment rate of 10.3 percent when the current rate is 8.9 percent, and which, after banks complained, ended up measuring bank-capital levels with standards more forgiving than …

Swine flu, renamed under pork-lobby pressure to “influenza A (H1N1) virus, human,” and referred to as “killer Mexican flu” by anti-immigration activists, had infected 985 people, or 0.0000145 percent of the world’s population. Twenty countries reported infections; one death from the flu was confirmed in the United States; and 25 people had died in Mexico, where a cute five-year-old boy named Edgar Hernandez was presented to the media as “patient zero.”SFGate.comUSA TodayThe World Health OrganizationThe GuardianThe New York Daily NewsMexico shut down for five days to contain the illness,The TelegraphChina began to quarantine Mexicans,The Wall Street Journaland Vice President Joe …

Caught in the Web, 1860. The Department of Justice released four Office of Legal Counsel memos, issued in 2002 and 2005, to address CIA concerns that interrogation methods used on some high-level Al Qaeda members in custody were torture. Besides waterboarding, stress positions, slapping, and face-grabbing, the memos permitted “walling,” or repeatedly slamming prisoners into fake, flexible walls specially designed to make a loud noise when people are slammed into them; keeping a prisoner awake and shackled upright for more than a week, if “diapers are checked and changed as needed”; and putting a prisoner who is scared of insects …

An American cattleman. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that 651,000 jobs were lost in February (making it the third straight month in which more than 650,000 jobs have been lost) thus increasing the unemployment rate to 8.1 percent, the highest level since 1983. The Obama Administration pointed to 60 new highway-paving jobs in Maryland as proof that the $787 billion stimulus package was succeeding. “That’s how we’re going to get the country back on its feet,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. The White House hopes that the stimulus package will generate 3.5 million jobs; 4.4 million have been …

Israel and Hamas agreed to a one-week ceasefire in Gaza, where Gazan officials estimated that 1,300 Palestinians had died.Hamas Agrees to One-Week Cease-Fire in Gaza Conflict“My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town of Staszow,” said Sir Gerald Kaufman, a British MP who was raised as an Orthodox Jew. “A German soldier shot her dead in her bed. My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers.”UK Jewish lawmaker: Israeli forces acting like NazisA Berlin court ruled to allow the display of Hamas flags and paraphernalia at anti-Israel protests, …

An American cattleman. President George W. Bush announced a $13.4 billion bailout for General Motors and Chrysler. The bailout, which will make use of funds authorized by Congress in October for the rescue of U.S. financial institutions, requires among other things that the automakers sell their fleets of private aircraft. “I’ve abandoned free-market principles,” said Bush, “to save the free-market system.”New York TimesBreitbartPresident-elect Barack Obama called for an expansion of his economic recovery plan in order to save a half-million more jobs atop the 2.5 million he already hopes to save, at a total cost of $600 billion or $700 …

Caught in the Web, 1860. Governments around the world attempted to slow the global financial catastrophe. Der SpiegelNYTThe stock market in Iceland reopened after a three-day suspension and immediately plunged 77 percent.NYTBloombergReutersThe Economist via Seattle PIFTGuardianBloombergSwitzerland bought $60 billion in bad debt from the largest Swiss bank, while the second-largest Swiss bank sought aid from the government of Qatar.WPPresident George W. Bush announced a world financial summit, described by some as “Bretton Woods II,” to be held at Camp David after the November 4 elections,TelegraphWSJBBCWPNYTWPBloombergCSMand the United States partially nationalized nine of its major banks. “Bush is to the left …

Stocks on Wall Street and other exchanges throughout the world dropped as brokerage Merrill Lynch was bought by Bank of America, insurance giant AIG sought tens of billions of dollars in government loans, and investment bank Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy.The New York TimesJohn McCain and Barack Obama suspended political advertising and appeared together at the World Trade Center site to commemorate the seventh anniversary of the September 11 attacks,The New York Timesand former Massachusetts governor Jane Swift, chair of the Palin Truth Squad, demanded that Obama apologize for saying that McCain’s promise to change Washington amounted to putting “lipstick on …

The Supreme Court overturned the 32-year ban on handguns in Washington, D.C., ruling 5-4 that there is a Second Amendment right to own a gun for personal use. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in his dissent that the court’s ruling, its first on the Second Amendment in 70 years, showed a lack of “respect for the well-settled views of all of our predecessors on the court, and for the rule of law itself.” The National Rifle Association promptly brought lawsuits against five other cities with handgun bans, including San Francisco, Chicago, and Oak Park, Illinois. “It’s just completely befuddling,” said …

Caught in the Web, 1860. General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker testified to Congress about progress in the war in Iraq; Crocker summarized 2006 as “a bad year,” but blamed ongoing sectarian violence on Saddam Hussein’s “social deconstruction” of the country. Petraeus cited progress in the Anbar region as evidence that his surge strategy is working. He suggested that one Army brigade might be home for Christmas, and that the surge might be over by next July. Barack Obama proposed removing at least one brigade per month, starting now, until all troops are out by the end of …

The Cloaca Maxima, 1872 Iraqis took to the streets after the national soccer team beat Saudi Arabia 1?0 in the Asian Cup championship. At least four people were killed by “happy fire” in the midst of what were reported to be the largest spontaneous celebrations in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein. “Sport brings us together while the heads of everything in Baghdad can’t bring us together for five years,” said one reveler. “If the Iraqi football team ruled us, peace would spread in our home.” Each member of the Lions of the Two Rivers will receive $10,000 from …