Monday International News

Bush leaves successor a 
world of trouble 
Agence France-Presse . Washington 

US president George W Bush’s successor inherits a world of troubles come January, including wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a defiant Iran, and a US economy battered by the global financial crisis.
  The new president will take the reins of a limping superpower facing deep doubts overseas about the limits of its strength, and sharply diminished US standing even among Washington’s closest friends, recent studies find.
  ‘America’s moral leadership and decision-making competence will continue to be questioned at home and abroad, despite the arrival of new leadership in Washington,’ a Georgetown University working group said earlier this year.
  Already, both major contenders in the November 4 election — Bush’s fellow Republican and chosen successor John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama — have denounced the vastly unpopular president’s policies and promised a new course.
  ‘Restored respect will come only with fresh demonstrations of competence,’ the Georgetown group said in a study of US standing in the world and the foreign policy challenges of the next administration.
  Bush leaves a mountain of unfinished business. Barring perhaps unimaginable breakthroughs, it will fall to one of his successors to end the US presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, herald the end of nuclear programmes in Iran and North Korea, and celebrate a lasting peace deal in the Middle East.
  And the next president will certainly inherit a grim economy — the White House this week predicted a sharp rise in unemployment, while some private-sector forecasts warn of a trillion-dollar budget deficit in 2009. 
Russia, neighbours eye Obama surge 
with uncertainty: experts 
Agence France-Presse . Moscow 

For Russia and its ex-Soviet neighbours, the Democratic Party candidate’s surge in the US presidential election campaign has people pondering the same question asked by his opponents: Who is Barack Obama?
  Unlike his Republican Party adversary John McCain, a Vietnam War veteran with avowedly hawkish views on Russia, Obama is far more an unknown quantity when it comes to US-Russian relations, experts said.
  ‘Under an Obama administration, US-Russian relations will develop in a less predictable, more interesting way,’ said Andrei Kortunov, president of the New Eurasia Foundation, a Moscow-based NGO that promotes civil society in Russia.
  ‘Obama is a challenge for Russian politicians. It was easy with Bush. The Republican administration made so many mistakes ... that it was fairly easy for our political leaders to polemicise and argue with them,’ he said.
  But while Obama has blasted Bush’s unilateralism and pledged to restore the United States’ image abroad, he has also echoed McCain’s criticism of Russia and accused Moscow of engaging in ‘evil behaviour.’ 
IMF chief guilty of ‘serious error 
of judgment’ in affair 
Agence France-Presse . Washington 

International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn kept his job Saturday after an investigation into his affair with an IMF economist, but was scolded by fund directors for ‘a serious error of judgment.’
  Based on an independent external inquiry, the IMF executive board said it had ‘concluded that there was no harassment, favouritism, or any other abuse of authority by the managing director.
  ‘Nevertheless, the executive board noted that the incident was regrettable and reflected a serious error of judgment,’ it said in a statement.
  In a teleconference with the press, IMF executive director Shakour Shaalan said that the board had unanimously accepted Strauss-Kahn’s apologies and that it would continue to work with him.
  ‘The mood of the board was very, very positive,’ he said after it met Saturday on the case. ‘Our conclusion was that this in no way affects the effectiveness of the managing director.’ 
Palin’s homestate Alaska 
newspaper backs Obama 
Agence France-Presse . Los Angeles 

Alaska’s top newspaper on Sunday endorsed Democrat Barack Obama for the White House, saying it would be too risky to put their Republican state governor Sarah Palin just ‘one 72-year-old heartbeat from the leadership of the free world.’
  The Anchorage Daily News, the leading daily in the overwhelmingly Republican state, called Palin’s vice-presidential nomination ‘an improbable and highly memorable event’ and added that ‘many Alaskans are proud to see their governor, and their state, so prominent on the national stage.’
  Nevertheless, the newspaper editorial deemed her not yet ready to serve in the White House, and saying the hometown boosterism ‘does not overwhelm all other judgment.’
  The paper was even more scathing in its assessment of the top of the Republican ticket.
  ‘Our sober view is that her running mate, senator John McCain, is the wrong choice for president at this critical time for our nation,’ the daily wrote.
  ‘Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, brings far more promise to the office,’ the Anchorage Daily News said.