That's the Way of the World
10 November Edition

What's happening in global news today? Let's take a spin.

WaPo - Two Suicide Bombings Kill 40 in Baghdad, Tikrit
Two suicide bombers struck a popular restaurant in Baghdad and an army recruiting center north of the capital Thursday, killing about 40 people and injuring at least three dozen more, police and witnesses said.
[...]
The dual blasts followed a pattern of attacks against Iraqi army and police personnel and facilities in the last year and a half that have killed hundreds of soldiers, policemen and recruits, most of whom are from Iraq's majority Shiite Arab community. Many of the attacks have been staged by Sunni Arab insurgents.

The morning explosion at the Qadouri Restaurant, a Baghdad institution famous for its local cuisine, particularly a special Baghdadi breakfast porridge, killed 35 people and wounded at least 25, according to an Interior Ministry spokesman, Col. Adnan Abdul Rahman.

CSM - Jordan strike: an export from Al Qaeda in Iraq?
Jordan's King Abdullah II warned this might happen. Prior to the start of the war in Iraq in 2003, the king expressed concern that the conflict there would spill across his borders.

If a claim of responsibility from Al Qaeda in Iraq and official Jordanian statements are true, terrorist bombings of three Amman hotels that killed 57 people on Wednesday may be the first sign that Iraq is no longer just a magnet for international jihaddis. Like Afghanistan under the Taliban, say counterterrorism experts, Iraq is becoming a base from which Al Qaeda can plan, train, and launch attacks against its designated enemies.
[...]
The attacks were on the Grand Hyatt, Radisson SAS and Days Inn hotels; all managed by US chains. But the majority of victims were Jordanians, among them 13 guests at a wedding where one of the bombers walked into a reception hall. The fathers of both the bride and the groom were among the dead. A suicide bomber also walked into the Hyatt, while the Days Inn was struck by a suicide car bomb.
Six Iraqis, two Bahrainis, two Chinese, one Saudi, one American and one Indonesian were also killed, according to Jordanian officials.

Sydney Morning Herald - Deadly wave of hatred washing across the globe
The bombers succeed dramatically in Jordan. A master bomb-maker dies in Java, and in China there is anxiety that the terrorists are about to strike - or maybe not.
[...]
Unless the terrorists use a headline-grabbing tactic, strike in a new country or achieve a high toll as the brutality in Amman - 57 dead and up to 300 injured at last count - their activities tend to be reported as regional or local news. However, all are part of a greater global conflict. It began in September 2001, cold-blooded attacks on New York and Washington, but how it plays out might well be dictated by the political fortunes of George Bush and Tony Blair.

For the past 72 hours we have been consumed by terrorism-related dramas, domestic, foreign and political.

But at the risk of pouring water on troubled oil, perhaps we all should turn our minds to London and Washington. Coupled with the British Prime Minister's humiliating failure to push his anti-terrorism laws through Parliament on Wednesday, plummeting polls and a cold electoral blast for the US President might represent the pendulum's extremity in the wake of September 11.

It is early days, but how Bush and Blair fare in Year 5 may well define the outcome of the "war on terror", a conflict virtually impossible to win; but once started, so easy to lose.

WaPo World Opinion Roundup - The End of Teflon Tony Blair?
Blair's darkest day," said the Daily Mail.

"The end of Teflon Tony," said The Times.

"Humiliating," said The Sun.

"Shattering," said the Scotsman

The British online media are not shy about passing judgments on the implications of the House of Commons's rejection yesterday of Prime Minister Tony Blair's proposal for allowing police to detain terrorism suspects for 90 days without charges. While Blair today rejected calls for his resignation, the consensus across the political spectrum is that the prime minister's storied political power has been fundamentally damaged.

"There comes a moment when prime ministers discover their fallibility and realise that they are politically mortal," said the centrist Financial Times. "On Wednesday, after eight years at Number 10, that moment arrived for the Labour leader."

In response to the July 7 bombings in London, Blair sought to increase the period for detaining terror suspects without charges from 14 days to 90 days. Forty nine members of his own Labour Party deserted him and joined Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in approving a 28-day period.

It was Blair's first defeat in Commons in his 3,115 days in office, noted the center-right The Scotsman, saying it is "likely prove a fatal wound" to Blair's political career.

AFP/Terra Daily - Possible Cholera Outbreak In Pakistan Quake Camps
Hundreds of earthquake victims in Pakistani Kashmir have acute diarrhoea and doctors are investigating whether they are cases of cholera, the World Health Organisation and the United Nations said Wednesday.

Aid workers are urgently trying to improve water supplies and sanitation at the cramped refugee camps where the survivors fell sick in the devastated regional capital Muzaffarabad, WHO technical officer Rachel Lavy told AFP.

BBC - Liberia's 'Iron lady' claims win
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, known as the "Iron Lady", has claimed victory as the first woman to be elected president in Liberia, and Africa as a whole.

With 90% of ballots counted, she had won 59% of the vote to leave her main rival, George Weah, trailing on 41%.