That's the Way of the World
15 Nov Edition

What's happening outside the confined media borders of the U.S. today? Let's take a spin 'round the globe. First, a big announcement about Gaza:

WaPo - Rice Cements Deal on Gaza Borders
After marathon all-night negotiations, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced a comprehensive agreement between the Israeli and the Palestinian governments Tuesday designed to ease the Gaza Strip's isolation by allowing more reliable access for its goods and people to Israel and the outside world.

The deal sets out the terms of operation for Gaza border crossings used to move cargo and people, resolving a deadlock that has frustrated a team of international negotiators for weeks. It also establishes a system of bus convoys to shuttle Palestinians between Gaza and the West Bank, the two territorial components of what is envisioned as a future Palestinian state.

More from Al Jazeera
Aljazeera bureau chief in Palestine Walid al-Omari said there would be a joint operation room or a liaison office set on Kerim Shalom crossing east of Rafah.

The joint office will include Palestinians, Israelis and Europeans. Its function is to control and monitor the movement and passage of passengers and goods through the Rafah crossing, he said.

Israel will not have the veto right, but it has the right to appeal to Europeans who will have the final word as they would control the crossing, he added.

The heat is being turned up in Israel by the new Labor leader:

Reuters - Israeli Labor head demands party ministers resign
Israel's new Labor leader Amir Peretz demanded letters of resignation from his party's cabinet ministers, pushing Israel a step closer to an early national election, officials said on Tuesday.

Peretz, a trade union leader who ousted Shimon Peres as Labor's leader in a November 9 party ballot, has vowed to quit Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's coalition but says he will seek Sharon's agreement to an early election date in talks this week.

In a move to crank up pressure on Sharon, Labor ministers gave Peretz letters resigning from the cabinet which he sought in the event that he and Sharon failed to agree on a date to advance elections from a scheduled November 2006.

The letters would take effect 48 hours after being handed in to Sharon. Peretz and Sharon were expected to meet on Thursday.

In Iraq, where we supposedly don't do body counts, it looks like we're doing body counts:

Reuters - US says 30 insurgents killed in west Iraq offensive
U.S. and Iraqi forces pursuing a 10-day-old assault on al Qaeda militants have killed around 30 fighters in western Iraq, capturing some who tried to escape by crawling among a flock of sheep, the military said on Tuesday.

Thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops have been sweeping through towns near the Syrian border as part of Operation Steel Curtain, which was extended on Monday to the town of Ubaydi, on the Euphrates river, 20 km (13 miles) from the Syrian border.

A U.S. military statement said a total of about 80 rebels had been killed in Ubaydi, 30 of them since Monday night in what it said was some of the heaviest fighting of the offensive so far, with the insurgents apparently feeling cornered.

The U.S. isn't the only nation afflicted with the push to include "intelligent design" into school programs:

Sydney Morning Herald - Science friction: God's defenders target 3000 schools
Up to 3000 schools have been targeted in a DVD blitz aimed at challenging Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in favour of an "intelligent designer".

The right to teach intelligent design in science classes is being tested in US courts and a fiery debate has erupted in Australia that has pitted scientists against advocates for the "alternative theory" to evolution

The Minister for Education, Carmel Tebbutt, said intelligent design "can't be taught as part of the NSW school science curriculum" because it was not scientific or based on evidence.

More than 100 schools are already teaching intelligent design as science, alongside the mandatory curriculum requirement to study evolution. These schools include Christian community, Seventh Day Adventist, and a small number of Anglican schools.

Many more may follow once the AU$21.95 DVD Unlocking the Mystery of Life: Intelligent Design is sent free to every school by Campus Crusade for Christ.

Sticking with Australia, I'm guessing they won't be going with "skippy burgers":

TerraDaily - Australia Seeks More Palatable Name For Kangaroo Steaks
Australia has launched a competition to find a new way of describing kangaroo meat which will be less offensive to diners sensitive about eating the national symbol.

Organisers point out that a slice of cow or pig on a plate is called by the more palatable euphemisms of beef or pork, and want to find a similarly savoury name for cute kangaroos.

Kangaroo meat sales have grown 50-fold in the past decade to create a 200 million dollar a year industry, with Europe a major export market for the low-fat red meat and Russians lapping it up in sausages.

Finally, Jefferson Morley has an interesting survey on commentary regarding the coexistance of the French Republic with Islam in his World Opinion Roundup in the WaPo. Here's just a sample:

WaPo - Mideast Media Ask: Can France and Islam Coexist?
Who is to blame? The French people? France's government? The Muslim immigrants themselves?

When it comes to the riots that swept France over the last two weeks, commentators in the Arab online media are divided. Some blame French secularism, many blame a more general European racism, but some blame the Arab immigrants themselves.

The BBC's press survey suggests the dominant view is that racism is the primary cause of the unrest. Abdul Bari Atwan, a leading Arab columnist, writes in Al Quds al Arabi that the violence is "a warning to all European governments. It is an expected outcome of policies that look down on foreigners and deal with them as if they were a terrorist time bomb."
[...]
But Ahmed Al-Rabei says the problem is less racism than the failure of Arabs in France to combat it. The immigrants must hold themselves accountable "for the degree of contradiction between the grand size of this community and their meager accomplishments in the field of politics, economics, culture and academic life," he writes in Al Sharq Alawsat.

"The second-generation Arab community in France has not been able to organize itself in a civilized manner, nor achieve any major accomplishments within French society that may lead to them playing a more substantial role, thus weaken the policies of extreme racist factions," he writes."The French Arabs should live as French citizens and will have to prove that they are part of French society. Such action entails higher level of achievement, mobilization to enhance the living and educational standards of French Arabs and defeating those who stigmatize the Arab minority.