That's the Way of the World
21 Nov Edition

What's happening outside the confined media borders of the U.S. today? Let's take a spin 'round the globe, starting with... Israel, where Ariel Sharon is shaking things up ahead of his showdown election with the new Labor leader, Amir Peretz. Here's a blending of sources on this story:

WaPo - Sharon Quits Party He Helped Establish
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon resigned Monday from the Likud Party he helped build into the country's most influential political movement, setting in motion events that will lead to spring elections and a far-reaching realignment of Israel's fractious political system.
[...]
By Monday evening, 13 of the Likud's 40 members of parliament had joined Sharon in a new centrist party, tentatively named National Responsibility. A number of them gathered at Sharon's office to hear from the prime minister, who outlined a political program focused on the U.S.-backed peace plan known as the "roadmap" and tackling Israel's rising crime and poverty rates.

Christian Science Monitor - Israel's new middle way
Sharon's party is to include a team of moderate Likud members but also some members of Labor - possibly Shimon Peres, who was one of the architects of the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords.
[...]
Initially, this merging of left and right agendas grew out of the Palestinian intifada that broke out in September 2000. Israeli leaders from both of the two major parties, normally at loggerheads, declared their agendas to have similar fundamentals: boosting security, fighting terrorism, minimizing Israeli-Palestinian friction. With that, the out-of-power Labor Party was convinced last December to join a unity government under Sharon.

But then came Amir Peretz, who was elected as head of the Labor Party just over a week ago, declaring that he would break the lockstep with Sharon and pull out of the government.

"Peres was too captivated by Sharon, while Peretz represents the opposite view, namely that ... we should act as an opposition and replace Sharon," says Yuli Tamir, a Labor Party legislator who is close to Mr. Peretz. "The Labor Party has lost ... the belief it can win, and now people have a different feeling. The Likud feels for the first time they are in danger."

Indeed, Sharon's move to dissolve the Knesset Monday was aimed at staying a step ahead of Peretz, who had planned to submit a bill Monday to do the same.

Economist - The “bulldozer” sends tremors through Israeli politics
Instead, it is now Mr Sharon who is likely to be wooed. National Responsibility may come out with fewer seats than either Labour or Likud, though the latter now faces an enervating leadership battle. But whichever of the two main parties comes out ahead, it will need a coalition to get 61 seats. Mr Sharon’s party is expected to take votes away from some of the other small parties that traditionally pimp themselves as coalition partners to the highest bidder. And, unlike most of them, it will have the advantage of holding the centre ground between two harsh extremes: in the red corner, Mr Peretz, who advocates immediate talks on a Palestinian state and aggressive increases in social spending; in the blue corner, a rump Likud made up of anti-disengagement hawks (most Israelis supported the pullout) and free-marketeers like Mr Netanyahu, whose policies as finance minister did much to alienate the poor and make Mr Peretz’s victory possible.

National Review - Likud You? Israel’s political tsunami
So, what should outsiders look for?

• Thursday is the next big day in the Israeli political calendar. While Americans celebrate Thanksgiving, Likud will hold an internal election to choose a new chairman. Bibi [Benjamin Netanyahu] is widely considered the favorite, though there are others who will challenge him. Among them: MK Uzi Landau, Education Minister Limor Livnat, and Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom. If Bibi wins, his challenge will be to unify Likud as quickly as possible and begin to look for allies amongst the other parties and among right-of-center voters.
  
• From there, watch to see if Sharon's Likud supporters remain committed to him. Already, several are rumored to be having second thoughts about jumping ship and joining Sharon's new party. "Centrist parties in Israel have a long history of falling apart before the election," one Likud strategist reminds me.
  
• Watch what Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz does. Sharon is putting a great deal of pressure on him to come with him. Bibi is urging Mofaz to stay with Likud. His decision may be an interesting bellwether of Sharon's chances, and Bibi's.
  
• Expect the Israeli-Palestinian peace process to go into hiberation, at least until next spring. The Palestinians are expected to hold their legislative elections in January, followed by the Israeli elections. Little of significance is likely to happen between now and then.

Now onto the aftermath of the recent elections in Sri Lanka:

IPS - Poll Outcome Spells Return to Arms
True to the hawkish image that propelled him to electoral victory, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse, has begun his six-year-term in office by indicating readiness to review not only a Norwegian-mediated peace process with Tamil rebels but also the historic 2002 ceasefire.

"I want to state the dedication of my government to upholding the ceasefire …I am also ready to review the ceasefire agreement," Rajapakse said in an address to the nation, immediately after being sworn in as the embattled island nation’s fifth president, Saturday afternoon.
[...]
The Tamil Tigers, as the LTTE is better known, have been waging a separatist war against successive Sri Lankan governments for more than two decades, demanding a Tamil state in the north and east of the island. Major fighting, however, has been suspended since the February 2002 truce.

Despite being the longest truce in the war, that has claimed more than 65,000 lives, it has not been conducive to peace negotiations and the process has remained stalled since April 2003. The truce itself has come under intense pressure after a top Tiger military leader defected to government areas in April 2004.

Bad news on the HIV/AIDS front:

Guardian - Aids virus spreads to 40 million people, but still governments understate the pandemic
The HIV/Aids pandemic is continuing its deadly spread across the globe, infecting five million more people last year and bringing the total living with the virus to over 40 million, the UN said yesterday.

UNAids, in its latest update on the figures, tried to lighten the gloom by pointing to Kenya, Zimbabwe and some of the Caribbean countries, where there is some limited evidence that infection rates may be dropping slightly. But in the worst-hit regions, notably sub-Saharan Africa, the trend is steadily upwards and in India there are suggestions that the scale of infection could be worse than the official figures imply.
[...]
In Kenya, Zimbabwe and Uganda, HIV prevalence rates, measured among pregnant women at antenatal clinics, have dropped, which is being attributed partly to changes in sexual behaviour, with the greater use of condoms, but also to increases in death rates.

In the US, we have Black Friday at the end of this week as the holiday shopping season starts full-bore. But in France, Black Tuesday is about to begin

Expatica - Commuters brace for Black Tuesday: train, metro strikes
A nationwide train strike was to grip France from late Monday, followed by a metro strike in Paris, as unions launched a campaign designed to create maximum travel disruption in a push for better job security.

Only one train in three within France will be circulating from 8pm under the stoppage called by four major unions, with the worst to be felt during what the media were calling "black Tuesday".

Initially set for 24 hours, it may be renewed.
[...]
The Paris area is to be among the hardest hit. The suburban line linking the capital to its two airports, Charles de Gaulle and Orly, will be running at 23-percent capacity.

Starting late Tuesday, a 36-hour metro strike in Paris has also been called by the biggest of the unions, the CGT, in a move that will compound problems for the millions of commuters and tourists who use the subway system every day.

Another union, Sud, said Monday it was calling on its members to extend the metro strike indefinitely from Thursday to protest changes to pensions.

From Australia comes quite possibly the headline of the month:

Sydney Morning Herald - Asia's taste for pizza has cheese costs whey out of line
Strong overseas demand has pushed up the price of cheese in Australia, which could affect pizza and other fast-food prices.

The price of cheese has risen by twice the rate of inflation this year, jumping 6.5 per cent in the year to September, according to Tim Hunt, a senior dairy analyst at the global agribusiness bank Rabobank.

He said the export price of cheddar was at a record high of $US2900 ($3960) a tonne, and demand was particularly high in Asia.
[...]
"China is moving very much to a Western diet now … and the sheer demand that will be generated for dairy products in the future will be enormous, especially with the Beijing [Olympic] Games coming up in 2008," he said.

And here it is, a brief foray into happiness via HappyNews.com:

HappyNews.com - Anglers find live turtle under ice
Anglers fishing in a frozen river in northern Sweden came home with a highly unusual catch _ a live turtle they found trapped under the ice.

''My friends did not believe me but then saw it for themselves. And right then it moved,'' Anna Nyberg, one of the anglers said Monday.

After cutting a hole in the ice in the Rodan river, 400 miles north of Stockholm, the anglers managed to remove the turtle, which is now temporarily living in Nyberg's bath tub.

Nyberg said wildlife experts in Stockholm told her that the 9.6-inch-long turtle probably was of a South or Central American species that would not be expected to survive the grim Swedish winter.