War with North Korea is back on the table as they start building another bomb. Canada's election campaign is getting totally wacky as the Liberal party starts cratering, Japans most obnoxious foreign minister of the past ten years become PM, Israel's ruling coalition starts negotiations form a new government and Hugo Chavez declares himself to be a Maoist. Fun fun fun.
More after the fold.
With everyone focused on McCain and Palin's trying to sneak out of the debates, people here forget that there's other things going on. Take Canada for instance....
IN less than a week they're going to have the PM debates. Unlike here, there are five parties taking part, the Neo-Cons, represented by Prime Minster Steven Harper, the Liberals, represented by Stephine Dion, the seccessionist Bloc Québécois represented by Gilles Duceppe, the New Democratic Party (NDP) represented by Jack Layton and the Greens represented by Elizabeth May.
Now the big news up there is that Duceppe denounced Harper's young offender plan as providing "fresh meat" for older inmates's sexual perversions. Harper went ballistic and demanded a retraction. The Bloc went up in the latest polls. So it goes...and speaking of which...
here they are, sort of:
National:
Neo-Cons 37%
Liberals 24-26%
NDP 19-21%
Bloc 9%*
Green 7-12%
*Quebec
the Bloc 37-40%
Neo-Cons 22-23%
NDP 14-18%
Liberals 14-18%
Greens 5-9%
The Liberals are cratering, and according to some pundits Dion has given up on forming a government. He's publically snubbed Layton's proposal for a genuine coalition. The NDP is making a comeback in the west, and that means it's possible the Libs are going to come in third behind the Bloc, which might sweep Quebec.
All this might change after the debate.
Japan has a new Prime Minister, Taro Aso, has debuted with the job approval of just under 50%, and it looks like the election, tentatively slated for October 25th may not take place at all as it appears the oxymoronic Liberal Democratic party may very well still lose.
IN Britain, Gordon Brown's amazing barnburner at the Labour annual convention gave him an eight point bounce in the polls and nipped the "dump Gordon" campaign in the bud...for now. However, Hank Paulson has refused to meet with Brown when the PM came to Washington after he addressed the UN.
Also, there's a bill to let Catholics ascend the throne of Britain and thus become head of the Anglican communion. That would be interesting...
Austria is having an election next week, and it looks to end up as another tie, while in Bavaria, the Christian Social Union is looking to lose it's permanent majority, which it's had since democracy was resumed in 1946. As you know, Bavaria is a state in the Federal German Republic and this might make the Merkel government fall.
IN Russia, President Dmitri Medvedev has circuitously attacked Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, signalling a hoped for split.
more later.