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Midday Open Thread: A Tense Iraq and Zimbabwe, Cabinet Courtings |
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In Baghdad, the curfew has been partially lifted after al-Maliki’s government came to an uneasy agreement with Muqtada al-Sadr and his al-Mahdi army.
al-Sadr has proclaimed
“We have decided to withdraw from the streets of Basra and all other provinces,” al-Sadr said in a statement released on Sunday.
“We want the Iraqi people to stop this bloodshed and maintain Iraq’s independence and stability.”
al-Maliki responded in kind, calling al-Sadr’s statement a “step in the right direction.” Hopefully there’s more negotiations within the country instead of the U.S.’s “shoot first, ask later” policy.
In Zimbabwe, the country is still tense after preliminary results show Mugabe’s party and the opposition MDC are neck-in-neck. There have been some initial victory celebrations as the MDC claims it won the Presidential race, but it seems still too close to tell.
Treasury Secretary Paulson has unveiled an overhaul of financial regulation. However, although it’s touted as the “broadest overhaul of Wall Street regulation since the Great Depression”, the NYTimes reports
The administration’s proposal will do almost nothing to regulate the alphabet soup of sophisticated financial products that have fueled the current financial crisis. And it will not rein in practices that have been linked to the mortgage crisis, like packaging risky loans into securities carrying the highest ratings.
It also isn’t going to become law anytime soon, but is just a proposal that may or may not be taken up some time this year. In the next Congress. Frickin’ sweet.
The last of Bush’s Texas cronies has left the Cabinet today, giving us a full BINGO on Jason’s scoreboard.
