The World in Review

1. United States:

Barack Hussein Obama was inaugurated as the nation’s 44th president in front of the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. On his first day as Commander-in-Chief, Mr. Obama began implementing his new administration’s policies, including freezing the salaries of senior White House staff and winning a request for a 120-day postponement of military war crimes trials at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.

A report by the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) revealed that small-scale methamphetamine production labs—which concoct highly addictive “meth” drugs with chemicals from over-the-counter cold medications—are on the rise. Tighter purchase restrictions in the U.S. and Mexico on cold medicines led to a decline since 2004, but law enforcement officials, according to the report, are beginning to see “individuals and criminal groups…increasingly circumventing state and federal pseudoephedrine sales restrictions by making numerous small-quantity, pseudoephedrine product purchases from multiple retail outlets.” The NDIC also reported that several Mexican drug trafficking organizations have moved their production operations from Mexico into the United States, especially in California. (See related article: “Chemical Warfare – Millions of Lives Destroyed by Crystal ‘Meth’”)

“New York State’s unemployment insurance system, besieged by claims from laid-off workers, ran out of money on the first business day of the year and is borrowing daily from the federal government to bridge a fast-growing and potentially huge deficit, state labor officials say…Despite paying lower benefits to its jobless residents than other Northeastern states, the state’s unemployment fund has been borrowing about $90 million a week from the federal unemployment trust fund, state officials said. The deficit has already reached $212 million and is expected to exceed $2.5 billion by the end of 2010, they said” (The New York Times). (See related news brief: “Millions Out of Jobs – Millions More at Risk”)

2. Mexico: Drug-related violence in the state of Chihuahua near Ciudad Juarez claimed at least 15 lives in 24 hours, including a police chief in the suburb of Praxedis G. Guerrero, Martin Castro Martinez, whose severed head was discovered in a cooler outside of his office. Mr. Castro Martinez was abducted along with six other men just four days after becoming police chief. (See related news brief: “Mexican Drug-Cartel Violence Claims 5,300 Lives”)

3. United Kingdom:

“UK unemployment was 1.92 million between September and November, up 131,000 from the previous three months, the highest level since September 1997” (BBC).

The government announced a second bank bailout, which includes increasing the government’s control over Royal Bank of Scotland to nearly 70%, up from 58%. The bailout follows October’s $55 billion bank rescue plan.

4. France: The French government will supply another $13.6 billion to boost faltering banks, on the condition that top bank executives not receive bonuses for 2008. The bailout amount matches an earlier government payout last October.

5. Democratic Republic of the Congo: “More than 1,500 Rwandan troops crossed into eastern Congo…, launching a major operation with the Congolese army to hunt down Rwandan Hutu militia leaders who fled into the region after participating in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, according to U.N. and Rwandan officials” (Washington Post).

6. Israel: Despite having agreed to a one-week ceasefire, Hamas fired eight mortar shells into Israel. Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Forces withdrew from the Gaza Strip (CNN; Xinhua; The Australian; Haaretz).

7. China:

Beijing sentenced two men to death and gave life in prison to the former head of Sanlu Group Co. for its involvement in the tainted-milk scandal, which claimed the lives of at least six babies, Xinhua news agency reported (Bloomberg).

With a new president now in the White House, China seeks to improve military relations with the United States. However, the Chinese government wants the U.S. to stop selling arms to Taiwan, a self-governing island China considers as its own, a senior military official stated (BBC).

8. Australia:

Doctors are describing the mosquito-borne dengue fever outbreak in Cairns, a regional city in Far North Queensland, as an epidemic. At least 170 cases—161 people in Cairns and nine in Townsville—have been reported in recent weeks (ABC News; Australian Associated Press). (See news brief: “Disease Outbreak Strikes Australia”)

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will take “whatever action is necessary” to stabilize financial markets as an A$75 billion ($49 billion USD) gap looms in money available to businesses (Bloomberg).

“The International Monetary Fund is poised to slash Australia’s economic growth forecasts to not much above zero as the global financial crisis extends into the year ahead…The IMF warning coincides with official confirmation that China’s economic growth, the engine room of Australia’s recent boom, slowed more sharply than forecast, to 6.8 per cent from 9 per cent in the final quarter of last year, as the global downturn hit” (The Australian).

“Leading economic forecaster Access Economics warns in its quarterly Business Outlook, released today, that the nation’s economic boom will ‘unwind scarily fast,’ halving corporate profits, costing more than 300,000 people their jobs and blowing out the current account deficit to more than $100 billion” (The Australian).

Child abuse protection orders doubled to more than 34,000 between 1998 and 2008, according to an Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report (Australian Associated Press).