Terrorism and the markets

The Washington Times

By the time of the stock market close in New York on July 7, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up a little, notwithstanding the bombs in London. The next day, the Dow closed at 10,449, up 144 points. The FTSE 100, the main London index, dropped 1.4 percent the day of the attack but the next day more than recovered the loss, closing at 5232, or about five points off the 52-week high.

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Africa and human rights abuses

The Washington Times

In a speech Thursday in anticipation of this week’s G8 summit in Scotland, President Bush laid out an agenda for greater U.S. engagement in what remains the single greatest challenge to a sense of common humanity: stopping the killing, stopping the dying, and starting in earnest a process that will bring the benefits of the modernized, developed world to the people of Africa.

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A test for “Europe whole and free”

The Washington Times

There’s an important election next Sunday, one that may make a significant difference not only to the prospects for consolidating a democratic transition, but also to regional peace, security and stability, and to the question of whether “Europe whole and free” still has meaning after the failure of the EU Constitutional Treaty in France and the Netherlands. It’s in Albania. That’s right, Albania.

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A Fix on Downing Street

About that supposed smoking-gun memo.

View this article at The Weekly Standard

AS LEAKED GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS GO, the “Downing Street Memo” is pretty sexy. Not actually a memo but the official notes of a July 23, 2002, meeting in the British prime minister’s office, the document reproduces the thoughts and concerns about Iraq of Tony Blair and his key advisers, including his foreign and defense secretaries, his attorney general, and “C”–code for Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of MI6, Britain’s foreign intelligence service, recently returned from high-level meetings in Washington. Rarely do you find an open window on such a high-level discussion, especially on a matter that will take a country to war a scant nine months later.

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Battle over Supreme Court nominees looms

The Washington Times

If the White House has seemed a bit adrift on domestic matters, my guess is that’s because they know something you don’t know: The entire domestic debate is about to be taken up by a battle royale over two Supreme Court nominations. Social Security may not be going anywhere, but it makes little sense to try to introduce another major initiative when in a few weeks’ time we are likely to have the mother of all partisan confrontations.

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Let’s make a deal

The Washington Times

The latest compromise proposal on the question of confirming judges goes like this: A self-selecting group of six senators each from the Republican Party and the Democratic Party agree that: 1) The filibuster rule will not change; and 2) the filibuster will not be used to prevent a floor vote in which there is a Senate majority in favor of the nominee except in the most extraordinary circumstances.

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