Monday digest

- Never ones to disappoint, it's business as usual at Turtle Bay. Brand new UN chief Ban Ki-moon has suggested that the genocide in Darfur can be chalked up to global warming (of the man-made kind, naturally). Meanwhile, Libya is in the running to head up the next anti-racism conference.

- Speaking of Africa, the president of Gambia knows how to cure AIDS, but only on Thursdays. I don't know what's sadder, that or the fact that Bono sees the G8 as the primary obstacle rather than corrupt and/or deranged dictators who act like the Pied Piper and lead their people to misery.

- In the Middle East, after decades of what the Wall St. Journal calls "terrorism as statecraft" has led to its logical conclusion in Gaza - the law of the jungle, the US netroots are making apologies for Hamas and naturally finding fault with Israel and America despite the obvious atrocities committed by Palestinians against each other. Some might gloat and say that this is proof that democracy isn't the panacea it is often made out to be in the corridors of Western power, but to that, I would say that it's not just about casting a ballot. It's about the rule of law, a free press, and minority rights, among other things, all of which are integral to the wentire democratic process. In turn, you might say that countries who comprise the coalition of the willing have no leg to stand on since they help legitimize Guantanamo Bay, but here's a piece which destroys the "unlawful enemy combatant" argument (setting aside the obvious fact that the very existence of the judgment helps cement the moral high ground).

- A North Carolina academic has recently asked if the one-quarter of US Muslims under the age of thirty who can justify suicide bombing can really be blamed for feeling that way. I suppose that according to him, this is rational behaviour? Meanwhile, Pakistan, hardly a bastion of modernity, is threatening violence if Salman Rushdie is knighted.

- Joe Lieberman has just returned from Iraq. Here's what he saw.

- On the home front, it's been revealed that the downtown champagne and caviar socialist champion of the working man, Jack Layton, has exercised his right to purchase private health care by getting treated for a hernia outside of the public system.

I wonder what his hero Tommy Douglas would say about that - if you could turn his attention away from finding ways to sterilize the weak and the downtrodden, that is.