Analysts are pointing to improving indicators in the United States, China and even Japan, the world’s second-largest economy, which some observers predict is set to announce its own return to growth in the coming days. Though a host of other European economies — including Britain, Italy and Spain — are still mired in one of the worst recessions in generations, contractions are moderating even in many of those nations, an indication that they too may be close to rebounding. It underscores, analysts say, how ramped-up government stimulus spending around the globe appears to be having at least some of its desired effects.

Nobody could have predicted… (except the ones who looked up people like Roosevelt, Franklin)

An Italian newspaper and magazine published excerpts of what they said were audio recordings of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi talking with an escort at the center of a corruption probe.

The daily La Repubblica and its sister magazine L’Espresso said the recordings posted on their Web sites Monday were of Berlusconi and Patrizia D’Addario. She has said that an Italian businessman hired her and other women to attend parties at Berlusconi’s homes.

A former Italian MEP is claiming that he was prevented from standing again for Silvio Berlusconi’s party in the European election last month because he did not fit in with the party’s ‘revolution’ of appointing glamorous young women.

Marcello Vernola, 48, a lawyer from Bari, was elected to the European Parliament in 2004 for Forza Italia, now part of the centre-right People of Liberty (Pdl) party. He said he had been assured that he would stand again in June.

He says that when this did not happen he was told by Denis Verdini, a national co-ordinator for the PdL: ‘Tu mica c’hai le poppe?’ or ‘Do you have tits?’ — an apparent reference to the policy by Mr Berlusconi of fielding attractive young women as candidates. Mr Verdini denied that he made such a remark.

The BNP has produced an election poster bearing a passage from John’s gospel and a traditional image of Jesus.

“What would Jesus do?” it asks, and then supplies the answer – “vote BNP”.

The party has recently stepped up its efforts to present itself as a staunch defender of Christianity and recently set up what it called the Christian Council of Britain, under the leadership of the Reverend Robert West, a clergyman with an independent church.

Israeli authorities broke up a series of Palestinian cultural events in Jerusalem on Saturday, disrupting a children’s march and bursting balloons at a schoolyard celebration in a crackdown that underscored the emotional battle over control of the disputed holy city.

UPDATE: This doesn’t help either.

During Operation Cast Lead, Israeli forces killed Palestinian civilians under permissive rules of engagement and intentionally destroyed their property, say soldiers who fought in the offensive.

The soldiers are graduates of the Yitzhak Rabin pre-military preparatory course at Oranim Academic College in Tivon. Some of their statements made on Feb. 13 will appear Thursday and Friday in Haaretz. Dozens of graduates of the course who took part in the discussion fought in the Gaza operation.

The speakers included combat pilots and infantry soldiers. Their testimony runs counter to the Israel Defense Forces’ claims that Israeli troops observed a high level of moral behavior during the operation. The session’s transcript was published this week in the newsletter for the course’s graduates.

Israel is the one real western-style democracy in the middle east. They are a close ally of the United States, and much of their actions receive our blessing. So, the Bush/Cheney style “slightly better than terrorists” standard is not an acceptable response here.

Sigh.

For a good backgrounder on Chavez and the reason why people love him and why he’s probably bad for Venezuela in the long run, check out this documentary from Frontline: The Hugo Chavez Show.

Premier Silvio Berlusconi sparked outrage Sunday for suggesting that Italy’s women were so beautiful they needed military escorts to avoid being raped.

Berlusconi made the comments in response to questions about his proposal to deploy 300,000 soldiers in the streets to fight crime. A series of violent attacks, including a rape in Rome on New Year’s Eve and another outside the capital this week, have put pressure on the government to crack down on crime.

But Berlusconi said that, even in a militarized state, crimes like rape can happen. ‘You can’t consider deploying a force that would be sufficient to prevent the risk,’ the ANSA and Apcom news agencies quoted him as saying. ‘We would have to have so many soldiers because our women are so beautiful.’

We booted the GOP, so apparently there’s a need to correct the imbalance of crazy here in North America. Canada, you’re up!

Parliament was suspended midday Thursday after Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean agreed to a request from Prime Minister Stephen Harper to interrupt the session, a decision that means his government has staved off certain defeat in a non-confidence vote scheduled for next week.

After emerging from a nearly two-hour meeting with Jean, Harper said Parliament will resume on Jan. 26 and the first order of business will be the federal budget.

“Last Friday, I asked Canadians to give us their opinions on the parliamentary situation. That feedback has been overwhelming and very clear. They want Canada’s government to continue to work on the agenda that Canadians voted for – our plan to strengthen the economy,” Harper said.

So Harper’s Conservatives have a minority ruling government, and the other liberal parties team up to knock him out so he appeals to the Queen’s rep and they shut down parliament.

REALLY?

I confess to knowing next to nothing about the Candian government, but on the surface its kind of weird that someone with an apparent connection to the Queen of England has any sway, let alone more sway than she’s got in the UK. Or something. Canada, WTF?

Belgian writer, poet and artist Hugo Claus has died aged 78, ending his life by euthanasia, his wife has said.
He had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and had “picked the moment of his death”, Veerle De Wit added.

He died at Middelheim Hospital in Antwerp but no further details were given. Euthanasia is legal in Belgium.

President Vladimir Putin said Friday that he had ordered the military to resume regular long-range flights of strategic bombers, a show of Russia’s resurgent military power amid a chill in relations with Washington.

The administration’s decision making is like the kid who holds his breath and throws a tantrum for no good reason.

Media freedom in Russia is doing about as well as it is in China and Iran – in other words, quite badly, according to the ranking of the US Freedom House organisation, which monitors freedom of the press in different countries. The organisation rates countries as free, partly free, and not free. Russia ranks in the third group.

French presidential front-runner Nicolas Sarkozy outlined his stance on key foreign policy issues Thursday, saying he might pull France’s troops out of a NATO force in Afghanistan if he is elected.

Now, a French national has been held by the Taliban for a while now and they said they would wait until after the French election to make a move. Now, they’ve released the hostage.

Taliban captors Friday said they had freed a French aid worker
kidnapped more than five weeks back in southern Afghanistan. But the
fate of his three Afghan colleagues is yet to be decided.

Purported Taliban spokesman Qari Yousaf Ahmadi phoned Pajhwok Afghan
News to say Eric Damfreville – working for Terre d’Enfance (A World For
Our Children) – was handed over to tribal elders in Maiwand district of
the militancy-plagued at 5:30pm.

…

He said the aid worker was freed in the wake of a recent statement from
newly-elected French President Nicolas Sarkozy that he would ponder
over the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan – a key demand of the
captors.

Cons in America have acted as if the election of Mr. Sarkozy is a French turn towards neocon policy. But that doesn’t seem to be the case at all.

Most of the signs in the French election seem to indicate that Nicolas Sarkozy is going to win the French election over Segolene Royal. I would almost say it’s a sure thing to bet that some conservative blogger, columnist, or pundit of some sort will appoint himself a keen observer of French politics and claim that France is moving in a conservative position. The truth of the matter is, while Sarkozy is more conservative than maybe what the French are used to, even a cursory look at French and European politics shows us time and time again that what they consider conservative we here in America would see as considerably to the left. Heck, the Democratic party that cons usually accuse of being nothing more than a front for Fidel Castro would be considered at best a center-right party in most of Europe (and I am definitely in favor of being to the right of Europe).

I mostly only speak about U.S. politics because that’s what I know, and on occasion I can comment on Jamaican politics because I lived there and my mom is really involved in it as an activist, but I don’t pretend to be an expert on the rest of the world – and most liberal bloggers don’t. But the cons? They act as if they know everything.

A powerful earthquake centered in the Hindu Kush mountains of Pakistan on Saturday morning sent tremors across South Asia, killing more than 18,000 people, including at least 1,600 in remote northern Pakistan, among them hundreds across both sides of disputed Kashmir, and shaking houses and high-rises throughout the region.