The Town Herald

The netpaper about Elftowners, by Elftowners, for Elftowners.

Around the World!

for January, February and March '09

Reported by [Imperator]



Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
On December 27 Israel began launching air attacks on Hamas leaders’ homes and hit rocket launch sites after Palestinian terrorists had been firing rockets into Israel due to the expiration of a ceasefire on December 19. On January 4 Israeli ground forces invaded Gaza. Fighting took place all around and in Gaza City until Israel withdrew its troops before Barack Obama was sworn in as president of the United States, keeping its promise to do so as long as Hamas fighter did not attack the withdrawing troops.

U.S. Presidential Inauguration
Barack Obama formally took the oath of office on January 20. The rest of the day he spent making his inauguration speech, attending formal balls, and viewing an evening parade. Attempting to begin work on fulfilling campaign promises, Obama has begun analyzing how best to close the controversial Guantanamo Bay detention facility as well as pass major legislation to heal the economy. Obama signed a nearly $800 billion economic stimulus and spending bill designed to create liquidity in markets and fund projects to create and save a projected four million jobs. Democrats were pleased by the progress while Republicans heavily criticized the bill for not sporting more tax cuts and for the size of the bill (over 1000 pages) as being an effort to swamp lawmakers with too much material to review in a short time.

Australian Fires
Through early February, massive wildfires have raged across vast amounts of Australian territory razing whole towns and villages. Authorities say some fires were started deliberately by arsonists while others are natural due to dry conditions. Around 200 people died with the region near the city of Melbourne hardest hit.

World Economic Tension
The global economic situation has continued to deteriorate through March and nations are pointing fingers. The president of the Czech Republic said that the United States’ government’s response to the economy was putting it on the “road to hell.” But it didn’t end there: Prime Minister of Britain, Gordon Brown, also received a stern chastising in the British Parliament over his handling of UK’s economy from a British official. In the United States, tensions have flared between Mexico and the US over a trade dispute involving transporting goods by truck across the border and Chinese officials bitterly complained saying “we hate you guys” for US currency value manipulations through the use of inflation which is harming Chinese growth. Finally, China and Russia have put forward proposals that a new world-wide currency be established causing the value of the US dollar to plunge 1% within just 10 minutes of US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner suggesting the plan could be considered. Although there has recently been some measure of strengthening in the US stock market, global economies continue to struggle and gloomy projections of growth persist for up to the next 2-3 years.



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