Sen. John McCain has once again moved to deflect the ever-present age issue that has been nagging at the Arizona's senator's campaign since the announcement of his candidacy. McCain will be seventy-two come the election in November, and if elected, will be the oldest president in U.S. history to begin his first term.

The age gap has been raised by the U.S. media as both contenders approach August birthdays. The unfortunate closeness of the birthdays (for Sen. McCain) has allowed commentators to settle on generational change as a campaign theme - an outcome that would delight the Obama camp.

An example from the Detroit Free Press.

Obama will be 47 on Aug. 4. McCain will be 72 on Aug. 29.

Their 25-year age gap, and the questions it inherently raises about experience and vitality, is part of a powerful generational subtext of the 2008 campaign.

This is the first presidential contest to substantially involve the emerging so-called millennials, a generation that some political and social scientists predict will be the most politically active and powerful of any since the GI Generation that won World War II. [source]

Another more caustic comment from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer comparing Sen. McCain to the hapless former presidential contender Sen. Bob Dole.

It's an election between old and new.

The Republican presidential candidate is a former war hero and seasoned senator who would be the oldest president in history when he starts his first term. His opponent is a much younger, charismatic Democrat.

The Republican's age and health are campaign issues, as is his temper. Falling behind in the polls, he attacks the news media for its biased coverage of the campaign. [source]

However the age issue for ageing presidential contenders need not be such a millstone and was famously deflected by Ronald Reagan who, at 73 running for his second term, told Democratic contender Walter Mondale:

"I will not make age an issue in this campaign," he told his rival during a televised debate.

"I'm not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience." [source]

Last week's disastrous by-election result for British Labour, when it lost the previously third safest Scottish seat of Glasgow East to the Scottish national Party (SNP), has added yet more pressure on the affable yet seemingly disaster-prone UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Following on from the equally bad result at the 2008 Henley by-election, and a series of mishaps and missteps by the previously rock-solid Labour administration, the notoriously hard to please British press have sniffed blood and are baying for the Labour leader's resignation.

The Guardian sums up the press reaction since the by-election loss in this article.

Gordon Brown and the Labour party have also taken a hammering amongst voters with the latest YouGov opinion polls for the Daily Telegraph showing 74 per cent of voters dissatisfied with Mr Brown, against just 15 per cent describing themselves as satisfied. Only 26 percent supported Labour, down two percentage points from the last survey.

Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama has sought to bury the differences between the United States and "Old Europe" with a rousing speech at the base of the Berlin's Victory Column before an estimated 200,000 people.

Whether or not the speech was made with one eye on the electorate at home seemed irrelevant as the junior Senator from Illinois charmed the massive crowd and sought their co-operation in ending conflict in trouble spots throughout the world.

With soaring rhetoric reminiscent of another U.S. President's famous speech in Berlin, Obama did not disappoint his many German fans.

"People of Berlin - people of the world - this is our moment, this is our time," he said.[source] 

After thirteen years on the run, Serbian war leader Radovan Karadzic has been arrested by police on war crimes charges, according to a statement released Monday by the office of Serbian President Boris Tadic. Karadzic has been indicted for his alleged collusion in the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995.

Associated Press is reporting an unnamed Serbian police source as saying the fanatical Serb nationalist as having been arrested in a suburb of the capital Belgrade after weeks of observation of a favourite safe house. The source said the police received a tip-off from a foreign intelligence service.

"This is a very important day for the victims who have waited for this arrest for over a decade. It is also an important day for international justice because it clearly demonstrates that nobody is beyond the reach of the law," said Serge Brammertz, the [U.N.} tribunal's head prosecutor.[source]

The U.N. war crimes tribunal, based at The Hague, has described the killings as ""scenes from hell, written on the darkest pages of human history."

Former Vice-President Al Gore has thrown down the gauntlet in the U.S. energy debate by challenging the nations lawmakers, entrepreneurs and energy policy specialists to rid the country of all fossil fuel-driven electricity within ten years.

Speaking at an energy conference in Washington yesterday, Gore told the audience renewable energy sources such as wind and solar needed to take precedence because "the survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk."

The Nobel Peace Prize recipient and noted environmentalist told the audience that he could not "...remember a time in our country when so many things seemed to be going so wrong simultaneously" in the country but added that though the problems faced are many, they were not insurmountable.

By any standards the the New Yorker's front cover depiction of Democratic nominee Barack Obama as a Muslim in full-flowing robes fist-bumping with his wife Michelle who is shown as a Afro-wearing, gun-toting terrorist, has attracted attention.

The cartoon shows the pair celebrating an apparent takeover of the White House with an  American flag burning in the background and a picture of Osama Bin Laden hanging on the wall. Titled "The Politics of Fear", the picture by Barry Blitt is New Yorker satire at its biting, brilliant best.

Yet notwithstanding its ability to sell magazines, (I can't wait to get my copy) it is quite obvious that the cartoon's original point -- to lampoon the off-the-wall conspiracy theories about Obama -- seems to have missed its mark by a long way amongst many people, liberal and conservative alike.

The Obama camp released a statement labelling the cartoon "tasteless and offensive" and derided the magazine's defence that it was intended as a satirical message.

"The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Senator Obama's right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree," said the statement. [source]

An extraordinary development in the increasingly heated U.S. presidential election came this week as news stations broadcast the tape of Rev. Jesse Jackson threatening to emasculate Democratic presumptive nominee Barack Obama for "talking down to the black man."

Jackson, whose son Jesse Jackson jnr is part of the Obama campaign team, apologised profusely when it became apparent that his ribald comments had been recorded in what the Rev. Jackson thought was a private conversation prior to an interview on Fox News.

The Washington Post controversially marked the passing of noted North Carolina conservative Jesse Helms with a rerun of an article it first published in August 29, 2001, one week after Helms announced his retirement from the Senate.

The article by David S. Broder damns the five-term former North Carolina senator, by referring to him as an unreconstructed white racist. Helms died Friday in Raleigh, N.C. from an undisclosed illness after years of failing health.

What really sets Jesse Helms apart is that he is the last prominent unabashed white racist politician in this country -- a title that one hopes will now be permanently retired. [source]

The article reminds readers that Helms is probably most famous during his for his opposition to Civil Rights Bills giving African Americans equal rights, and claimed Helms never recanted from this position.

What is unique about Helms -- and from my viewpoint, unforgivable -- is his willingness to pick at the scab of the great wound of American history, the legacy of slavery and segregation, and to inflame racial resentment against African Americans.

To the best of my knowledge, Helms has never done what the late George Wallace did well before his death -- recant and apologize for his use of racial issues. And that use was blatant. [source]

U.S. President George W. Bush has urged the industrialised nations to co-operate over climate change ahead of this week's G8 summit in Hokkaido, Japan. Speaking at a joint press conference with host Japanese Prime Minister, Yasuo Fukuda, the president said he would use the summit to advance American ideas on combating climate change.

Though sounding as if he intended to lead other G8 leaders towards a useful and binding conclusion on the restriction of carbon emissions, Bush hinted that, unless emerging industrial nations like China and India don't agree with his proposal, nothing could be achieved.

He said he intends to:

"remind people that the United States and Japan really do lead the world in research when it comes to clean technologies."
Bush added, however, that "I also am realistic enough to tell you that if China and India don't share that same aspiration, that we're not going to solve the problem." [source]

The United States has in the past refused to sign up to any binding carbon emissions agreement arguing that it should apply to all countries, not just advanced economies. Critics of the Bush administration's policies have said that unless the U.S. takes the lead, other high-polluting economies will be loath to follow.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has told world leaders that they risk seeing protectionism dominate the world's trade agendas if a liberalising trade agreement can not be worked out in next week's G8 summit in Japan.

Brown said time was running out for the world to secure a deal liberalising the world's trade however the Guardian reports his officials are confident that a deal can be struck despite a recent row between the French president Nicolas Sarkozy and EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson.

Brown's aides are increasingly optimistic that a deal to liberalise global markets in industry, agriculture and services can be struck despite the recent row between the French president, Nicholas Sarkozy, and the EU trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson, over the union's willingness to make concessions in a final round of talks expected this month in Geneva.

A British official said: "What is needed is politicians to give a lead to the negotiators because sometimes negotiators just like negotiating."

Officials have been over-optimistic in the past, but they believe if no progress is made when the major players meet then a trade deal is off the cards for up to a year as a new US president studies the issues. [source]

In an echo of the 2004 U.S. presidential run-off, the issue of gay marriage has been placed squarely on this year's campaign agenda. Democratic presumptive nominee Barack Obama has stated that he strongly opposed a ballot measure which would wind back the recently-changed Californian constitution law allowing gay marriage in the state.

His opponent Republican John McCain has said he supports the November bill.

Obama said in a letter to San Francisco's Alice B. Toklas Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Democratic Club that he opposed "the divisive and discriminatory efforts to amend the California Constitution" and other similar moves across the country.

McCain, though, said in a statement to the Protect Marriage Campaign he supported the bill to reverse the Californian Supreme Court's decision: "I support the efforts of the people of California to recognize marriage as a unique institution between a man and a woman, just as we did in my home state of Arizona. I do not believe judges should be making these decisions." [source]

The issue has divided political commentators between those who believe it has the potential to be used by sections of the Christian lobby to mobilise supporters in favour of Senator McCain's campaign.

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe yesterday shrugged off criticism of his controversial one candidate election win on the weekend, attending an African Union (AU) meeting in Sharm el Sheik, in Egypt. The 84-year-old leader, once venerated as a liberation hero, listened to speeches, some of which were critical of his policies. In general though, criticism from his fellow African leaders was muted.

The U.K.'s Times  described Mugabe as receiving a "leader's welcome" at the summit, dining in style with his Egyptian hosts while his opponent Morgan Tsvangirai remains holed up in Zimbabwe. Mr Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) pulled out of the election after accusing Mugabe of waging war on the Zimbabwean people.

He dined at a lavish luncheon given by his Egyptian hosts, hugged heads of state and other diplomats in the corridors and stayed at the Peninsula Hotel, one of the most luxurious in this Red Sea town. "Mr Mugabe is staying there as a courtesy by the Egyptian Government," a hotel spokesman said. Delegates from the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) lodged at the Sheraton, while their leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, remained in Zimbabwe.[source]