Mike predicts, “Al Gore will run as an independant or third-party candidate for President of
the United States in the upcoming 2008 elections.

Potentially Green Party, which would have its own significance due to Ralph
Nader’s role in 2000.

Running mate could be a conserative like Mike Bloomberg.

Result is a healing between red and blue states among moderates and forming
a new moderate power base.”

Oil stood $1 higher at $64 a barrel on Wednesday, with traders still rattled by a rumour — quickly dismissed by U.S. officials — that some sort of conflict had broken out between the United States and Iran.

U.S. crude prices jumped to a more than six-month high of $68.09 a barrel in after-hours trade late on Tuesday, but quickly fell back to stand at $63.97 a barrel by 0027 GMT, up $1.04 from Tuesday’s close. Oil rose just 2 cents in normal trade a day ago.

In London, Brent crude was up $1.02 to $65.62 a barrel, extending a six-day rally that has added $5.50.

Oil surged $5 late on Tuesday evening on rumours of an unspecified conflict between Western forces and Iran, the world’s fourth-largest oil exporter, which has been under mounting world pressure to abandon its nuclear programme.

U.S. officials knocked down any talk of military action.

“We have no information at this time that indicates any incident taking place,” said White House National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

Source: Reuters

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is lashing out at the U.N. Security Council for tightening sanctions on the country over its nuclear program.Speaking in Tehran Sunday night, Ahmadinejad said sanctions requiring Iran to give the International Atomic Energy Agency six months’ notice of any nuclear activity is illegal and wouldn’t stop the nuclear program “even for a second,” the Fars news agency reported.

In an interview published Monday in Germany’s Spiegel magazine, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki also said the U.N. move was illegal and said the nuclear bickering had a precedent, the IRNA news agency reported.

“Iran was in the process of completing the nationalization of its oil industry. The beginning of this nationalization process was the subject of debate in the Security Council 50 years ago,” Mottaki said. “It too was seen as a threat to peace and stability at the time, which of course was absurd.”

Source: UPI

Is Iran beig backed into a corner on their nuclear program?

PPF has started a “Chavez Death Pool.”

http://www.icalledit.com/forums/t2171-chavez-death-pool.html

With Saddam Hussein’s death, how will Iraq’s people react and deal with this? What will change? Will this mark an end to some of the violence? Will it mark a peak in this Iraq war?

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea warned on Wednesday that increased U.S. pressure over the regime’s reported nuclear test could be considered an act of war, and South Korea suggested it would build up its conventional arsenal to deal with its belligerent neighbor.

North Korea’s No. 2 leader threatened to conduct more nuclear tests if the United States continued what he called its “hostile attitude.”

Source: AP

Any predictions how this will turn out?

ICalledIt member, pingpong_fiasco, who lived and worked in Thailand predicted the coup would happen several months ago!

Read the thread

Posted on 2-26-06:
“Well, Thaksin called snap elections - 3 years ahead of schedule. This is a brilliant move at first sight, but it may actually backfire on him.”

Posted on 3-30-06
“It’s difficult to predict a coup, esp. with Thai business doing so well. But unless the king steps in and mandates something, I am afraid a coup of some sort will occur. If Thaksin is allowed to rule after the election, that in itself will be a kind of coup.

The Supreme Court announced today that it will hear a challenge to a federal law outlawing a late-term abortion procedure, reopening the contentious issue on Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.’s first day on the bench.

The law, the Partial Birth Abortion Act, was passed in 2003 but was immediately challenged in court and has never taken effect. It was ruled unconstitutional by three federal appeals courts in the last year, in rulings based on a Supreme Court decision in 2000 striking down a similar law passed in Nebraska.

abortion, alito, supreme court

Source: NYT

“It’s unbelievably tone-deaf politically at this point in our history, four years after 9/11, to entertain the idea of turning port security over to a company based in the UAE, who avows to destroy Israel,” Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said in a “Fox News Sunday” interview.

DP World would gain control over most operations at ports in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Miami, Baltimore and New Orleans through the acquisition of Peninsular and Oriental.

Source: Bloomberg

–Gotta be some predictive theories from this?

The European Union said avian influenza has been found in two swans in Austria and tests were being conducted to determine if it is the deadly H5N1 strain.

The European Commission, in a statement sent by e-mail today, said Austria was applying “precautionary measures.” Austria becomes the fourth EU nation to be hit by bird flu, after Greece, Italy and Slovenia.

“The Austrian authorities have informed the European Commission this afternoon of a confirmed case of the H5 avian influenza virus in two dead swans found in the region of Stiria, near to the city of Graz,” the commission said. “Further tests will now be carried out.”

A wild swan tested positive for an H5 subtype of avian influenza in Slovenia, the European Commission said yesterday, a day after Italy and Greece confirmed the lethal H5N1 virus in swans. The commission is the EU’s executive branch.

The virus has killed birds in more than 20 countries and infected at least 166 people, killing 88 of them.

Source: Bloomberg

Bird Flu, Avian flu, Italy, Greece, Austria, H5N1

-Side note: I really liked Vienna when I was there.