According to a report in the International Herald Tribune Poland has agreed to a long-stalled deal to place an American missile-defense base on Polish territory. Commenting on the agreement Polish prime minister Donald Tusk said that:

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In an article in the New York Times yesterday Jad Mouawad said that:

Energy experts say that the hostilities between Russia and Georgia could threaten American plans to gain access to more of Central Asia’s energy resources at a time when booming demand in Asia and tight supplies helped push the price of oil to record highs.

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Josef Stalin was born Iosef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili in Gori, Georgia on December 18th 1878.

Yesterday a "ceasefire" was announced in the Georgian war, but the killing continued in Gori. According to the Daily Telegraph:

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In addition to the battles taking place in South Ossetia and beyond, another war is in progress in cyberspace. According to the Shadowserver Foundation a number of Georgian websites, including that of president Mikhail Saakashvili, have been subject to a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.

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Vladimir Putin left China yesterday, and arrived in Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia:

Mr. Putin said he:

Wanted to discuss the influx of refugees. Russia's actions in South Ossetia are legally totally legitimate.

In an interview with the BBC Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said that:

More on Thousands of Innocents Died Yesterday – So It Goes

The spectacular opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic games took place yesterday. The four-hour event was choreographed by celebrated Chinese film director Zhang Yimou. The finale was in the style of a martial arts movie, and involved former Olympic gymnastics champion Li Ning "running" along the rim of the roof of the Bird's Nest stadium, before using his Olympic torch to light the huge Beijing cauldron, home of the Olympic flame for the next few days.

More on Beijing Olympic Games Open – Smog Closes In

Barack Obama gave a speech on Monday in Lansing Michigan, an area very familiar with the decline in the US automobile industry. He took the opportunity to outline his current energy policy, and he started out by laying his cards on the table:

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Last week the World Trade Organization met again, this time in Geneva. They failed to agree….. again. According to the Economist magazine:

The round’s chief ambition was to straighten out some of the kinks in agricultural trade. This ancient activity, which accounts for only 8% of world merchandise trade, is the most heavily distorted by misbegotten policies. It is, therefore, in agriculture that an agreement could do the most good. But it was also in agriculture that the agreement came unstuck.

According to the BBC:

More on World Trade Negotiations Collapse….. Again.

In a speech at Constitution Hall in Washington yesterday former Vice President Al Gore put forward his new vision of how the climate change crisis has deteriorated to the point that:

More on Al Gore calls for Carbon Free Electricity by 2018

Yesterday afternoon United States President George W. Bush lifted the executive ban on drilling for oil on the Outer Continental Shelf, which was signed by the first President Bush in 1990. Here's the video:

More on Bush Pushes Oil Rigs off California – Arnie Disagrees.