The Week That Was...

Last week, in our issue covering July 28-August 3, 2007, we made a few predictions. How did we do?

Abe clings on

In last week's leader, Sayonara Shinzo?, we predicted Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) was about to lose an election and that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe could be headed for the exit. Yet even as votes were being counted in the House of Councillors election and the true extent of the LDP's humbling defeat was becoming apparent last Sunday night, Abe declared he would not step down. This is not the end of the story. Japan is politically deadlocked, its 'natural' party of government in disarray, and its leader discredited. Abe will stubbornly cling to office, but adopt a more humble position.

Kouchner's “success”

In Lebanon: Last chance saloon, we looked forward to a last-ditch diplomatic effort to resolve Lebanon's longstanding political crisis in Beirut. We predicted that France's Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner would have little success in restarting peace talks between the Lebanese government and opposition groups, which have been at a political impasse since November last year. Kouchner described the lunch meeting as a "success" and an encouraging sign. If he was referring to the quality of the hors d'oeuvres, we believe him. The conference may have gone some way to "breaking the ice", but we think Kouchner failed to produce any breakthrough. He will continue to be frustrated by the inability of rival leaders to compromise and be reminded that much of Lebanon's fate is decided in neighboring countries, namely Syria and Iran.

Turkey's tough tasks

In Emerging Trends, we predicted that Turkey faced a daunting task in electing a president. Last week confirmed our prediction. Turkey's top general reiterated that the military wanted the next president to uphold the country's secular values. We will know more shortly: parliament is set to convene this Saturday and the first major issue which it faces will be the election to choose a successor for the staunchly secular Ahmet Necdet Sezer. A rise in tensions between the secularist establishment and the government will emerge this weekend.

Striking change

We predicted that French workers may not have it all their way as CGT, France's second-largest union group by membership, took to the streets last Tuesday in protest over a new bill that would mandate 'minimum service' during transport strikes, and force individual workers to declare their intention to stop work 48 hours in advance. And we were right. France's Assembly approved the minimum service bill -- one of the mainstays of Nicolas Sarkozy's presidential campaign -- last week after hours of debate. In response to the bill, transport unions are planning a series of protests to be held from September.