One Week Later....

Hillary's on the ropes

In Clinton: wounded whale we wrote that the series of state primary defeats suffered by Hillary Clinton in the week following the February 5 ‘Super Tuesday’ primaries would begin to create political momentum for her opponent, Senator Barack Obama.

• Obama triumphed by an unexpectedly large margin in the Democratic party's February 19 Wisconsin primary and Hawaii caucuses.
• In Wisconsin, Obama made inroads among white women and white voters without college degrees -- the core of Clinton's previous support base -- which suggests that 'momentum politics' may be coming into play.

Pakistan elections

In Pakistan: Sympathy and Struggle we predicted that the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) of the late Benazir Bhutto -- who was assassinated in December -- would capture a plurality of the vote in the upcoming elections.

• The PPP won the most seats, and is engaged in tough coalition talks with another opposition party, the Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N).

Revenge of the Bean-Counters

In Auditing season in full swing we wrote that the major global accounting firms would take a tough line with even their most lucrative clients, in order to avoid the wave of shareholder lawsuits that sank Arthur Andersen following the Enron collapse.

• Credit Suisse on February 20 announced an unexpectedly large 2.85 billion dollar loss, due to several ‘pricing errors’ by its traders.

Political Masterstroke

The World Next Week Political Masterstroke award goes to South Africa’s finance minister, Trevor Manuel, who successfully defended the principle of fiscal responsibility in his new budget, despite the increasing political strength of the ANC’s Left, public demands for more social spending, and the darkening global economic climate.

Analytica™

Worthy of note, or news to us.

US embassy in Belgrade attacked

Masked men set fires inside the US embassy, which had been vacated a week earlier, after Washington recognised the break-away Serbian province of Kosovo as a new state (New York Times).

UK apology for 'rendition' flights

Foreign Secretary David Miliband has apologised for London’s role in two CIA ‘rendition’ flights that landed in UK territory.  Rendition has been used to capture terrorist suspects abroad and deliver them to third countries, which may not respect Western human rights norms (BBC).

And finally…

The Pentagon is ‘confident’ that it managed to shoot down one of its own spy satellites, but insists that the strike was not designed to show off its anti-ballistic missile technology.