Senator John McCain

• French President Nicolas Sarkozy takes third place following his decree to reconvene parliament in an extraordinary session on September 22. The decree -- which will shorten parliamentarians’ summer holidays by a week -- is designed to allow extra time to pass key social policy reforms before a budget vote in the autumn. The reforms include a new system to calculate the minimum wage, and proposals on reintegrating the unemployed into the labour market.  Following the narrow vote in favour of constitutional reform at the end of last month, Sarkozy's popularity is recovering.  Shortening the parliamentarians' summer holiday is likely to be welcomed by voters, who are also keen to see reforms that will boost their spending power.

• Iran takes this week’s second place.  Last June, a group of six key world powers formally offered Iran a package of incentives -- including technical and economic assistance -- in exchange for assurances that it would halt its uranium enrichment programme.  As was widely predicted, a deadline for Iran to respond to the offer this week passed without a clear ‘yes’ or ‘no’ from Tehran.  The fudged response -- in which Iran released a letter promising only to cooperate with future negotiations -- has left the ‘Permanent Five Plus One’ in disarray again.  The Western powers -- France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States -- are likely to ask the UN Security Council to impose punitive sanctions on Iran.  However, the chance of both China and Russia agreeing is slim.     

• US presidential hopeful John McCain wins this week’s masterstroke.  McCain's latest line of attack in the US presidential campaign has been a series of advertisements in which he has sought to portray rival candidate Barack Obama as an inexperienced 'celebrity' with messianic delusions that make him ill-suited to the task of government.  The tactic is a classic example of negative campaigning in which a candidate deliberately attacks what he perceives to be his rival’s strengths.  While the liberal commentariat has derided the move as desperate and cynical, it appears to be paying dividends.  Former Senator Tom Daschle, a senior adviser to the Obama campaign, has blamed the ads for a recent dip in Obama’s poll ratings.