Michael's Afternoon 7 - 12 May

I. US, China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia elected to UN rights panel

A total of 20 countries were contesting the 18 seats up for grabs on the 47-member, Geneva-based Council. Candidate nations require an absolute majority, or 97 votes, in the 192-member assembly, to be elected to staggered three-year terms. The United States received 167 votes and was elected by secret ballot along with Norway (179) and Belgium (177) in the three-way contest in the Western States group.

II. Central Asia: Washington Boosts Aid to Region to Bolster Afghan War Effort

The United States is proposing significant increases to its aid packages for Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in the hopes that stabilizing those countries will enhance US efforts to defeat the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. More broadly, however, regional experts say the aid amounts that Washington is extending to the countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia in 2009 are insufficient to secure desired US diplomatic objectives in those regions. Armenian-American groups complained that the budget for Armenia represented a broken promise by President Obama, who said during the campaign that he would "maintain" assistance to Armenia. "This budget is fundamentally flawed," said Bryan Ardouny, executive director of the Armenian Assembly of America, in a statement. "It is incomprehensible that a country which already has billions of dollars in oil and gas revenue would receive an increase in US funding while the neighbor it blockades sees its funding decrease," he said, referring to Azerbaijan.

III. It's time to end the Cold War

NATO supporters frequently claim the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was the greatest military alliance of all time since it won a major war without firing a shot and without suffering any casualties. The war referred to was the Cold War and, until the disintegration of the Soviet Union, that claim was valid. However, after the Warsaw Pact armies went home, NATO continued to act as if the Cold War were still being fought - and it still does. In a world struggling with financial and economic recession, continued bloodshed in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, a Pakistan on the verge of civil war, ongoing strife in the Middle East, and a hostile and perhaps soon to be nuclear-armed Iran - it is time for NATO to end the Cold War and make peace with Russia, a Russia that could prove to be one of the West's most useful and powerful allies in the years ahead.

IV. Serbia to sign South Stream deal in May

Agreements between Serbia's Srbijagas and Russian energy giant Gazprom on the South Stream gas pipeline are expected in May. The proposed South Stream pipeline would bring an estimated 1.1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas from Central Asia and Russia to Italy through the Balkans each year. Plans to build portions of the pipeline through Bulgaria, Hungary and Serbia have been approved already by their respective governments. Bajatovic said national gas companies in Bulgaria, Greece and Italy may follow suit as South Stream provisions develop.

V. Croatia issues arrest warrant for lawmaker

Croatia has issued an international arrest warrant for an opposition lawmaker convicted of war crimes after he moved to neighboring Bosnia to evade punishment. Branimir Glavas was found guilty on Friday of orchestrating detention, torture and killing of at least eight Serb civilians during the 1991 Serbo-Croat war.

VI. Google's Street View halted in Greece

A privacy watchdog has banned the Internet giant Google Inc. from gathering images in Greece for its Street View service until it provides additional privacy guarantees. The Data Protection Authority, in a decision announced Monday, said it wanted clarification from Google on how it would store and process the original images and safeguard them from privacy abuses. It also sought clarification on how Google planned to inform the public that its vehicles with mounted cameras are being used to take photographs. Google spokeswoman said the company would be happy to provide further clarification to the authority, and added that the service in Greece would help tourists. Vacationers in Athens frequently visit the Acropolis and the city's other ancient sites.

VII. Arabs in Palestine and Jordan predate Christianity and Islam

In welcoming the pope at the King Hussein Mosque in Amman on Saturday, Prince Ghazi Bin Mohammad gave special reference to Arab Christians: "Christians were in Jordan 600 years before Muslims. Indeed, Jordanian Christians are perhaps the oldest Christian community in the world, and the majority have always been Orthodox, adhering to the Orthodox patriarchate of Jerusalem in the Holy Land, which, as Your Holiness knows better than I, is the church of St. James, and was founded during Jesus' own lifetime."