President Bush played host this week to President Putin in Russia. The summit, which took place in Bush’s family resort in Maine, centered around the evolving crisis over the American plan to station anti-missiles system in eastern Europe.

Older but still unresolved disputes such as Iran, Kosovo and the mounting western criticism over Putin’s so-called Authoritarian reforms have undoubtedly also been discussed.

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The two leaders, which seem to get maintain a friendly personal relations, seemed at peace and even issued a joint statement expressing concern of Iran’s nuclear program.

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After a wait of 13 years, the last ten of which as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown has become Britain’s Prime minister. He will be manning his new cabinet this week. With support for Labor at the low 20s, Brown has his work cut out for him.Â

It is believed that the new PM will spend the coming weeks distancing himself somewhat from Blair’s loathed image, in an effort to starch his grace period as much as possible.

On June 10th, Hamas militants captured some Fatah members and threw one of them off the top of a 15-story building in Gaza. Fatah operatives responded in kind - just before midnight, a Hamas militant was thrown off a 12-story building not far from the scene of the first incident.The following day, the residences of both President Abbas of Fatah and PM Haniya of Hamas were targeted, thus exploding the Fatah-Hamas conflict, which has escalated since Hamas won the general elections last year, to a full-scale civil war.

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classified information about secret technologies and weapons systems.Walid Eido, 65, a Lebanese MP and a member of the March 14 Coalition was killed in an explosion, along with his eldest son, Khaled, and 2 of his body guards. The attack appeared to be carried out by pro-Syrian elements.

classified information about secret technologies and weapons systems.Eido, who after last month’s Israeli war report urged Lebanon’s Prime Minister Fouad Seniora to establish a similar commission in Lebanon, has gone on the record several times in recent years against pro-Syrian elements operating in Lebanon, and criticized Hezbollah’s Secretary General, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

Following the attack, Saad Hariri, son of the assassinated former PM of Lebanon Rafik Hariri, slammed Hezbollah by stating that “they should decide if their goal is to protect Lebanese interest, or Iranian ones”.

The 33rd G8 Summit took place June 6-8 in Heiligendamm, Germany.Five major issues were discussed in detail during the Summit:

Gurbanguly Berdimuhammedow, who assumed Turkmenistan’s President office after Saparmurat Niyazov’s death last December, has set an ambitious annual growth rate of 20%. To meet his goal, Berdimuhammedow announced he will loosen the government’s grip over its natural resources, and allow for the highest bidder to gain wider control over Turkmenistan’s vast natural gas deposits.As was the case with the other former Soviet Republics in central Asia, It was mother Russia who once again moved first, leaving China, the US and the EU with nothing but leftovers to show for their efforts. A series of meetings between Russian president Putin, Turkmenistan’s Berdimuhammedow and Kazakhstan’s Nazarbayev, resulted in the widening of Russia’s control over the natural gas market even further.

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The British Times is quoting Washington officials as saying that “Moscow’s covert foreign intelligence operations against America have reached cold war levels under President Putin”. According to the report, Russia’s SVR has increased afforts to acquire classified information about technologies and weapons.

With the images of dying Alexander Litvinenko still freshly burned into public opinion, this new report is bound to worsen Russian-Western relations even further.In an almost overlooked side note to the report, the Times states that as aggressive as Russia’s intelligence efforts in the US have become, they are still a likely second to those made by China.

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After a lengthy search, US President George W. Bush nominated yesterday Lieutenant General Douglas E. Lute for the position of Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan (aka ‘War Czar’). In his new position, Lute will oversee the wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq.

Earlier this year, Lute was quoted as being against troops reinforcement in Iraq, but he has since flip-flopped, and is now in sync with the White House agenda on the War on Terror. Lute, 54, will enter his new position as soon as the Senate confirms his candidacy.

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Nicolas Sarkozy will take over for Jacques Chirac as the President of the French Republic, after having defeated Socialist contender Ségolène Royal. Sarkozy, who was the clear favorite from the get-go, received 53.06% of the 2nd round votes, which amount to just under 19 million.

As was the case in the first round, the turnout was amazingly high, at almost 84%!Sarkozy, 52, arguably the most pro-American French president ever, will assume the president’s office on May 16th.

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Venezuela’s leftist president, Hugo Chavez, announced this past Wednesday that his country will leave the World Bank and International Monetary fund, in favor of a new Latin-centric social bank, meant to be funded and run by Latin American Countries.

Which other countries would jump on board Chavez’s latest anti-western scheme remains to be seen, but is it believed the 4 other members of the ‘Latin Axis’ - Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua – which are all members of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) cooperation organization, will be the first to join.

Chavez has also stated that negotiations with Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay are also under way.