World News in Brief

So You Think You Can Broker Bilateral Peace Agreements?

President George Bush recently wrapped up a seven-nation tour of the Middle East where he traveled to push for a peace between Palestine and Israel and to rally Arab states against the Iranian regime. In Riyadh, Bush joined in a traditional Saudi sword dance with Prince Salman Abdul Aziz in order to show American “tribal” solidarity with the Arab cause. Bush’s sword dance routine received tepid scores from the judges and studio audiences alike, but it remains unclear at this point whether the wooden performance was bad enough to elicit a re-air on Fox’s End-of-Season Outtakes special.

Boeing and British Airways Have an Awkward Roll in the Hay

Last week, a British Airways flight inbound from Beijing was forced to crash land after the aircraft lost its electronics and avionics systems a few thousand yards short of a Heathrow runway. Fortunately, the plane’s fast-acting pilots were able to maneuver the craft skillfully to avoid car traffic and to prevent passenger injury upon touchdown, but the incident has raised questions over Boeing and Rolls Royce manufacturing standards. Since the incident, several passengers from the Chinese flight have solicited British Airways, telling company executives that if they are in the market for shoddy planes and faulty engines, they should be sending more of their resources to China—not away from it.

Searching for Relevance

Last Friday at his home in Reykjavik, former World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer died at the age of 64 of kidney failure. Equally famous for his extreme paranoia, anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism as he was for being the only American-born world chess champion, Fischer was an enigmatic figure quick to incite controversy in a Cold War America wary of Eastern Europe and anti-establishment ideologues. Even so, MGM’s recently-announced decision to make a sequel to the 1993 cult hit Searching for Bobby Fischer reflects how Fischer’s flag has since faded: set for a December 2008 release, the film’s working title is Trying to Remember Why Anyone Cared About Bobby Fischer in the First Place.