All of the US presidential candidates, according to Amy Goodman, are too hard-line on the growing arms race: “I asked (Hans) Blix what is the single most important thing the U.S. could do to support world peace. Sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, he said.” John McCain says as president he would “begin a dialogue with China on strategic and nuclear issues,” though Bush has already done so, to limited effect. Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund and author of Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons, says McCain “tries to take a plank from Kissinger, and a plank from John Bolton and build a nonproliferation deck, but it is wobbly, full of gaps.”

After being banned from Chinese cinemas and dropped from Christian Dior’s Chinese advertisements, Sharon Stone apologizes for her quake comment, saying “I am willing to take part in the relief work.” This comes after Xinhua called her the “public enemy of all mankind.” At the Globe and Mail, James Christie points out that “Sharon Stone isn’t important enough to be the enemy of all mankind.” Cold as she was, she never actually asserted karma caused the earthquake, and admitted to crying in sympathy in her original comment.

China’s Himalayan neighbor Nepal abolishes its 239-year-old constitutional monarchy and declares itself a republic. AFP calls it a “triumph for the ultra-leftists.” The leader of Nepal’s Maoists, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, is known as Prachanda, which means “awesome.” ❑