I've come to the conclusion that boxers are well-suited to be politicians. After all, how many politicos have the luxury of going into elections with such pugnacious reputations? Really, who do you think would win between Nikolay Valuev and Dmitry Medvedev?

Being a boxing fan and a political junkie, I was especially stoked to have the opportunity to interview Ukrainian boxer Vitali Klitshcko recently. He's running against incumbent Leonid Chernovetsky for the Kiev mayor's office (Klitschko already serves on the city council), and the election is swiftly coming up on May 25. Klitschko has even secured the help of Rudy Giuliani's firm as he goes into the tenth round.

You can read my full column on Klitschko here, but here are some bits from our interview:

How is your race for the mayor’s office going?

"I have a very good chance to win."

What are the similarities between boxing and politics?

"You fight for ideas, fight for your dream in boxing. Actually, boxing is not as complicated as politics. Politics is much more difficult, totally different roles. The will to win, the will to go through help me in politics as well. (These) help not just in boxing, but help in life and politics."

Do you have political ambitions beyond Kiev mayor?

"I have ambition to make my city much better and comfortable for everyone coming here. ... Infrastructure, traffic problems. We have so many social problems, but the main problem is corruption. People in business are afraid to invest money in Kiev, afraid to work to invest money in infrastructure for the people. We can do that. Everyone explains the vision how they want to see our city. ... We need to breathe fresh air into our city."

How have your life experiences shaped your attitude toward the West and democracy?

"I remember my first visit from the Soviet Union in 1989 to the U.S. It opened democracy world for me. … I see the life standards in U.S. and what we have to bring here to Ukraine. People want to be part of the modern world; it’s one point to speak, another point to be."

Are you alarmed at how some former Soviet states are slipping back to restricted freedoms, such as in Putin’s Russia?

"Ukraine just two years ago made very important decision with the Orange Revolution. People go to the streets to demonstrate against totalitarianism -- fighting for freedom, fighting for democracy -- and democracy won. … In a couple years Ukraine will be part of European Union. Geographically it is European country; we have to feel European inside Ukraine."

(Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

This has to be getting frustrating for the women of Kuwait: Women were granted the right to vote and to run for parliament in 2005. In 2006, none of the women running won. This time around, 27 women were among the candidates in Saturday's parliamentary vote. None of the them won.

Even more frustrating to the advancement of women in Kuwait was the strong showing of hardline Islamists at the polls. In this respect, the vote reflected sectarian tensions in Shiite vs. Sunni Islamist victories. More from Agence France-Presse:

"Official results from all five districts showed that the hardline Islamic Salafi Alliance and its allies won at least 10 seats in Saturday's poll, almost twice their strength in the previous chamber.

Sunni and Shia Islamists grabbed more than half of parliament's 50 seats.

Sunni Islamists won 21 seats, four more than their number in the previous parliament which was dissolved by the ruler of the oil-rich Gulf state in March after a standoff between the government and MPs.

About half of the Sunni Islamists came from tribal areas.

The moderate Islamic Constitutional Movement, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, however saw its strength cut by half to three MPs.

The number of lawmakers from the Shia Muslim minority increased by one to five.

All elected Shia MPs are Islamists, including two members of the previous parliament who took part in a controversial rally in March to mourn the slain military commander of Lebanon's Hezbollah, Imad Mughnieh, which triggered sectarian tensions.

Analysts had predicted that sectarian divisions would play a key role in the early election in the emirate, where Shias constitute one-third of the native population of just over one million.

Liberals and their allies won seven seats, one fewer than in the previous house, while the nationalist Popular Action Bloc led by veteran opposition figure and three-time speaker Ahmad Al Saadun took four seats, down one."

While discouraged by these results, I'm not a proponent of identity politics, or women going out and voting simply based on gender. But while 55 percent of Kuwait's registered voters are women, only about half of those voted. That's perhaps the most discouraging thing of all.

(Photo of Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Naser Mohammed Ahmad al-Sabah by Salah Malkawi/ Getty Images)

The Emirati-owned and Jordanian-flagged ship, carrying 4,200 tons of sugar to Somalia that was donated by Denmark, was off the coast of Somalia -- well known for its pirate attacks by now, with an attack on a French yacht just last month -- when contact was lost Saturday morning. More:

"The vessel, Victoria, was seized about 40 nautical miles off the capital Mogadishu on Saturday (local time) Andrew Mwangura of the Kenyan branch of the Seafarers' Assistance Program said.

Mr Mwangura says there were 'at least 12 crew members on the ship when it was hijacked.'

...More than 25 ships were seized in Somali coastal waters last year despite United States navy patrols, according to the International Maritime Bureau.

France and the United States have presented a text before the UN Security Council seeking to authorise states to send warships into Somalia's territorial waters to combat piracy."

The U.N. Chronicle reported last year that nearly 80 percent of World Food Programme assistance to war-torn Somalia must arrive by sea, but the out-of-control piracy cuts the number of ships willing to take the food there in half.

(2006 photo of pirates off the Somali coast courtesy of U.S. Navy)

Could a peaceful and stable future for Lebanon be hammered out in the conference rooms of Doha's Sheraton? Coming off a Thursday deal brokered by the Arab League, both Fuad Saniora's government and the Hezbollah opposition agreed to "remove the roadblocks that have paralysed air traffic and shut major highways, and ... stop using language that incited violence." As quoted by The Australian, Hezbollah's second-in-command, Naim Qassem, said, "We want a political settlement that will lead in the end to there being no victor and no vanquished."

Things now have moved directly into the Qatar talks. More:

"Al Jazeera's Rula Amin reported that there was a lot of hope that the talks would yield positive results, though it would be difficult to make the different factions agree.

'People have a lot of hope that it will work. However, they know that the issues are real. The political factions that are here have different interests, different concerns and have different visions for Lebanon. So it is not an easy job to bring them all together and to get them agree in a short time as well,' Amin said.

'Only a week ago, these leaders were talking to each other through the guns and there were bloody clashes between their supporters on the streets. However, there seems to be a will, not only among the Lebanese factions but also from the regional Arab countries and Iran, that this crisis has to be contained and an end to the violence has to be put.'

...Parliament in Beirut is scheduled to convene on June 10 for its 20th attempt to elect a president."

As this photo gallery of the devastation shows, some key factors are contributing to the high death toll and hampering the recovery efforts:

• The sheer magnitude of the damage: Many areas in Sichuan Province, home of the 7.9 quake's epicenter, are completely leveled.

• Restricted access to areas in need: Roads are not only blocked, but in some cases buckled and tore apart, making routes into hard-hit areas impassable.

• Damage to the dams: The Chinese government has had to divert troops away from rescue/recovery efforts to try to patch up cracks. If these dams burst, flooding would immensely magnify the suffering already being felt in western China.

State media is saying that officials have now reached all affected areas, and hence come the predictions that the official death toll could likely double to 50,000.

Like its ally Myanmar, China refused the help of foreign-aid workers. But perhaps learning a lesson from the cyclone disaster and realizing the devastation was too much for them to handle, China on Thursday let in a rescue team from its foe, Japan.

Meanwhile, the Times of London has a round-up of Chinese bloggers' complaints that quake warning signs -- from restless animals to the sudden massive drop in water level in a large pond in Hubei province -- were reported to authorities but brushed off.

(Photo by China Photos/Getty Images)

And if he'd been waiting to exhale, on-the-ropes President Pervez Musharraf can breathe a little easier for the time being.

Why? The great opposition coalition aiming to oust him from power -- the Pakistan People's Party headed by Benazir Bhutto widower, Asif Ali Zardari, and the Pakistan Muslim League-N, headed by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif -- is falling apart over disagreement on the reinstatement of about 60 judges dismissed last November by Musharraf. Why are they so important? Because the judges -- including fired Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry -- could rule unfavorably to the president on the legality of Musharraf's re-election.

Nine PML-N ministers resigned from the goverment today, the day after Sharif said the judges would be reinstated. More from the wires:

"The ministers submitted their resignations to Yousuf Raza Gilani, the incumbent prime minister, on Tuesday.

However, Gilani has reportedly refused to accept the resignations.

Sharif said on Monday that the PML-N was 'bound by this date,' referring to a deadline he set with his main coalition partner, the party of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, for judges sacked by Pervez Musharraf, the president, to be reinstated.

However, he said his party would not take any decision that would strengthen the 'dictatorship,' referring to Musharraf.

The PML-N has pledged to continue supporting the six-week-old coalition from outside the government, the prime minister's office said."

According to Pakistan's Daily Times, Gilani was waiting to address the resignations until Zardari got back in the country.

The disagreement between the PPP and PML-N is all a matter of tactics: Sharif wants confrontation with Musharraf now, while Zardari wants to wait.

But there also seems to be some suspicion, if you read the story in Pakistan's largest English-language daily paper, Dawn, about final intentions within the coalition:

"However, (Sharif) said: 'We will not become part of any conspiracy to strengthen dictatorship and not become a tool in the hands of any person.' He said the party had decided not to sit in the opposition for the time being and to continue to support the government on an issue-to-issue basis."

So there seems to be some serious distrust about whether Zardari's party actually intends to oust Musharraf.

First, the anointed one, Dmitry Medvedev, moved into his appointed spot as president of Russia. Before you could say "borscht," the man who got the technocrat into the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin, assumed his promised role as prime minister. Now, Medvedev's cabinet looks oddly familiar -- it's stacked with Putin's favorites.

Al-Jazeera noticed that some other things haven't changed since the nominal power switcheroo this month:

"On Monday, Russian television footage showed the meeting where the country's leaders proclaimed a new cabinet line-up. Vladimir Putin, the incoming prime minister, was shown seated on the same side of a table that he always occupied as president, while Dmitry Medvedev, technically his new boss, occupied the side traditionally kept for subordinates.

While the cabinet contains few surprises, it certainly illustrates Putin's continued hold on power.

Key ministers who have performed well as close Putin loyalists retain their posts: Sergey Lavrov, the most visible face of Russia's foreign policy; Alexei Kudrin, who keeps hold of finance; and Anatoly Serdyukov, the defence minister.

Viktor Zubkov, a former prime minister and a longtime friend of Putin, remains as deputy prime minister and will likely take up the post of chairman of Gazprom next month.

These appointments illustrate Putin's influence in key areas. Only Sergei Ivanov takes a hit. The hawkish former first deputy prime minister becomes merely a deputy prime minister, a sign perhaps of a more moderate cabinet (or it could be something else entirely).

Also, Putin has brought key behind-the-scenes figures across from the Kremlin and into the government. The most significant, Igor Sechin, was deputy chief of staff and heads oil giant Rosneft. He is said to be a hardliner and head of the Kremlin old guard, or siloviki, a shadowy but very powerful group often believed to be the real power behind the throne."

Keep an eye on Russia, folks. Press freedom has already faded in the country, a canary in the coal mine that shows the subsequent diminishing democracy. Russia's neighbors have more reason to be nervous about this absolute power, as well.

(Photo: Russian Presidential Press and Information Office)

Felt as far away as Vietnam, Thailand, and Taiwan, the massive temblor struck Sichuan province at 2:28 p.m. -- that's just east of Tibet, a region that has already seen misery lately as ethnic Tibetans joining in anti-government protests came under the People Republic's crackdown. One of the casualties was a school that collapsed, trapping about 900 students under rubble, reports the Associated Press:

"The official Xinhua News Agency said 8,533 people died in Sichuan alone and dozens of other deaths were reported in surrounding areas.

Xinhua said 80 percent of the buildings had collapsed in Sichuan province's Beichuan county after the quake, raising fears the overall death toll could increase sharply.

State media said a chemical plant in Shifang city had cratered, burying hundreds of people and spilling more than 80 tons of toxic liquid ammonia from the site."

The New York Times has a photo gallery of the damage.

As always when the earth lets loose, check out the U.S. Geological Survery quake tracking site. They're showing a magnitude of 7.9, slightly higher than press reports, but in the initial hours after a quake either the press or USGS numbers might be revised due to further study of the event.

UPDATE: The death toll is now being reported at around 10,000, and is expected to climb.

(Map: USGS)

It's only been nine days since Category 4 Cyclone Nargis slammed into Burmese villages. It's not like the world has been dragging its heels in coming to the people's aid. Rather, the junta that rules Myanmar has been paranoid about keeping the philanthropists off their soil, wanting donations dropped off like the bin outside Goodwill so they can take it from there. Where the aid will really go, nobody knows.

Yet after "prolonged negotiations" with the junta -- as the death toll could top 100,000 and one to two million residents remain severely affected by the storm -- American aid was finally allowed to land, its carrier then promptly ushered back into the sky. This just moving from the Associated Press:

"The unarmed military C-130 cargo plane, packed with supplies, flew out of the Thai air force base of Utapao and landed in Yangon. Two more air shipments are scheduled to land Tuesday.

After the plane's arrival, the supplies were transferred to Myanmar army trucks.

...In the hardest hit Irrawaddy delta, people were surviving in miserable conditions — hundreds crowded into monasteries, where they slept on the floor. Others camped outside, drinking water contaminated by human feces, dead bodies and animal carcasses.

Heavy rains were forecast this week, which would further hinder aid delivery.

'So far we have enough water by collecting rain. But we do not have food anymore,' said U Patanyale, the abbot of a monastery in Pyapon town in the delta."

Outbreaks of diarrhea are being reported, and potential outbreaks of illnesses such as cholera, malaria, or dengue, according to aid experts, could be prevented if experts would just be allowed in the country to assess shelter and sanitation needs and coordinate relief efforts.

As it is, bloated bodies choke waterways and hang twisted in trees, with no one to pick them up as the survivors are shouldered with the herculean task of just finding the basics needed to survive. From AP:

"'The first few we saw, we were all very shocked,' said U Pinyatale, a monk from the area who has prayed for the dead. 'After a while, there were just too many.'

More than 50 bodies can be spotted in just three hours on the river. Many have turned white as they float entwined in mangrove trees, where they remain lodged. The smell of dead fish permeates the humid air as dozens of small boats ferrying roofing supplies and rice navigate around the corpses, but no one seems to notice.

...The monk, Pinyatale, said some people simply want the bodies to be sucked out to sea because they believe if someone touches them, that person will be cursed with bad luck and haunted by the unsettled spirit."

The story notes that in Indonesia after the 2005 Boxing Day tsunami, bodies were quickly buried in accordance with Islamic law, and bodies were collected in refrigerated storage in Thailand for later identification. But they also had resources and manpower beyond what the junta is allowing to cross Myanmar's borders.

And speaking of those allowed in by the regime, you'll notice that most wire stories and photos are coming across sans byline and without photo credits. No use risking being caught and tossed out by the junta simply for trying to spread the truth to the rest of the world.

STORM COVERAGE: Myanmar Ignores Storm Victims, Proceeds With Vote

Burma's Cyclone Death Toll Is Staggering

(Satellite image of Cyclone Nargis: NOAA)

The amounts of money owed by the thousands of farmers taking their own lives would seem really managable to most of us, recession or not. But the crop-to-crop woes leave many of India's growers feeling left behind as the country embraces globalization.

The Associated Press examines this troubling trend in the second-most populated country on Earth today:

"On the last night of his life, the farmer walked into his dusty fields, choked down pesticide and waited to die.

He owed more than $1,000 to banks and moneylenders and he had told his wife that if the cotton harvest was bad this year, he would kill himself.

Pandurang Chindu Surpam left the near-barren fields he worked with his sons to share a last meal with his family. Hours later, he died. He was 45.

...Farmers like Surpam killed themselves at a rate of 48 a day between 2002 and 2006 -- more than 17,500 a year, according to experts who have analyzed government statistics. At least 160,000 farmers have committed suicide since 1997, said K. Nagaraj of the Madras Institute of Development Studies.

The epidemic dates to the 1990s, and is generally attributed to a toxic blend of slashed subsidies, tougher global competition, drought, predatory moneylenders and expensive genetically modified seeds.

'It's one of the largest public health disasters to hit India since independence,' said professor Charles Nuckols of Brigham Young University, an anthropologist who has studied Indian village life for decades.

In northern India, authorities have gone so far as to ban a type of cheap hair dye because it was being drunk to induce death by kidney failure.

But it is India's cotton belt, a land of searing temperatures and backbreaking work, that has been hit hardest by the suicides. ..."

(Map: U.S. State Department)