Let's do the world news. First - Bolivia - now there's a 2005 popular uprising I can get behind. This stuff makes Kyrgyzstan look like t-ball. From WaPo, this is how we do it:

LA PAZ, Bolivia -- Bolivia's interim president vowed to hold elections as he took office Friday, leading indigenous groups to start lifting roadblocks after weeks of massive protests.

Eduardo Rodriguez, the former Supreme Court chief, was sworn in as interim president late Thursday, taking the place of President Carlos Mesa, who resigned in an effort to halt protests he feared could push Bolivia toward civil war.

Protesters from the indigenous majority have been clamoring for more political power and gas and oil nationalization -- in opposition to a European-descended elite.

"One of my capacities will be to call for an electoral process," Rodriguez said after he was sworn in. "I am offering a short mandate with the help of Congress."

The crisis has shown the increasing power of Indian groups, which could determine the next presidency. That would herald another shift to the left in Latin America, where there is growing opposition to U.S. diplomatic and economic influence.

Both the political mobilization of the Indians and the peaceful, democratic, pretty much successful resolution of the massive protests are quite heartening for a nation with a lot of democracy problems and a lot of race problems. There's no telling yet where Rodriguez will end up but elections are the right way to start. A-. Next up, Canada, where bad things are happening in high places. NYT:

TORONTO, June 9 - The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a Quebec law banning private medical insurance in a decision that represents an acute blow to the publicly financed national health care system.

The high court stopped short of striking down the constitutionality of the country's vaunted health care system nationwide, but specialists across the legal spectrum said they expected the decision to lead to sweeping changes in the Canadian health care system...

The Canadian health care system provides free doctor's services that are paid for by taxes. The system has generally been strongly supported by the public, and is broadly identified with the Canadian national character. Canada is the only industrialized county that outlaws privately financed purchases of core medical services.

But in recent years patients have been forced to wait longer for diagnostic tests and elective surgery, while the wealthy and well connected either sought care in the United States or used influence to jump medical lines.

The court ruled that the waiting lists had become so long that they violated patients' "life and personal security, inviolability and freedom" under the Quebec charter of human rights and freedoms, which covers about one-quarter of Canada's population.

Medicare waiting times are undeniably ridiculous in Canada. (The province of Newfoundland has only one MRI machine.) But that these health crises threaten equally the rights and freedoms of those Canadians who cannot afford private care, either currently abroad or apparently soon in Quebec, should have been the foremost concern for a high court mandating solutions. This is bad news for Quebecers and, by precedent, soon enough for residents of every province. The good news is that the vast majority of Canadians know it stinks and willfight it, and consequently so will the obsessively poll-reading Liberals. The Globe:

Prime Minister Paul Martin vowed Thursday that Canada's public health-care system would remain intact, despite a Supreme Court of Canada ruling opening the door for private care in Quebec.

"We're not going to have a two-tier health-care system in this country," he told reporters following Thursday's ruling.

Would that Bush were making such utterances. Canadian health care is strong and deeply embedded in the national culture, but in the mean time, things are going to get worse for the middle and lower classes in Quebec - with doctors and money fleeing the public system - before they better. D.

Lastly, something seems to be going down at the G8:

WASHINGTON, June 9 - The United States and Britain have reached an agreement on how the billions of dollars that the world's poorest nations owe to international lenders can be erased, removing the last impediment to an accord long sought by the richest nations, a senior official involved in the negotiations said Thursday. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow and his British counterpart, Gordon Brown, the chancellor of the exchequer, will present their proposal to a meeting of the finance ministers of seven of the Group of 8 industrial nations on Friday in London, the official said.

Apparently, the richest nation in the history of the world has been convinced by a fast-talking Brit to cancel some debt for some desperately poor countries. From a greater good standpoint, I would like to extend a mazal tov and yasher koach to the President for finally getting on the not-evil train. From a political standpoint, I think Blair should have taken that I-screwed-myself-in-Iraq-for-you thing a whole lot of miles further. And let's not all get out the party hats and streamers just yet because it doesn't seem like the debt is going soooo far away, and we still have AIDS and malnutrition and diarrhea and war and stuff. All being stops on the aforementioned train that Bush and the US could do some serious image upgrading and, you know, serious moral good by perhaps visiting at some point. In the meantime, B for this class and a B overall for the week.