About President Bashir of Sudan being indicted by the International Criminal Court... Most people I have spoken to, both here and in Sudan, think the ICC decision was long overdue. Bashir has sanctioned and even supported the atrocities in Darfur. It is widely assumed that his government supplied arms to the Janjaweed militias. As a result of the ICC, Bashir has kicked all international aid organizations out of Sudan.

We have seen the Sudanese people protesting the ICC's decision and their position is hard for many of us to understand. Don't they know what is happening in Darfur? Today I got a very different perspective from one of my Sudanese friends. She was trained as a doctor and recently opened her own medical clinic in Khartoum.

She writes, "The crisis is not just in the states its double here in Sudan with the international financial crisis & the ICC. Work in the clinic is not fine. The number of patient shrunk because of the ICC & no one is talking about this in the media. The number of sales in the pharmaceutical companies is also decreasing. I am looking for another job beside the clinic & trying to leave Sudan as soon as possible! Something I want to say to you is that people in Sudan hate the Americans now because of the ICC & what happened in Palestine. But for me you are still my best American Jewish friend & I think is one of the last bright points in me now. I still can judge people according to their behavior not from their skin color, nation or religion & I'll love you whatever they are saying about Jews & how much that they are bad, because I know you are good person."

Friday I got stuck at the White House for a good part of the day. I was there to film the daily press briefing, because Priscilla was hoping to get a question in about Roxana Saberi. We cleared it ahead of time, but they gave me some crap about where to setup the camera. I ended up being stuck in the far back corner against the wall. And after standing there for an hour trying to shoot over some lady's shoulder, Priscilla didn't even get to ask the question. After the briefing, Mayor Bloomberg, Gov. Rendell and Gov. Schwarzenegger were giving a press conference after meeting with Obama. I got there just in time to set up my tripod next to a big thorny bush, which I then stood in while they answered questions.

Yesterday I covered a protest organized by Answer Coalition. As with any of these protests, the participants seemed to average one shower a year. It was a fairly typical event - speeches and a march. The march, however, went on forever! They started near the Lincoln Monument and went all the way past the Pentagon to Crystal City Virginia! Manalisi and I were exhausted when we finally got back to the office.

I did a two camera interview with Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma (the South African equivalent of Hillary Clinton). The interview was originally scheduled for 4:00, but I got a call at 3:00 to get to her hotel right away. Priscilla, Mima and I quickly set up the lights and cameras. She walked in just as we were finishing. There was no time to check the shots or the audio; luckily everything looked good. The interview itself was incredibly boring, but at least it looked good. So that's all I care about.

Yesterday, Emily and Kate shot an interview with the President of Palau. The secret service didn't know that it was a video interview, so they had to wait half an hour for the bomb sniffing dog. Emily said that the president was very friendly and even stood around afterward to watch the recording of the interview.

I did a couple shoots on Capital Hill this week, including the meeting between John Kerry, Dick Lugar and Ban Ki-Moon. I shot a quick photo-spray (where you go into the meeting room and shoot a few seconds of video) before the meeting, then had to wait an hour for them to make statements afterward.

Yesterday Larry Summers spoke at Brookings. I always like shooting there, because they serve nice pastries and coffee. I got there 45 minutes before his speech and the whole back of the room was jammed with cameras. By the time everyone arrived for the speech, it was standing room only. Luckily I got the last available spot on the first row of cameras. My tripod is too short to go on the back row. The speech was boring, but at least it was much more comprehensible than when Bernanke speaks.

I had a pretty busy week. Manelisi (the SABC correspondent) did at least seven stories this week. Yesterday I had a shoot in the Rayburn building on Capital Hill and Ron Paul was there to liven things up. James Baker, Warren Christopher and someone who I didn't recognize were there to propose changes to the way the president interacts with congress when deciding to go to war. Ron Paul clearly disagreed with their proposal and he engaged James Baker in a heated debate.

Emily and I have a new intern named Mima. She came with us to the political conventions, so we know she is a good worker. We convinced her to go to Sudan and join SVP after her school semester ends. Now her parents, who are friends with Simon, are asking him about us and trying to find out how these crazy people convinced her to go to Africa. They are clearly not pleased with us.

I've been studying my chess books and playing games against my computer, but I have not improved much. I found out that the US Chess Center is a couple blocks from my office and they hold tournaments regularly. I'm going to play there when I have some time.