The ways of those who pick and choose from the welter of events worldwide, and make decisions as to which should occupy our airtime and reading time are often wondrous indeed. This is especially so in this age of “infotainment” wherein the fate of a Hollywood marriage is deemed more “newsworthy” than a looming global disaster.

Thus it is that many of the most far-reaching events of the world, those that will affect the lives of billions of people, receive far less journalistic attention, time and newspaper space than who is boinking whom in the planet called Hollywood.

May I therefore nominate the meeting in Montreal this December just past, convened to discuss the future of the world and its people in the era of severe climate change, as the most under-reported world event of 2005?

Now, I understand the importance of knowing as many intimate details as we can about the love life of Mr. Pitt and Ms. Jolie. I too believe she has the most wonderful lips in the world.

But gang, enough already.

One hundred and fifty seven nations met in Montreal to discuss the potential disaster looming over the world or should I say more properly, 156 nations — and the United States of America.

The emissaries sent by George Bush did their damnedest to scuttle the discussions in Montreal, at one point walking out of the meetings as a pressure tactic. It didn’t work. The representatives from the rest of the world downfaced the Bushites, and by week’s end, the Yanks reluctantly admitted it was they, and not the world, who were out of step with reality.

On the conference’s last day, those countries who have signed the Kyoto Protocol agreed to extend the treaty on emissions reductions beyond its 2012 deadline.

And the U.S. joined a broader group of countries in agreeing to non-binding talks on long-term measures.

It was the first admission by the Bush Administration that the human causes of global warming must be reined in if the planet is to survive.

That agreement sets the stage for continuing revision of reduction targets for greenhouse gases.

Nothing less than the future of all life forms on earth is at stake. Dr. James Hansen, the man who first alerted the world to the threat of climate change, now predicts that it will take only an additional warming of just one degree Celsius to do irrevocable damage to the planet.

Think of it — just a single solitary degree.

The world made a decision to save itself in Montreal. That might, on the surface, appear to be a no- brainer. Anything else would be tacit agreement to commit suicide. But it took a public scolding by Bill Clinton and the presence of a delegation of mayors, state legislators and business leaders from the U.S. at the Montreal conference to embarrass the Bushites to the point of acceptance of reality.

Accepting reality is not a fundament of Dubya-style political ideology, especially when it gets in the way of the idea of Empire America — the cornerstone of the Bush reign — not only over America, but over the entire world, civilized or otherwise, Christian or Muslim.

It is expressed in the published doctrine of the Bush regime, holding that the United States of America has the God-given right to act unilaterally with force anywhere in the world where it deems its interests to be at stake.

The current year-end fuss in the U.S. over the Bush approval of government spying on Americans within their homeland along with the determination of Vice President Dick Cheney and l’eminence grise Karl Rove to extend and expand the nature of presidential power and authority are but two evident examples of the attempt of right-wing ideologues to surmount the power of the democratically elected U.S. Congress.

“It’s a scintillating stratagem,” says Harold Pinter, this year’s winner of the Nobel prize for literature. “Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay.”

There are no end of examples to illustrate the truth that Mr. Pinter speaks, and none better than the reporting and comment on the recent elections in Iraq. To hear the Prez, the VicePrez and other administration spokespeople tell it, the election was a prime example of democracy taking hold to bring political stability to the citizens of that poor, politically illiterate country.

To hear the cheerleading American media tell it, the elections were a great foreign policy victory for Mr. Bush.

The world will learn in due course, that Mr. Pinter is devastatingly correct and that once again they have been misled and lied to by their President.

Iraq was held together as a country under the secular dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. Fear was the linchpin of statehood. He became an ally of the U.S. while the Americans confronted the Muslim fundamentalist regime in Iran. They armed him with conventional and chemical weapons and the systems to deliver them.

Then Saddam lost favour. His own ambitions towards creating his own empire in the Middle East got in the way of American hegemony, so the Americans under Bush brought him down…first the father, then the son.

In doing so they removed the linchpin that held the unnatural country called Iraq together. Because there really is no Iraq. It is a political invention of the British. There are the Kurds of the north, with their own ambitions to create an independent Kurdish state; the Sunnis, who held power and influence under Saddam, well beyond the 20 per cent of the population they represent; and there are the Shia Muslims, the largest ethnic group.

None of the three groupings have any use for the other two. And so the Bush doctrine of democracy for all became the way for each to express its own version of tribalism.

The result of the elections is to ensure that the country we know as Iraq, the supposed saving of which has led to death, permanent impairment and/or dismemberment of several hundred thousand people will now split asunder.

There will be no stable, secular democracy in Iraq to act as the genesis of democracy in the Middle East. That much is certain. The voting results have signalled that, loud and clear.

What has happened is that quite predictably in a time of uncertainty, tribalism has won. The Iraqis did not vote as Iraqis. The Kurds voted as Kurds; the Sunnis voted as Sunnis; and the Shiites voted as Shiites. The country was delivered over to the Muslim fundamentalists. The secular candidates backed by the Americans were demolished at the polls. They will wield no influence in the new Iraq.

“It looks as if people have preferred to vote for their ethnic or sectarian identities,” observed U.S. Ambassador Zilmay Khalilzad, with magnificent understatement.

The result gives the Shiite fundamentalist religious coalition control of the new Iraqi parliament where Shia religious law will rule.

This is not exactly what George Bush had in mind. It is, in fact, a descent into political chaos, with most of the guns backing the Shia and most of the “terrorists” in support of the Sunni. Figure it out.

The first democratic election in Iraq was a landmark event, for sure, but one which will kick American hegemony in the place where it most hurts.

The year passing by has been annus horribulus for George Bush. But as they say in showbiz — “You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet…!”

And no amount of political spinning from the White House will ease the pain.