Docudharma Times Friday Nov. 16

This is an Open Thread: The debate starts now

Headlines, Calif. Court Rejects SUV Mileage Rules, Scientists Fault Climate Exhibit Changes, Poor Are Lagging in Hurricane Aid From Mississippi, Two Koreas agree rail timetable, U.S. to urge compromise in Pakistan, Balibo Five deliberately killed: coroner, A ‘battlefield of the mind’ in Iraq, Jordan’s Islamists Seek Offices Their Allies Scorn, Cypriot seeks to unravel curse with pants and egg, Powerful quake on Peru-Ecuador border, UN criticises Rio police killings, Hundreds of Nigerian robbers shot

Officials: Bangladesh cyclone kills at least 242 and some 650,000 others displaced by the storm, which is packing 150 mph winds and expected to cause severe flooding.

DHAKA, Bangladesh – A cyclone that slammed into Bangladesh’s coast with 140 mph winds killed at least 242 people, leveled homes and forced the evacuation of 650,000 villagers before heading inland and losing power Friday, officials said.

Tropical Cyclone Sidr roared across the country’s southwestern coast late Thursday with driving rain and high waves. The storm left about 242 villagers dead from falling debris, said Nahid Sultana, an official at a cyclone control room in Dhaka.

USA

Calif. Court Rejects SUV Mileage Rules

By Frank Ahrens and Carrie Johnson

Washington Post Staff Writers

Friday, November 16, 2007; Page A01

A federal court in California yesterday rejected the Bush administration’s new fuel economy standards for light trucks including SUVs, ruling that the government failed to take into account the effects of carbon emissions and their possible link to global warming.

The finding by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco was a victory for environmentalists and several states that had sued over fuel economy standards, which were announced in 2006. It is among several recent court rulings that have urged greater attention to global warming.

Scientists Fault Climate Exhibit Changes

Smithsonian Head Denies Politics Altered Arctic Show Message

By James V. Grimaldi and Jacqueline Trescott

Washington Post Staff Writers

Friday, November 16, 2007; Page A01

Some government scientists have complained that officials at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History took steps to downplay global warming in a 2006 exhibit on the Arctic to avoid a political backlash, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.

The museum’s director, Cristián Samper, ordered last-minute changes to the exhibit’s script to add “scientific uncertainty” about climate change, according to internal documents and correspondence.

Poor Are Lagging in Hurricane Aid From Mississippi

GULFPORT, Miss., Nov. 14 – Like the other Gulf Coast states battered by Hurricane Katrina, Mississippi was required by Congress to spend half of its billions in federal grant money to help low-income citizens trying to recover from the storm.

But so far, the state has spent $1.7 billion in federal money on programs that have mostly benefited relatively affluent residents and big businesses.

Asia

Two Koreas agree rail timetable

North and South Korea have agreed a timetable for establishing cargo rail services between their two nations, the first for over 50 years.

Trains will begin crossing the border on 11 December, connecting South Korea with an industrial zone in the North.

U.S. to urge compromise in Pakistan

By Paul Richter and Laura King, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

November 16, 2007

WASHINGTON — Fearing the collapse of a friendly government, the Bush administration has begun a concerted public effort to salvage the embattled presidency of Pakistan’s Gen. Pervez Musharraf by pushing him to compromise with political opponents and abandon emergency rule, U.S. officials said Thursday.

U.S. envoys intend to warn their longtime ally that they believe his power is quickly ebbing, and that he must lift the 2-week-old emergency decree and work with former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and other opposition figures to stabilize the country. Underscoring the warning will be an implied threat that if he doesn’t take such steps, Washington is ready to work with others who will, officials said.

Asia Pacific

Balibo Five deliberately killed: coroner

A NSW coroner has referred the case of the Balibo Five to federal authorities for possible war crime prosecutions, finding the journalists were deliberately killed by Indonesian forces who had invaded East Timor.

Deputy State Coroner Dorelle Pinch today ended the inquest into the death of Brian Peters, the Channel Nine cameraman who was one of the five Australian-based newsmen killed during the Indonesian attack on Balibo village, in then Portuguese Timor, on October 16, 1975. She found he and his colleagues had been shot or stabbed by Indonesian special forces away from the heat of battle after they invaded East Timor.

Middle East

A ‘battlefield of the mind’ in Iraq

Using the Koran as a tool, a new strategy is aimed at turning suspected insurgents into model citizens.

By Alexandra Zavis, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

November 16, 2007

BAGHDAD — The men crouched on the floor of the carpeted tent listen intently to a cleric seated on a wooden bench in front of them, some leaning forward so as not to miss a single word.

Be patient, he tells them. Follow the prophet’s example. Forgive those who wronged you. Hands shoot up, and the round-faced imam in beige slacks and sneakers begins to take their questions.

Islamic teachings have been transmitted at such gatherings for centuries. But this is no religious madrasa. The tent is surrounded by fences topped with barbed wire, soldiers stand at its entrance and the students wear the yellow overalls of detainees at U.S. facilities.

Jordan’s Islamists Seek Offices Their Allies Scorn

ZARQA, Jordan – This crammed slum of four-story concrete housing blocs has given Jordan some of its biggest headaches: it is a stronghold of the opposition Islamic Action Front and the hometown of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who rose from here to the helm of the Iraqi insurgent group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

Jordan’s political Islamists wield their most concentrated power here in this industrial city of 834,000 just a quarter-hour’s drive from the capital, Amman.

Europe

As Georgia Moves to End Emergency, Visiting Envoy Presses U.S. Agenda

By Tara Bahrampour

Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, November 16, 2007; Page A25

TBILISI, Georgia, Nov. 15 — When visiting State Department official Matthew J. Bryza appeared on Georgia’s state television Wednesday night, much of the country tuned in, in part because there wasn’t much else to watch.

The country’s main opposition TV station had been off the air for seven days, shut down in the middle of a program after President Mikheil Saakashvili declared a state of emergency to stem anti-government protests. Outside, riot police had chased residents through the streets with billy clubs in the former Soviet republic that President Bush has called “a beacon of democracy.”

Cypriot seeks to unravel curse with pants and egg

NICOSIA (Reuters) – Having marital problems? Have you tried putting egg in your underpants?

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A woman in Cyprus is on trial for sorcery after pledging to shake off a curse apparently plaguing a man’s relationship with his wife and mother-in-law.

The suggested remedy consisted of an egg, a spoon, a nail, some pubic hairs and underpants, local media reported on Friday.

“She cracked the egg into my underpants,” the 37-year-old man told a district court in the capital Nicosia.

Latin America

Powerful quake on Peru-Ecuador border

QUITO, Ecuador – A powerful earthquake shook the border region of Ecuador and Peru late Thursday, but there were no immediate reports of injuries or major damage.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude 6.7 quake struck at 10:12 p.m. and was centered in a sparsely populated jungle region, about 150 miles southeast of Quito, the capital. Local media said the temblor was felt strongly in the country’s largest city, the port of Guayaquil.

The Ecuadorean Geophysics Institute said it “had reports that the quake was felt throughout the country.”

UN criticises Rio police killings

Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro

Friday November 16, 2007

The Guardian

Increasingly violent police operations aimed at combating urban crime in Rio de Janeiro are causing growing bloodshed and masking a wave of summary killings, a UN representative has warned.

On Wednesday, after an 11-day tour of four Brazilian states, the UN’s special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, Philip Alston, told reporters: “The people of Brazil did not struggle valiantly against 20 years of dictatorship … in order to make Brazil free for police officers to kill with impunity in the name of security.”

Africa

Hundreds of Nigerian robbers shot

Nigeria’s police chief Mike Okiro has admitted that 785 suspected armed robbers have died in encounters with police in the last three months.

The Nigerian police force has been criticised by human rights groups for killing suspects instead of arresting them and giving them a fair trial.