sittin’ up here
watchin’ all the lights blink down below
the earth is turning
why does it go so slow
Since ’01, Guarding Species Is Harder
Endangered Listings Drop Under Bush
With little-noticed procedural and policy moves over several years, Bush administration officials have made it substantially more difficult to designate domestic animals and plants for protection under the Endangered Species Act.
Controversies have occasionally flared over Interior Department officials who regularly overruled rank-and-file agency scientists’ recommendations to list new species, but internal documents also suggest that pervasive bureaucratic obstacles were erected to limit the number of species protected under one of the nation’s best-known environmental laws.
USA
In Washington, a Split Over Regulation of Wall Street
WASHINGTON – As Congress and the Bush administration struggle to contain the housing and credit crises – and prevent more Wall Street firms from collapsing as Bear Stearns did – a split is forming over how to strengthen oversight of financial institutions after decades of deregulation.The administration and Democratic lawmakers in Congress agree that the meltdown in credit markets exposed weaknesses in the nation’s tangled web of federal and state regulators, which failed to anticipate the effect of so many new players in the industry.
Talking about race: Um, you first
Obama’s speech called for a conversation that not everyone wants.
LITHONIA, GA. — How do we start a national dialogue on race?Charlotte Griffin was at a restaurant one evening when a white woman complimented her on her children’s behavior. The stranger may have meant to be kind. But Griffin wondered if she heard a note of condescension — an assumption, perhaps, that black kids aren’t usually so polite.
How do we navigate that minefield?
As a teenager, Stan North went to work on the assembly line at Ford. He made good money. But he noticed that he — like all the other white guys — always got the dirty jobs. Seething, he concluded that the boss wouldn’t dare give a black man heavy lifting, for fear of being tagged a racist.
Asia
Pakistan to meet militants
US fears as new coalition government plans to negotiate with its ‘own people’ – the extremists
Pakistan’s newly elected government will seek to negotiate with Islamic militants and demilitarise the campaign against them to end the violence racking the country, leaders of the major coalition parties who will take power next week have said.The explicit declaration of a desire to talk to extremists and to reduce the role of the army marks a major change for the strategically crucial country and will confirm fears among American policymakers that the heavy defeat of President Pervez Musharraf at recent elections will lead to Pakistan scaling back its support for the US-led ‘war on terror’ in the region. Pakistan’s rugged western frontier is seen as a haven not just for Pakistani militants but also for al-Qaeda and the Taliban and has been the site of fierce combat for several years.
Taiwan ballot boosts links with mainland
More than a decade of tension between Taiwan and mainland China looked set to ease yesterday with the victory of Nationalist party candidate Ma Ying-jeou in the island’s presidential election. Despite a last-minute attempt by Frank Hsieh of the Democratic People’s Party, to exploit fears over China’s crackdown on Tibetan unrest, voters put priority on improved business ties with the mainland, which they hope will galvanise an economy that has lagged behind many of its Asian neighbours.Ma has promised to boost investment and trade ties, establish regular scheduled flights across the Taiwan strait and to negotiate a peace treaty between the two sides. With more than 99 per cent of the vote counted, Ma, a former mayor of Taipei, secured 58 per cent, while Hsieh lagged far behind with 42 per cent. Turnout was about 76 per cent.
Europe
Robert Fisk: How Ireland exorcised the ghost of empire
On the 92nd anniversary of the Easter Rising in Dublin, our Middle East correspondent sees numerous parallels between the bloody, intractable conflicts in Ireland and Israel – and says that the war in Iraq has shown us the true value of neutrality
In November 1974, I was racing to Dublin from Belfast at more than 100mph when I was stopped at a police checkpoint. Sorry about the speed, I told the Garda officer who stopped me. “I’m going to be late for the Childers funeral!” The Garda looked at me – this was long before speeding became a serious crime in the Republic, and replied: “You will be as dead as Childers if you drive at that speed.”But the death of Erskine Hamilton Childers – Protestant president of Ireland, and son of the author of The Riddle of the Sands (who would be sacrificed in Ireland’s very own civil war) – was not the real reason for my speed.
4,000 to lose homes to Vladimir Putin’s Winter Olympics
More than 4,000 people are facing eviction to make room for the 2014 Winter Olympics in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, according to campaigners, who say that many will receive little or no compensation.“My family has lived on this land for five generations,” said Dmitry Drofichev, a farmer. “We are being offered a fraction of what the land is worth. They’ll have to bulldoze me and the house to make me move.”
The authorities have already begun forcibly removing people from areas where Olympic facilities are to be built. Fifteen families of refugees from a war in the neighbouring republic of Abkhazia have been evicted from the outskirts of Sochi where they have lived for 15 years. They have nowhere to go.
Africa
Robert Mugabe ‘cannot win election – but he can still steal it’
Our correspondent in Harare finds a ravaged nation poised to reject the dictator – but only if the poll is fair
Zimbabwe’s opposition is trying to thwart plans by the regime of President Robert Mugabe to rig Saturday’s elections by offering cash rewards to anyone who comes forward with evidence.A website and postal address have been set up in the Hague promising $5,000 (£2,500) for the first 40 whistleblowers, a fortune in a country where inflation of 150,000% has reduced average salaries to the equivalent of £3 a month. Posters will go up this week advertising the rewards from an organisation called Zimbabwe Democracy Now. They warn: “It is illegal in Zimbabwe and anywhere else in the world for anyone to destroy, tamper with or try to hide election results.”
Alexander McCall Smith creates the No 1 Ladies’ opera house
Precious Ramotswe, Botswana’s first lady detective, is the proud owner of what has undoubtedly become Africa’s most famous bottom. As the heroine of The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, the popular series of novels by Alexander McCall Smith, she squeezes her ample backside frequently on to the seat of her tiny white van and sets off to solve crime.Not surprisingly, it regularly breaks down, leading her into the arms of J L B Matekoni, who owns the Speedy Motors garage – as the television version, to be screened on BBC One tomorrow, lovingly chronicles.
Middle East
Cheney backs Israel over security
US Vice-President Dick Cheney has given strong backing to Israel ahead of talks with Palestinian leaders.
Mr Cheney said the US would never put any pressure on Israel over issues he said would threaten its security.Speaking in a news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, he described America’s commitment to Israel’s security as “unshakeable”.
Mr Cheney will visit the West Bank town of Ramallah on Sunday for talks with Palestinian leaders.
Blasts target Baghdad’s Green Zone
BAGHDAD – Dark smoke rose from the U.S.-protected Green Zone early Sunday after it was targeted by a series of rockets or mortars, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.
Some 10 blasts were heard starting shortly before 6 a.m in the sprawling area in central Baghdad, which houses the U.S. and British embassies, the Iraqi government headquarters and thousands of American troops.Helicopters buzzed overhead and the U.S. public address system there warned people to “duck and cover” and to stay away from windows.
Latin America
Peru sees cocaine making a comeback
After a lull, production is rising, feeding demand in Brazil, Europe and East Asia, officials say. With flashy cartel men replaced by a piecemeal network, the trafficking is harder to combat.
SANTA LUCIA, PERU — Rustic mule trains ferry vital chemicals to clandestine jungle labs.Booby-trapped fields ward off intruders.
Trekkers never seen on the Discovery Channel backpack the prized finished product on epic journeys from steamy Amazon hideaways to chilly highland distribution depots.And a shadowy remnant of the notorious Shining Path rebel army, led by a charismatic man named Artemio, uses its muscle to pocket a fortune in a sinister protection racket.
Peru’s cocaine industry, the world’s largest and most violent in the late 1980s and early 1990s, is again on the upswing. Plots of coca bushes, whose leaves yield cocaine, have increased by about one-third since 1999, to about 127,000 acres, according to Peruvian and United Nations estimates.
3 comments
and what is the next administration going to do with pakistan?!?…….