Docudharma Times Friday August 1

Republicans, McCain

and Racism

Something They

Know A Lot About

Its Their Normal Calling Card

Pakistanis Aided Attack in Kabul, U.S. Officials Say



By MARK MAZZETTI and ERIC SCHMITT

Published: August 1, 2008

WASHINGTON – American intelligence agencies have concluded that members of Pakistan’s powerful spy service helped plan the deadly July 7 bombing of India’s embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, according to United States government officials

The conclusion was based on intercepted communications between Pakistani intelligence officers and militants who carried out the attack, the officials said, providing the clearest evidence to date that Pakistani intelligence officers are actively undermining American efforts to combat militants in the region.

McCain Camp Says Obama Is Playing ‘Race Card’



By MICHAEL COOPER and MICHAEL POWELL

Published: August 1, 2008

ORLANDO, Fla. – Senator John McCain’s campaign accused Senator Barack Obama on Thursday of playing “the race card,” citing his remarks that Republicans would try to scare voters by pointing out that he “doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.”

The exchange injected racial politics front and center into the general election campaign for the first time, after it became a subtext in the primary between Mr. Obama and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

It came as the McCain campaign was intensifying its attacks, trying to throw its Democratic opponent off course before the conventions.

“Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck,” Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, charged in a statement with which Mr. McCain later said he agreed. “It’s divisive, negative, shameful and wrong.”

USA

Travelers’ Laptops May Be Detained At Border

No Suspicion Required Under DHS Policies

By Ellen Nakashima

Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, August 1, 2008; Page A01

Federal agents may take a traveler’s laptop computer or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.

Also, officials may share copies of the laptop’s contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons, according to the policies, dated July 16 and issued by two DHS agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Report: Anthrax attacks suspect takes own life

Top scientist suffers overdose as charges loomed in 2001 case, paper says

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON – A top U.S. biodefense researcher apparently committed suicide just as the Justice Department was about to file criminal charges against him in the anthrax mailings that traumatized the nation in 2001, according to a published report.

Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who worked for the past 18 years at the government’s biodefense labs at Fort Detrick, Maryland, had been told about the impending prosecution, the Los Angeles Times reported for Friday editions. The laboratory has been at the center of the FBI’s investigation of the anthrax mailings, which killed five people in the weeks following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Europe

Back to his old self, Radovan Karadzic faces his accusers over war crimes



Ian Traynor in The Hague

The Guardian,

Friday August 1 2008

At two minutes past four yesterday afternoon, a tall man with swept-back silver hair stepped into a blue and yellow courtroom in The Hague, defendant in case IT-95-05/18 at the international war crimes tribunal.

His face had a waxy, almost deathly pallor. He carried a black plastic briefcase, wore a new dark suit and new white shirt. He stood upright and chatted in English with the two armed guards in blue UN uniforms flanking him, then unbuttoned the suit and sat down to await the arrival of Judge Alphonse Orie of the Netherlands

Radovan Karadzic, 63, looked older and thinner than when he ruled the roost in Bosnia 14 years ago.

The last supper: mystery of the Swiss motorbike courier

Five countries, 40 gourmet restaurants, 120 Michelin stars – but what happened to the Swiss motorcycle courier after his meal at El Bulli?

By John Lichfield in Paris

Friday, 1 August 2008

Here is a mystery which would have whetted the appetite of Sherlock Holmes or, better still, Hercule Poirot, a man who truly appreciated haute cuisine.

Pascal Henry, 46, a Swiss motorbike courier, set out in May to eat in every Michelin three-starred restaurant in the world – 68 restaurants in nine countries in 68 days. He had reached restaurant number 40: El Bulli on the Costa Brava, acclaimed as the finest restaurant on earth, when, after his dessert, but before paying his bill, he vanished.

Africa

The rains have come, the land is lush but Ethiopians still go hungry

Despite appearances, a cycle of drought and escalating food prices is taking its toll

Annie Kelly in West Badawacho, Ethiopia

The Guardian,

Friday August 1 2008

The green highlands of West Badawacho in south-west Ethiopia are not a place where you would expect to find hunger. The land is fertile and lush. Rain falls on fields covered with waist-high maize and red flowers dot the tree-lined tracks leading deep into rural farming land.

But West Badawacho is in the grip of the worst “green famine” it has experienced in decades and severe malnutrition can be found in many of the villages dotted among these fields. Here, and across Ethiopia, drought, high population density, successive failed rains and rapidly rising food prices are dovetailing to create a crisis. Ethiopia is bearing the brunt of the food shortages currently sweeping across east Africa threatening the lives of millions.

Fate of Sudan’s president snarls UN vote on Darfur





By Neil Macfarquhar

Published: August 1, 2008

UNITED NATIONS: As the final hours of the Security Council mandate supporting the peacekeeping troops in Darfur ticked away late Thursday, the usually automatic vote on a year-long extension got snagged in the protracted fight over how to refer to the possible indictment of Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

The United States, seeking to block what it saw as wobbly support for the International Criminal Court’s attempt to pursue Bashir on genocide charges, was threatening to abstain from supporting the mandate renewal.

American diplomats singled out one paragraph in the preamble to the British-sponsored resolution that suggested that the Council take note of concerns among African states about possible court action. The American position was that the resolution not draw any link, no matter how vague, between possible court action and the mandate for Unamid, the acronym for the peacekeeping force.

Middle East

Candidate who wants Olmert’s job once ‘sought deaths of 70 Palestinians a day’



By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem

Friday, 1 August 2008

A leading candidate to be Israel’s next premier called for a death toll of 70 Palestinians a day when he was head of the military during the second intifada, according to a best-selling book by two Israeli journalists.

The account of a briefing given in May 2001 to senior West Bank army commanders reinforces the image of hawkishness enjoyed by Shaul Mofaz. He has emerged as the main rival to the Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, for the leadership of the Kadima party being vacated by Ehud Olmert. Mr Mofaz is expected to stress his security credentials as a former chief of staff and defence minister in his campaign to defeat Ms Livni, the most popular among the Israeli public of the candidates to succeed Mr Olmert as party leader.

Top Fatah officials held in Gaza >

A number of top representatives of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas have been arrested in the Gaza Strip, officials from his Fatah movement say.

The BBC

Fatah officials Ibrahim Abu Naja and Zakaria Agha were among those detained as a Hamas crackdown following a coastal bombing last week continued.

Mr Abbas appointed the two to run Fatah in Gaza when the Islamist Hamas seized control of the area in 2007.

Fatah says dozens of its men are being held, but Hamas has not given a number.

Asia

China lifts more internet curbs

China appears to have unblocked banned websites after complaints from journalists covering the Olympics

By Michael Bristow

BBC News, Beijing  

The move follows talks between Chinese organisers and officials from the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Games officials will no doubt be hoping this defuses a growing row about internet access for journalists reporting on the sporting event.

Separately on Friday, Chinese President Hu Jintao said efforts to politicise the Olympic Games would not work.

“It is only inevitable that people from different countries and regions may not see eye to eye with one another on some different issues,” he said.

Bangladesh ‘is growing’ due to freak environmental conditions

.

From Times Online

August 1, 2008

Jeremy Page, South Asia Correspondent

Bangladesh is often held up as the ‘ground zero’ of climate change, with environmental experts predicting that rising sea levels could engulf much of the country of 150 million people within the next 50 years.

But a recent survey by a Bangladeshi research institute shows that the country’s landmass has actually increased by more than 1,000 square km (386 square miles) since 1973, due to rivers dumping sediment as they meet the sea.

Latin America

Mexico catches alleged Colombian drug dealer



Associated Press

Fri Aug 1,2008

MEXICO CITY – Mexican police say they have captured a Colombian cartel operative who served as a liaison to a Mexican drug gang.

Police say Ever Villafane Martinez represented Colombia’s Norte del Valle drug cartel in dealings with Mexico’s Beltran Leyva gang.

Assistant Secretary of Public Safety Facundo Rosas said Thursday that Villafane Martinez was detained on Wednesday, and that police found an assault rifle in his truck.