Docudharma Times Thursday September 25



Taking His Ball And Going Home

To One Of His Eight Houses

John McCain Decides He Wants To

Help Wreck The Economy More

How Lucky For You




Thursday’s Headlines:

Election officials in three states tell college students they can’t vote

 Surge in support for far right ahead of poll reflects centre-left crisis across EU

Yves Rossy attempts to become first human jet to cross the Channel

Sexual cleansing in Iraq

Quartet ‘creating power vacuum’ in Middle East

Thai premier Samak Sundaravej sentenced to jail

Little succor for Burma’s refugees

Persistent corruption threatens Liberian stability

South Africa set for new leader

Bolivian president reassures foreign investors

President Issues Warning to Americans  



   By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

Published: September 24, 2008  


WASHINGTON – President Bush appealed to the nation Wednesday night to support a $700 billion plan to avert a widespread financial meltdown, and signaled that he is willing to accept tougher controls over how the money is spent.

As Democrats and the administration negotiated details of the package late into the night, the presidential candidates of both major parties planned to meet Mr. Bush at the White House on Thursday, along with leaders of Congress. The president said he hoped the session would “speed our discussions toward a bipartisan bill.”

Mr. Bush used a prime-time address to warn Americans that “a long and painful recession” could occur if Congress does not act quickly.

Iraqi Red Crescent Paralyzed by Allegations



By Amit R. Paley and Ernesto Londoño

Washington Post Foreign Service

Thursday, September 25, 2008; Page A01


BAGHDAD — The Iraqi Red Crescent, the country’s leading humanitarian organization, has been crippled by allegations of embezzlement and mismanagement, including what Iraqi officials call the inappropriate expenditure of more than $1 million on Washington lobbying firms in an unsuccessful effort to win U.S. funding.

The group’s former president, Said I. Hakki, an Iraqi American urologist recruited by Bush administration officials to resuscitate Iraq’s health-care system, left the country this summer after the issuance of arrest warrants for him and his deputies. He and his aides deny the allegations and call them politically motivated.

 

USA

Ole Miss hopes presidential debate will spotlight campus progress

 The university has the opportunity to show, once and for all, that it has moved beyond its old, infamous and self-destructive reputation as a bastion of white supremacy.

By Richard Fausset, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer  

OXFORD, MISS. — For the University of Mississippi, Friday’s debate is about more than presidential politics: Officials hope it also helps combat what may be one of the most enduring public relations problems in American higher education.

They know that for many Americans, Ole Miss means little more than the deadly 1962 riot sparked by the matriculation of the first black student, James Meredith, and the 1990s-era controversy over the display of the Confederate flag at football games.

But if the debate goes off as planned, it will provide the 160-year-old school with the opportunity to show, once and for all, that it has moved beyond its old, infamous and self-destructive reputation as a bastion of white supremacy.

First, of course, the school will have to wait and see if the debate takes place. On Wednesday, Republican presidential nominee John McCain said he would not participate unless Congress approved a bailout package for Wall Street by Friday. The Commission on Presidential Debates said in a statement that it was “moving forward with its plan” for the debate. School officials said they were still prepared to host candidates McCain and Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee.

Election officials in three states tell college students they can’t vote

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By Greg Gordon | McClatchy Newspapers  

WASHINGTON – Colorado Democrats accused a Republican county clerk Wednesday of falsely informing Colorado College that students from outside the state could not register to vote if their parents claimed them as a dependent on their tax returns.

At a news conference in Colorado Springs, Democrats also criticized Robert Balink, the El Paso County clerk and recorder, who was a delegate to the Republican National Convention, for taking other steps they said would dampen voting by college students, who are expected to heavily favor Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

“When election officials spread false information about who is eligible to vote and remove, not add, polling places, we need to be concerned that eligible voters will be denied their right to vote,” said Pat Waak, chairwoman of the Colorado Democratic Party.

Europe

Surge in support for far right ahead of poll reflects centre-left crisis across EU

Social Democrats are likely to win Sunday’s election but result could be worst ever

Ian Traynor in Vienna

The Guardian,

Thursday September 25 2008


Karl Friedrich is proud to live in Karl Marx Hof, Vienna’s vast monument to municipal socialism. But not as proud as he used to be.

“We had great times here. There were artists and writers all around. Great parties. They’re all gone now,” says the former communist. “Now half the families in my block are immigrants. They can’t speak German. They can’t even speak English.”

Built in the 1920s to house the working class of the post-imperial capital, Karl Marx Hof was one of the first social housing schemes in Europe, an expressionist fortress of the left in “Red Vienna” and then a battleground in Austria’s civil war that pitted the socialists against the neo-fascists in the 1930s.

Yves Rossy attempts to become first human jet to cross the Channel

 

From The Times

September 25, 2008  

Charles Bremner in Paris


With a roar and a whoosh, a Swiss airline pilot is due to zoom over the White Cliffs of Dover and land in the history books at lunchtime today.

Yves Rossy, 49, will not be flying the Airbus aircraft he usually commands. Instead, he will be wearing a wing with four motors on his back in his attempt to become the first human jet to fly the Channel.

Mr Rossy, who calls himself Fusionman, plans to drop out of an aircraft high above Calais, ignite his jet engines and, using his body to steer like a bird, rocket across the Channel at speeds of up to 115mph (185km/h), hopefully reaching Dover in about 13 minutes.

Middle East

Sexual cleansing in Iraq

Islamist deaths squads are hunting down gay Iraqis and summarily executing them  

Peter Tatchell

guardian.co.uk,

Thursday September 25 2008 07:00 BST


Some of the links in this article will take you to sites containing images of violence which you may find disturbing

The “improved” security situation in Iraq is not benefiting all Iraqis, especially not those who are gay. Islamist death squads are engaged in a homophobic killing spree with the active encouragement of leading Muslim clerics, such as Moqtada al-Sadr, as Newsweek recently revealed.

One of these clerics, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, issued a fatwa urging the killing of lesbians and gays in the “most severe way possible”.

The short film, Queer Fear – Gay Life, Gay Death in Iraq, produced by David Grey for Village Film, documents the tragic fates of a several individual gay Iraqis.

Quartet ‘creating power vacuum’ in Middle East

 

 By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem

Thursday, 25 September 2008


The international community is “losing its grip” on the Middle East peace process and failing to improve the appalling living conditions for Palestinians, a group of leading NGOs charges today.

The international Quartet – consisting of the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia – is accused of creating a “vacuum of leadership” as the aid agencies complain that “visible progress” in the Middle East has “failed to materialise”.

The report says that despite the Quartet saying in June that such progress was vital to building confidence in the negotiating process, it has failed to press home its own calls on Israel for a freeze on settlement building, an improvement in the movement of Palestinian people and goods, and a revival of the collapsed economy in Gaza.

Asia

Thai premier Samak Sundaravej sentenced to jail



From Times Online

September 25, 2008

Leo Lewis, Asia business correspondent


For the second time this month, an ill-judged television appearance has been the ruin of Samak Sundaravej: the first one stripped him of the job of Prime Minister, and the second is now set to land him in jail.

In a Court of Appeals decision that loomed over his short and rocky premiership from the start, Mr Samak was today handed a two year prison sentence for the on-air defamation of another politician during a chat show in 2006.

Little succor for Burma’s refugees  >

Burmese fleeing to camps in Thailand find they get little aid or work and no legal status.

By Anand Gopal  | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the September 25, 2008 edition

Mae La, Thailand –  Myo Zaw thought freedom would begin the day he left Burma (Myanmar). Government authorities there had made it impossible for him to get a job and tracked his every movement after some of his relatives joined political resistance groups. Eventually Myo Zaw paid truckers to smuggle him out of Burma and to a hidden city, deep in the jungles of Thailand.  

That city, a sprawling refugee camp carved into the base of a mountain range about 30 miles from the border, forms part of an archipelago of camps that house political dissidents, ethnic minorities, homeless, jobless, and others who have fled.  

But instead of bringing Burmese closer to liberty, Myo Zaw and others like him say Thailand’s Burmese refugee camps are little more than open-air prisons, where Thai police tightly control movements and inhabitants face a growing threat of deportation.

Africa

Persistent corruption threatens Liberian stability

Despite President Johnson-Sirleaf’s tough rhetoric on the international stage and the country’s modest progress in global rankings, there is growing concern back home.

By Tristan McConnell  | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor

from the September 25, 2008 edition

Monrovia, Liberia – At dusk, streetlights come on in the Liberian capital, Monrovia, making it safer to walk the crumbling pavements. Before the election of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf as president in 2006, there had been no electricity for 15 years. On the surface, Liberia looks like a model for postconflict development. But widespread corruption threatens to undermine recent gains.

This week, a report released by Berlin-based watchdog Transparency International (TI) ranks Liberia 42nd worst in a list of 180 countries on perceived levels of public-sector corruption, an improvement on its 2007 rank of 23rd worst.

“Corruption is the most serious threat to our growth and our stability,” says Thomas Nah, head of the local chapter of TI in Monrovia. Previous TI reports have described Liberian corruption as “rampant,” on par with Kenya’s and Zimbabwe’s.

South Africa set for new leader

South Africa’s parliament is due to begin voting for a president to replace Thabo Mbeki, who is stepping down.

The BBC

Lawmakers are expected to appoint Kgalema Motlanthe, deputy leader of the ruling African National Congress (ANC).

Mr Motlanthe is seen as a calming figure who could help heal tensions in the party, divided between supporters of Mr Mbeki and Jacob Zuma.

He will serve until polls next year, when Mr Zuma, as ANC leader, is widely expected to become president.

Mr Mbeki announced his resignation on Sunday over claims of political interference in a corruption case against Mr Zuma.

Latin America

Bolivian president reassures foreign investors  



By JAVIER ARVIZU, Associated Press Writer    

NEW YORK – Mediation by South American leaders is having a positive influence on Bolivia’s political crisis between the central government and restive eastern provinces demanding greater autonomy, Bolivian President Evo Morales said Wednesday.

The 12-nation Union of South American Nations has pledged to help prevent political collapse in Bolivia after anti-Morales groups launched deadly protests in the eastern part of the impoverished country this month, blockading highways, sacking government offices and seizing gas pipelines.

“Just its presence is very important,” Morales said in New York, where he was attending the U.N. General Assembly and meeting with South American union members. “We’ll see how this process develops. I’m very confident.”