Docudharma Times Monday October 13

I Think That Those In The Other

Party Are Beginning To See That Big

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Britain Props Up Banks as Fed Leads Funding Effort

 

By MARK LANDLER and KATRIN BENNHOLD

Published: October 13, 2008  

WASHINGTON – After a whirl of emergency weekend meetings on both sides of the Atlantic aimed at rescuing the global financial system, Britain began propping up three banks Monday with taxpayer funds while the Federal Reserve and three European central banks announced that they will offer financial institutions unlimited dollars to ease the banking crisis.Before markets opened in Europe, a statement from the Federal Reserve in Washington said that it, along with the Bank of England, the European Central Bank and the Swiss National Bank would provide funds at a fixed interest rate in advance of each operation “against the appropriate collateral in each jurisdiction.”

Under ‘No Child’ Law, Even Solid Schools Falter

 

By SAM DILLON

Published: October 12, 2008

SACRAMENTO – Prairie Elementary School had not missed a testing target since the federal No Child Left Behind law took effect in 2002. Until now.

The school, perched on a tidy, oak-shaded campus in a working-class neighborhood here, has moved each of its student groups – Hispanics, blacks, Asians, whites, American Indians, Filipinos, Pacific Islanders, English learners, the disabled – toward higher proficiency in recent years.

Over all, the number of its students passing tough statewide tests had increased by more than three percentage points annually, a solid record.

USA

Pentagon divided over John McCain

His military experience, while seen as an asset, makes him a less likely pushover for top brass, and he has long been a critic of Defense spending. But some welcome the prospect of sweeping reforms.

 By Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

October 13, 2008  

WASHINGTON — For decades, the nation’s military officer corps has identified steadfastly with the priorities and values of the Republican Party. So the brass should be reveling in the presidential campaign of John McCain.

Yet, in a culture that typically prefers one of its own, many are wary of the Vietnam War hero.

McCain, a former Navy officer and prisoner of war, would arrive in the White House with more military experience than any president since Dwight D. Eisenhower. But he also would bring a long congressional career as an outspoken critic of the Pentagon — prone to harsh assessments of its spending practices, weapons programs and military leaders.

As a result, defenders of some of the Pentagon’s biggest weapons systems are worried that if McCain is elected, he will order sweeping changes, killing a number of big-ticket programs. Perhaps unlike other civilian leaders, McCain would be able to draw on his experience and knowledge of the military to reject the advice of generals and admirals.

‘They’re talking about credit and liquidity, but not ours’

?In Riverside, California, the credit crunch is hitting home – and many people feel their problems are being ignored by the presidential candidates

Posted on

Monday October 13 2008 05.22 BST  

Sitting on their back porch swing on a brilliant day last week, Sherrill Tinder and Bob Smith looked like a an ordinary middle-class couple, living a modest Southern California version of the American Dream here in Riverside.

But what they were talking about wasn’t backyard barbecues or their next trip to Home Depot. Sherill and Bob were discussing whether they could avoid going bankrupt – losing their home in this sprawling city of 300,000 west of Los Angeles, and with it, everything they had worked for all their lives.

A closer look at their neighborhood reveals that they are not alone: Up and down the block, there are “For Sale” signs on the houses, and some neighbors have already had to move out.

Europe

First woman on banknote ‘snub’ to secular Turkey



Robert Tait in Istanbul

The Guardian, Monday October 13 2008

Turkey’s central bank has been criticised by secularists for choosing a previously obscure Ottoman writer as the first woman to adorn the country’s bank notes.

Critics say the choice of Fatma Aliye, believed to be Turkey’s first female novelist, represents a surrender to religious conservative forces and a snub to others who fought for women’s rights.

Aliye, who died in 1936 and was the daughter of a senior Ottoman bureaucrat and historian, is among several historical figures who will appear on the notes from January. The notes are being minted to mark the inauguration of a fresh currency to replace the existing New Turkish Lira.

Milan Kundera denounced Western spy to secret police



From Times Online

October 13, 2008

Anne Barrowclough

Milan Kundera, the famous Czech writer renowned for his antipathy toward communism, denounced a Western intelligence agent to Czechoslovakia’s communist secret police when he was a student, it has been claimed.

The author of The Incredible Lightness of Being allegedly reported the agent, a young Czech pilot, after the spy visited a female friend of his at a student dormitory in 1950.

Middle East

Fisk ‘shocked’ by US failure to debate conflict in Israel  

 

By Amol Rajan

Monday, 13 October 2008

A feisty debate between Robert Fisk and the author Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman brought The Independent Woodstock Literary Festival to a close on a high note last night.

The absence of a debate on the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians in the US presidential elections was “shocking”, Fisk told a packed hall at Blenheim Palace, the grand 18th-century home in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, which hosted the festival.

Time to go home, Nouri al-Maliki tells Britain



From The Times

October 13, 2008

Deborah Haynes and Richard Beeston in Baghdad

British combat forces are no longer needed to maintain security in southern Iraq and should leave the country, Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, has told The Times.

In an exclusive interview in Baghdad, Mr al-Maliki also criticised a secret deal made last year by Britain with the al-Mahdi Army, Iraq’s largest Shia militia.

Asia

North Korea ‘won’t keep nuclear deal’

The decision by Washington to remove North Korea from its terrorism blacklist is a triumph for a regime in Pyongyang that has played a weak hand well, according to analysts.

By Julian Ryall in Tokyo

Last Updated: 8:11AM BST 13 Oct 2008

More significantly, there is little expectation that North Korea will keep its side of the bargain, with even Washington admitting that it does not expect inspectors to get full and free access to nuclear sites.

“Verifying North Korea’s nuclear declaration will be a serious challenge,” Patricia McNerney, acting US assistant secretary of state for international security and non-proliferation, told reporters in Washington on Saturday.

“This is the most secret and opaque regime in the entire world.”

Pope declares India’s first woman saint >

 

By Andrew Buncombe

Monday, 13 October 2008

India got its first female saint – a Catholic nun who was so determined as a young girl to enter a convent that she stepped into a fire to disfigure her feet and stop her aunt pressuring her to marry. Pope Benedict used the canonisation of Sister Alphonsa to call for an end to the religious violence in India in which Hindu mobs have killed dozens of Christians forced thousands from their homes.

“As the Christian faithful of India give thanks to God for their first native daughter to be presented for public veneration, I wish to assure them of my prayers during this difficult time,” the Pope told the crowds gathered in St Peter’s Square.

Africa

In Sierra Leone, Every Pregnancy Is a ‘Chance of Dying’

 

By Kevin Sullivan

Washington Post Foreign Service  

KABALA, Sierra Leone — Saio Marah, nine months pregnant and two days into labor, lay on a hospital bed and groaned loudly with each contraction.

She had arrived at the rural hospital earlier on the back of a motorcycle, about the only public transport available in this muddy little town in the distant back-country bush of one of Africa’s poorest nations.

Now, in a dark and hot labor ward with rain blowing in the open windows and puddling on the floor, Marah grimaced as James Konteh slapped on rubber gloves and examined her.

Tsvangirai may quit as Mugabe grabs top posts



Chris McGreal in Johannesburg

The Guardian, Monday October 13 2008

Zimbabwe’s opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, yesterday threatened to pull out of a power-sharing deal after President Robert Mugabe unilaterally announced that the ruling Zanu-PF party would control all main cabinet posts, including the military and police.

South Africa’s former president, Thabo Mbeki, is expected in Harare today to try and rescue the deal he brokered, under which Tsvangirai would be appointed prime minister and Mugabe would remain president but with far fewer powers.

Tsvangirai told a rally in Harare yesterday that he would not be pressured by Mugabe into joining an administration dominated by Zanu-PF, when the opposition Movement for Democratic Change won the last reputable elections in March.

Latin America

Argentina caught in Mexican meth trade

Facing a crackdown in Mexico, smugglers turn to Argentina as a base for importing ephedrine, which is turned into meth destined for the U.S. The trade has brought killings and intrigue.

By Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

October 13, 2008

BUENOS AIRES — The three young entrepreneurs met their contacts outside a Wal-Mart here and drove off with them, apparently convinced that they would be celebrating a lucrative new deal.

But authorities believe it was a set-up, linked to Mexican mobsters bent on reshaping the global drug trafficking map.

The three men were handcuffed, forced to kneel in the mud and sprayed with bullets; their bodies were dumped in a ditch.

The execution-style slayings have sent shock waves across Argentina, which has largely been spared the drug violence seen in Colombia and Peru, the world’s top cocaine producers.

The First Docudharma Times

News Happening Now

Pentagon, FBI misusing secret info requests: ACLU
  WASHINGTON (AFP) – The Pentagon has misled Congress and the US public by conniving with the FBI to obtain hundreds of financial, telephone and Internet records without court approval, civil-rights campaigners said Sunday.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which has successfully challenged key planks of US anti-terrorism legislation, said it had uncovered 455 “National Security Letters” (NSLs) issued at the behest of the Department of Defense.

Before the ACLU’s challenge, the USA Patriot Act had allowed the FBI to issue gag orders to prevent those receiving NSLs — usually Internet service providers, banks and libraries — from disclosing anything about the request.