Bush/Cheney Legacy Tour
Lie Lie Lie
Israel continues offensive in Gaza while truce talks provide optimism
Air and ground assault encircles Gaza City as negotiations in Egypt moot ceasefire proposal
Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 15 January 2009 07.55 GMT
Israel kept up its intense air and ground operations in Gaza today, even as the first signs of progress towards a ceasefire emerged from Egyptian-led negotiations.Israeli forces were reported to be closing in on the outskirts of Gaza City, forcing thousands more Palestinians to flee their homes. Palestinian witnesses said Israeli tanks fired shells at least three high-rise buildings in downtown Gaza City.
It is not clear whether this morning’s offensive marks another major escalation in the conflict or a brief foray – so far Israel has avoided sending grounds troops into the heart of Gaza City.
One in five Guantanamo Bay detainees is on hunger strike
From The Times
January 15, 2009
Tim Reid in Guantanamo Bay
Nearly a fifth of the detainees held at Guantánamo Bay have gone on hunger strike with the aim of attracting the attention of Barack Obama, military officials have told The Times. Most of them are being force-fed.Of the 248 inmates inside the detention facility, 44 are refusing food – but 33 of those are receiving nutrition with tubes that are forced up their noses and into their stomachs.
On election night, according to one official, news of Mr Obama’s win spread across the prison facility even though no inmates had access to television that evening, and chants of “Obama! Obama! Obama!” erupted throughout the complex.
USA
Bank Losses Complicate U.S. Rescue
Pressure Grows on Obama to Allocate More Money for Distressed Financial Firms
By David Cho, Binyamin Appelbaum and Lori Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, January 15, 2009; Page A01
A new wave of bank losses is overwhelming the federal government’s emergency response, as financial firms struggle with the souring U.S. economy, the rapid deterioration of global markets and the unexpectedly high costs of shotgun mergers arranged by federal officials last year.The problems are intensifying the pressure on the incoming Obama administration to allocate more of the $700 billion rescue program to financial firms even as Democratic leaders have urged more help for distressed homeowners, small businesses and municipalities. Senior Federal Reserve officials said this week that the bulk of the money should go to banks.
Apple Chief Temporarily Steps Aside
By BRAD STONE
Published: January 14, 2009
Casting a pall over one of the world’s most closely watched companies, Steven P. Jobs, chief executive of Apple, said on Wednesday that he was taking a leave of absence because of health concerns.
Mr. Jobs wrote in a letter to Apple employees, released after the markets closed, that he had learned over the last week that his health problems were “more complex” than he originally thought. He said he planned to return to Apple at the end of June and in the meantime would hand day-to-day control of Apple over to Timothy D. Cook, its longtime chief operating officer.Mr. Jobs, 53, wrote that curiosity about his health continued “to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well.”
Asia
Editor’s Killing Underscores Perils of Reporting in Sri Lanka
By Emily Wax
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, January 15, 2009; Page A12
NEW DELHI, Jan. 14 — Across South Asia, it has become known as the letter from the grave.
Anticipating his own slaying, Sri Lankan journalist Lasantha Wickramatunga, 52, a fierce critic of his country’s government, wrote an editorial called “And Then They Came for Me,” a dramatic essay to be printed in the event of his assassination.On Jan. 8, the father of three was shot in the head and chest on his way to work by two men on motorcycles. The editorial, published the following Sunday, has highlighted how dangerous reporting in Sri Lanka has become. Critics cite a growing pattern of intimidation by the government, especially during a recent push to wipe out the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or Tamil Tigers, in a war that has persisted for more than two decades, one of the world’s longest-running conflicts.
Nissan Motor set to post first loss in a decade
From Times Online
January 15, 2009
Leo Lewis, Asia Business Correspondent
Nissan Motor, Japan’s third-largest carmaker, is likely to plunge into an operating loss for the first time since Carlos Ghosn took over as president of the sprawling industrial giant a decade ago, analysts are warning.The predicted loss comes as the entire Japanese car industry is writhing in pain: US and Japanese consumers are retrenching with unexpected speed and emerging market growth in hotspots such as Russia and China has begun to wither alarmingly.
The dip into loss will be a profound reversal for Mr Ghosn and for the investors who have backed his once seemingly bulletproof management powers.
Middle East
In Baghdad, taking the wheel
With violence reduced drastically, new cars have become the latest must-have for those who can afford it, as they get rid of clunkers they had stuck with to avoid kidnappings.
By Kimi Yoshino and Caesar Ahmed
January 15, 2009
Reporting from Baghdad — Customers circle the Hyundai showroom like a pack of hungry wolves. Most are waiting for the next delivery of cars to roll up to the lot. The others are kicking the tires and peering into windows, armed with a wad of cash and prepared to pay in full. No deal-making will be necessary. These cars practically sell themselves.The happy daydreams of an idle car salesman?
Not in Baghdad.“I can’t keep up with it,” said Seyamend Mahmoud, sales manager at one of two Baghdad car dealerships. “If I bring 50 cars, in one day, I will sell them. If I bring 100, I will sell them in two days. . . . Even the luxurious, expensive cars are easily sold in here.”
Although American car sales have fallen off a cliff, pent-up demand for new cars in Iraq is fueling a car-buying boom the likes of which haven’t been seen in decades.
After Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the United Nations imposed an embargo that prevented the import of most nonessential consumer goods. Although some merchants began importing cars in 2003 after the ouster of Saddam Hussein’s regime, most drivers stuck with their clunkers, fearful that a new car would make them easy targets for kidnapping or theft.
Civilian casualties: Human rights groups accuse Israelis of war crimes
By Donald Macintyre and Kim Sengupta in Jerusalem
Thursday, 15 January 2009
Israel is under suspicion of committing war crimes and should halt the “clear and present danger to the lives and well-being of tens of thousands of civilians” in Gaza, nine of the country’s main human rights organisations have declared.The Israeli organisations have written to the government, armed forces chiefs and the attorney general, condemning the “unprecedented” harm to a civilian population now in “extreme humanitarian distress”, the “wanton use of lethal force” and a series of what it says are “blatant violations of the laws of warfare”.
Europe
Ian Traynor in Brussels
The Guardian, Thursday 15 January 2009
Russia’s refusal to pump gas to Europe and Ukraine’s reluctance to let any gas through left European leaders spluttering in impotent fury yesterday, alternately pleading with the Kremlin to resume supplies and accusing the Russians of duplicity.With no breakthrough in sight to the two-week dispute between Russia and Ukraine that has deprived half of Europe of Siberian gas supplies, José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European commission, described the crisis as “incredible”, saying both Moscow and Kiev had blown their credibility as energy suppliers to Europe. He suggested that a flood of legal claims could be made against Russian and Ukrainian gas companies and pipeline operators for breach of contracts.
Putin and the art of power >
First it was fishing, then judo. Now the Russian premier has turned his hand to painting
By Shaun Walker
Thursday, 15 January 2009Over the centuries, Russia has given the world many artistic masterpieces, from Andrei Rublev’s medieval church icons to Ilya Repin’s intense portrait of Ivan the Terrible killing his own son, and Marc Chagall’s modernist flights of fancy. In 2009, however, a new name is set to rock the Russian art world – Vladimir Putin.
A painting by the Russian Prime Minister went on display yesterday in St Petersburg as part of a charity auction to raise funds for children’s hospitals. The painting depicts a window with patterned white curtains that looks out onto a raging blizzard.
“As far as I know this is just the second time Putin has picked up a paintbrush,” said Igor Gavryushkin, the organizer of the auction. “He painted it in 20 minutes.”
Africa
Zimbabweans detail abduction spree
Fresh details of recent abductions, beatings, and forced confessions of Zimbabwe’s opposition leaders and civic activists emerged Tuesday during a press conference.
By Scott Baldauf | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA – The men came for Bothwell Pasipamire just after midnight on Dec. 13, armed with pistols. With his wife screaming, they pushed him into a brand-new white Toyota pickup truck, and took the young newly elected councillor of a small rural town on what he thought would be the last drive of his life.For the next three days, Mr. Pasipamire would be beaten, tortured, and forced on camera to beat a mutinous Zimbabwe army soldier, and then confess to various crimes against President Robert Mugabe’s government, until he was finally allowed to escape by sympathetic intelligence officers.
His story – told to reporters from the safety of Johannesburg, South Africa, as civic activists and fellow members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) face trial for treason this week in his native Zimbabwe – speaks volumes about the brutal lengths to which Mr. Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party is willing to go to stay in power, nine months after losing national elections to the MDC.
Zimbabwe cholera surges as neighbours report rising cases
HARARE (AFP)Zimbabwe’s cholera outbreak had killed more than 2,100 people on Wednesday, as neighbouring countries sounded the alarm over rising infections of the treatable, water-borne disease.
Latest figures from the World Health Organisation show that the death toll in Zimbabwe has now reached 2,106 since August while 1,642 new cases were added on in a single day. The total number of people infected has surged past 40,000.
Aid agencies have long warned of the threat of a regional spill-over from Zimbabwe from where scores of people migrate daily to neighbouring countries.
Northern neighbour Zambia has recorded 28 cholera deaths, government spokesman Canisius Banda told AFP.
“Since September, we have seen 2,108 cholera patients and we lost 28 of them,” he said.
Still, Zimbabwe’s impoverished northern neighbour has sent 404,000 dollars (307,910 euros) to Harare to support efforts to fight the epidemic there, he added.
In South Africa, the death toll climbed to 15 on Wednesday, with more than 2,100 cases recorded.
1 comment
That like Dick Cheney George Bush believes the American people should just be ignored.