Tag: Docudharma Times

There Is No

Doubt Republicans

Are Just Racists  

Program to refurbish aging nuclear warheads faces setbacks

Technical problems and an erosion of scientific expertise are blamed for delays in the effort to replace thousands of parts that have aged since the bombs left the factory decades ago.

By Ralph Vartabedian

May 29, 2009

A decadelong effort to refurbish thousands of aging nuclear warheads has run into serious technical problems that have forced delays and exacerbated concerns about the Energy Department’s ability to maintain the nation’s strategic deterrent.

The program involves a type of warhead known as the W76, which is used on the Navy’s Trident missile system and makes up more than half of the deployed warheads in the U.S. stockpile.

The refurbishment program is aimed at replacing thousands of parts that have aged since the bombs left the factory 20 and 30 years ago.

The $200-million-a-year program is a cornerstone of America’s nuclear deterrent strategy, and the Energy Department has been under growing pressure from the military and Congress to meet tough deadlines to get the weapons ready.

In February, the department’s National Nuclear Security Administration announced that the “first refurbished W76 nuclear warhead had been accepted into the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile by the Navy.”

North Korea The

Neighbor You Never

Wanted

The Friend You Don’t Need  

Rigorous Questioning Hasn’t Fazed Nominee



By Alec MacGillis

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Senate Republicans have yet to decide how tough they will be in grilling Judge Sonia Sotomayor in her confirmation hearings, but this is clear: The Supreme Court nominee already has shown an ability to withstand rigorous questioning.

Partisan tensions were high when Sotomayor arrived in Washington in 1997 for her confirmation to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. A rumor was making Republican rounds that President Bill Clinton wanted to elevate her from the federal trial bench because he planned to “fast-track” her to the Supreme Court if Justice John Paul Stevens decided to retire during Clinton’s second term. Senate Republican leader  Trent Lott (Miss.) delayed her confirmation by the full Senate, which occurred nearly a year after her hearing. And the rumor of Stevens’s retirement turned out to be false.

Taliban deputy claims responsibility for Pakistan bomb attack

Leader says Lahore blast was revenge for military offensive in Swat

Declan Walsh in Islamabad and agencies

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 28 May 2009 09.23 BST

A senior leader of the Taliban in Pakistan today claimed responsibility for the bomb attack in Lahore that killed at least 24 people and wounded hundreds more, saying it was revenge for the army offensive against militants in Swat valley.

Hakimullah Mehsud, a deputy to the Pakistani Taliban chief, Baitullah Mehsud, told the Associated Press that the attack on the offices of the police chief and Pakistan’s main spy agency, the ISI, was connected to the military operation.

“It was in response to the Swat operation where innocent people have been killed,” Mehsud said. The little-known group Taliban Movement in Punjab has also claimed responsibility for the attack.

USA

FBI planning a bigger role in terrorism fight

Bureau agents will gather evidence to ensure that criminal prosecutions of alleged terrorists are an option. The move is a reversal of the Bush administration’s emphasis on covert CIA actions.

By Josh Meyer

May 28, 2009

Reporting from Washington — The FBI and Justice Department plan to significantly expand their role in global counter-terrorism operations, part of a U.S. policy shift that will replace a CIA-dominated system of clandestine detentions and interrogations with one built around transparent investigations and prosecutions.

Under the “global justice” initiative, which has been in the works for several months, FBI agents will have a central role in overseas counter-terrorism cases. They will expand their questioning of suspects and evidence-gathering to try to ensure that criminal prosecutions are an option, officials familiar with the effort said.

Though the initiative is a work in progress, some senior counter-terrorism officials and administration policy-makers envision it as key to the national security strategy President Obama laid out last week — one that presumes most accused terrorists have the right to contest the charges against them in a “legitimate” setting.

UN Condemns

North Korea Flips Out

With Missiles  

President Obama to nominate Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court

North Korean Nuclear Blast Draws Global Condemnation

China, Russia Decry Ally; Device Seen as Small Advance

By Blaine Harden

Washington Post Foreign Service

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

TOKYO, May 27 — North Korea’s detonation of a nuclear device Monday appears not to have been a significant technical advance over its first underground test three years ago. But it has triggered a swifter, stronger and more uniform wave of international condemnation, most notably from the isolated nation’s historical allies, China and Russia.The U.N. Security Council moved quickly in an emergency meeting Monday to condemn the test, saying it constituted a clear violation of a 2006 U.N. resolution barring the communist state from exploding a nuclear weapon. The council’s speedy response contrasted with protracted discussions that followed North Korea’s April 5 launch of a long-range missile and reflected what analysts called deep displeasure by Russia and China.

Ex-Detainee Describes Struggle for Exoneration

In France, Algerian Savors Normal Life

By Edward Cody

Washington Post Foreign Service

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

PARIS, May 25 — When the nightmare finally ended — seven years at Guantanamo Bay, two years of force-feeding through a tube in his right nostril, the long struggle to proclaim his innocence before a judge, and finally 10 days of hospitalization — Lakhdar Boumediene celebrated with pizza for lunch in a little Paris dive.

“When we were at the restaurant,” Boumediene said Monday, shortly after the meal that marked his release from doctors’ care and reentry into normal society, “I told my wife that for the first time I felt like a man again, tasting things, picking things up in my fingers, eating lunch with my wife and my two daughters.”

USA

Credit cards may go charging into the past

New regulations signed into law by Obama could bring back the tight access and low limits of the ’50s.

By Abigail Goldman

May 26, 2009

Norman Hockett didn’t realize that the small plastic rectangle that arrived in his Fresno mailbox in the fall of 1958 put him at the vanguard of the credit revolution.

Fresno was the proving ground for the BankAmericard, the granddaddy of mass market credit cards, and Hockett was one of the first 65,000 people to get one. He used the new tool carefully, never failing to pay off his balance when he bought a TV or a dinner out.

“I have never paid any interest,” said the 78-year-old retired teacher and salesman. “I clear the account every month, and I don’t run up a big bill.”

If the industry — and its customers — maintained the prudence of Hockett’s Depression-era upbringing, the new credit card law signed Friday by President Obama might never have been necessary.

Will The Worlds Governments

Cave To North Koreas

Demands?

Probably Without A

Whimper    

North Korea Claims to Conduct 2nd Nuclear Test



By CHOE SANG-HUN

Published: May 25, 2009

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea announced on Monday that it had successfully conducted its second nuclear test, defying international warnings and dramatically raising the stakes in a global effort to persuade the recalcitrant Communist state to give up its weapons program.The North’s official news agency, KCNA, said, “The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea successfully conducted one more underground nuclear test on May 25 as part of the measures to bolster up its nuclear deterrent for self-defense in every way as requested by its scientists and technicians.”

Horror for civilians trapped in Sri Lanka’s ‘no-fire zone’

From The Times

May 25, 2009

Catherine Philp in Colombo

From the air, the battle zone reveals itself one clue at a time – the scorched patches of earth, the blasted palm trees, the burnt-out skeletal houses.

Then the helicopter banks sharp right over the green lagoon and a blaze of white sand appears – to the gasps of the first outsiders to glimpse the beach where the Tamil Tigers made their last stand.

Sri Lanka’s no-fire zone is a scene of such utter devastation it mocks its very name. It is a glimpse of hell unleashed in paradise. A glistening white beach packed with home-made bunkers where civilians huddled to protect themselves from the shells that the government denies launching in the final weeks of the offensive. The craters in the white sand; the charcoal coloured scorch marks and bombed-out dwellings; the abandoned bus, its forlorn white flag still flying, and the human detritus tell a very different story.

USA

Threats to Judges, Prosecutors Soaring

Worried Court Personnel Resort To Guards, Identity Shields, Weapons

By Jerry Markon

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, May 25, 2009

Threats against the nation’s judges and prosecutors have sharply increased, prompting hundreds to get 24-hour protection from armed U.S. marshals. Many federal judges are altering their routes to work, installing security systems at home, shielding their addresses by paying bills at the courthouse or refraining from registering to vote. Some even pack weapons on the bench.

The problem has become so pronounced that a high-tech “threat management” center recently opened in Crystal City, where a staff of about 25 marshals and analysts monitor a 24-hour number for reporting threats, use sophisticated mapping software to track those being threatened and tap into a classified database linked to the FBI and CIA.

Memorial Day  

U.S. Relies More on Aid of Allies in Terror Cases



By ERIC SCHMITT and MARK MAZZETTI

Published: May 23, 2009

WASHINGTON – The United States is now relying heavily on foreign intelligence services to capture, interrogate and detain all but the highest-level terrorist suspects seized outside the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, according to current and former American government officials.

The change represents a significant loosening of the reins for the United States, which has worked closely with allies to combat violent extremism since the 9/11 attacks but is now pushing that cooperation to new limits.

In the past 10 months, for example, about a half-dozen midlevel financiers and logistics experts working with Al Qaeda have been captured and are being held by intelligence services in four Middle Eastern countries after the United States provided information that led to their arrests by local security services, a former American counterterrorism official said.

UN chief flies into Sri Lanka as Tamils’ tales of terror emerge

250,000 Tamil civilians are held behind the wire of one refugee camp. Many have stories of a desperate escape. Most go unheard – but 10-year-old Sopika’s account is a testimony to brutality

Gethin Chamberlain in Colombo

The Observer, Sunday 24 May 2009

The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon yesterday visited a mass displacement camp packed with Tamil civilians as he appealed to Sri Lanka’s triumphant government to “heal the wounds” after three decades of civil war. As he surveyed the beleaguered and shell-shocked refugees held there and as the army searched for Tamil Tiger fighters among them, he would not have found time to talk to Sopika, aged 10.

Sopika is one of at least 250,000 Tamil civilians being held in Menik Farm in the north of the country. Barbed-wire fences encircle the endless rows of white tents, preventing civilians from getting out and journalists from getting in, as the government continues to prevent the stories of Sopika and thousands like her from being told.

USA

Dust storms speed snowmelt in the West

An unusually high number of the storms has left a film of dust on the Rocky Mountain snowpack, causing it to melt earlier and forcing farmers to adjust. This could be the new normal, scientists say.

By Nicholas Riccardi

May 24, 2009

Reporting from Denver — A series of unusual spring dust storms has left the snowcapped mountains of western Colorado stained brown and red, even a bit pink. The dust is speeding up the runoff to rivers that supply millions of people with water and raising fears of an increasingly arid West.

Twelve dust storms barreled into the southern Rockies from the deserts of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico so far this year. In contrast, four storms hit the mountains all year long in 2003. Eight occurred in each of the last three years.

“This year’s been really, really strong,” said Jason Neff, a hydrologist at the University of Colorado-Boulder. “Something’s been going on, and I don’t think we’re exactly sure what.”

The storms leave a dark film on snow that melts it faster by hastening its absorption of the sun’s energy. That, coupled with unseasonably warm temperatures, has sped up the runoff here, swelling rivers to near flood stage, threatening to make reservoirs overflow and fueling fears that there will not be enough water left for late-summer crops.

Newt And Dick Race

To The Past 2012

Yea! Pass The Champagne  

Definitive Account Of Briefings Still Elusive

Lawmakers Divided After Reviewing CIA’s Notes on Pelosi Session

By Paul Kane and Joby Warrick

Washington Post Staff Writers

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Sequestered in rooms buried deep within the Capitol and requiring top-secret clearances to enter, members of the House and Senate intelligence committees have spent the past week leafing through documents at the heart of Washington’s latest who-knew-what-and-when saga.

But rather than emerging with clear agreement on what the memos reveal about the CIA briefing  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi received in 2002, and whether she was aware that aggressive interrogation methods were being used on terrorism suspects, lawmakers remain as divided as ever about the story they tell.

In Germany, widespread spying is back, this time by corporations

Hundreds of thousands of employees have had their cellphone, e-mail and computer records secretly searched. Companies say they did it to expose misconduct.

By Henry Chu

May 23, 2009

Reporting from Berlin — Growing up in West Germany, Lothar Schroeder never knew that terrible sense of violation suffered by people in the communist East at the hands of the secret police who tailed them, bugged their homes and recruited neighbors and even family members to snitch on them.

Now he knows.

But it’s not a totalitarian state doing the snooping this time; it’s some of the country’s largest corporations — big names in telecommunications, transportation and retail.

Last year, authorities informed Schroeder that Deutsche Telekom had secretly combed through his cellphone records, apparently to root out the source of leaks to the news media. Schroeder, a union representative on the company’s board of supervisors, was stunned.

“I never could believe that Deutsche Telekom would use their data in this way, never,” he said, adding ruefully, “Perhaps I’m a little bit naive.”

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Germany is being rocked by a string of spying scandals that have staggered residents with their scale and brought back painful memories of the prying eyes of Big Brother during the Cold War.

USA

President’s Detention Plan Tests American Legal Tradition



By WILLIAM GLABERSON

Published: May 22, 2009

President Obama’s proposal for a new legal system in which terrorism suspects could be held in “prolonged detention” inside the United States without trial would be a departure from the way this country sees itself, as a place where people in the grip of the government either face criminal charges or walk free.

There are, to be sure, already some legal tools that allow for the detention of those who pose danger: quarantine laws as well as court precedents permitting the confinement of sexual predators and the dangerous mentally ill. Every day in America, people are denied bail and locked up because they are found to be a hazard to their communities, though they have yet to be convicted of anything.

 The Stupid That

Is Dick Cheney

Is Beyond Me

U.S. to Steer GM Toward Bankruptcy

Filing Expected as Chrysler Set to Emerge

By David Cho, Peter Whoriskey and Kendra Marr

Washington Post Staff Writers

Friday, May 22, 2009

The Obama administration is preparing to send General Motors into bankruptcy as early as the end of next week under a plan that would give the automaker tens of billions of dollars more in public financing as the company seeks to shrink and reemerge as a global competitor, sources familiar with the discussions said.

The move comes as the administration prepares to lift the nation’s other faltering car company, Chrysler, from bankruptcy protection as soon as next week, industry sources said.

The shifts into and out of bankruptcy are landmarks in the Obama administration’s attempt to broker a historic restructuring of the American auto industry in the space of months.

Spread of Swine Flu Puts Japan in Crisis Mode



By HIROKO TABUCHI

Published: May 21, 2009

KOBE, Japan – It all began at a high school volleyball tournament here on May 2 – or so residents of this Japanese port city suspect.

Soon, volleyball players who took part in the event were coming down with swine flu, early cases in a wider outbreak that has made Japan the worst-hit country outside North America in the global epidemic.

On Thursday, confirmed cases of the H1N1 flu virus in Japan reached 279, centering on Kobe and the neighboring city of Osaka, in western Japan. Like many other countries, Japan has reported mild flu cases and no deaths. Still, it is in crisis mode: more than 4,800 schools have been closed in the region, medical services are swamped, and testing laboratories are working around the clock.

USA

Obama Faces Pitfalls With ‘Surgical’ Tack on Detainees

NEWS ANALYSIS

By PETER BAKER

Published: May 21, 2009

As President Obama defends his national security strategy, he faces a daunting challenge. He must convince the country that it is in safe hands despite warnings to the contrary from the right, and at the same time persuade the skeptical left that it is enough to amend his predecessor’s approach rather than abandon it.

Arguably on the defensive over policy for the first time since taking office, Mr. Obama is gambling that his oratorical powers can reassure the public that bringing terrorism suspects to prisons on American soil will not put the public in danger.

At the same time, he must explain and win support for a nuanced set of positions that fall somewhere between George W. Bush and the American Civil Liberties Union.

U.S. Senate Shows

It Has A Spine

A Straw Man  Spine

Wider Confidence Lifts Economy From Winter’s Deep, Dark Freeze



By Neil Irwin and David Cho

Washington Post Staff Writers

Thursday, May 21, 2009

The financial system, frozen solid for the past nine months, is in a spring thaw. And it’s happening even though many of the Obama administration’s major rescue programs have yet to get off the ground.

The improvement reflects the combined impact of a wide range of actions, many of them taken with little public attention, according to government officials and private economists. But more important than any single program, the sources say, is a deepening confidence from financial markets that the government is prepared to take aggressive action — a confidence that Obama officials have repeatedly worked to cultivate in speeches and public appearances.

Quarter of a million Sri Lankans face two years in camps

Government is unrepentant about squalid conditions, saying Tamil Tigers must be weeded out from among civilians

Gethin Chamberlain in Colombo

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 20 May 2009 17.38 BST

Many of the quarter of a million people held in internment camps in Sri Lanka face up to two years behind razor wire, a government official said today.

Despite international concern over conditions inside the camps, the defence ministry spokesman, Lakshman Hulugalle, said Sri Lanka was not prepared to let the UN dictate terms over the length of time people could be held.

A UN spokesman, Gordon Weiss, said he was “shocked” at the revelation, which ran counter to previous government assurances.

“It was our understanding that the government was to return 80% of the people to their homes by the end of the year, or at least try to,” said Weiss.

USA

Obama moves to regain initiative on Guantanamo closure

The president plans a speech to defend his plans in the face of growing opposition. One option may be to hold detainees indefinitely without trial.

By Julian E. Barnes and Josh Meyer

May 21, 2009

Reporting from Washington — President Obama signaled his intention Wednesday to press forward on his plan to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, despite a growing challenge from both political parties and a limited set of options to make his detainee policy work.

In a sign of his lost momentum, the Senate on Wednesday voted 90 to 6 to block funding for the shutdown. The vote followed criticism that the administration was backtracking on Americans’ security.

But Obama, in a bid to retake the initiative, plans an address today to forcefully defend his proposal for closing Guantanamo by year’s end. In the morning speech at the National Archives in Washington, he also will address prospects for a controversial proposal to hold detainees indefinitely without trial, if necessary, and will reassert his argument that closing the prison would advance U.S. security.

“The president signed an order early in his administration to close it, and he intends to keep that promise,” said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

To Bad Nobody

Said George Go Home

And He Did

U.S. to Expand Immigration Checks to All Local Jails

Obama Administration’s Enforcement Push Could Lead to Sharp Increase in Deportation Cases

By Spencer S. Hsu

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

The Obama administration is expanding a program initiated by President George W. Bush aimed at checking the immigration status of virtually every person booked into local jails. In four years, the measure could result in a tenfold increase in illegal immigrants who have been convicted of crimes and identified for deportation, current and former U.S. officials said.

By matching inmates’ fingerprints to federal immigration databases, authorities hope to pinpoint deportable illegal immigrants before they are released from custody. Inmates in federal and state prisons already are screened. But authorities generally lack the time and staff to do the same at local jails, which house up to twice as many illegal immigrants at any time and where inmates come and go more quickly.

China and US held secret talks on climate change deal

• Negotiations began in final months of Bush administration

• Obama could seal accord on cutting emissions by autumn

Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent

guardian.co.uk, Monday 18 May 2009 19.03 BST

A high-powered group of senior Republicans and Democrats led two missions to China in the final months of the Bush administration for secret backchannel negotiations aimed at securing a deal on joint US-Chinese action on climate change, the Guardian has learned.

The initiative, involving John Holdren, now the White House science adviser, and others who went on to positions in Barack Obama’s administration, produced a draft agreement in March, barely two months after the Democrat assumed the presidency.

The memorandum of understanding was not signed, but those involved in opening up the channel of communications believe it could provide the foundation for a US-Chinese accord to battle climate change, which could be reached as early as this autumn.

USA

Credit Card Industry Aims to Profit From Sterling Payers



By ANDREW MARTIN

Published: May 18, 2009

Credit cards have long been a very good deal for people who pay their bills on time and in full. Even as card companies imposed punitive fees and penalties on those late with their payments, the best customers racked up cash-back rewards, frequent-flier miles and other perks in recent years.

Now Congress is moving to limit the penalties on riskier borrowers, who have become a prime source of billions of dollars in fee revenue for the industry. And to make up for lost income, the card companies are going after those people with sterling credit.

Banks are expected to look at reviving annual fees, curtailing cash-back and other rewards programs and charging interest immediately on a purchase instead of allowing a grace period of weeks, according to bank officials and trade groups.

It’s Nice To See That

Pakistan Clearly Understands

Its Priorities

More Nuclear Weapons

At Geithner’s Treasury, Key Decisions on Hold

Many Advisers’ Roles Are Undefined And Others Still Awaiting Confirmation

By David Cho

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, May 18, 2009

Seven weeks after the Treasury Department announced that it was ousting General Motors chief G. Richard Wagoner Jr. in the federal bailout of the company, he is still technically on GM’s payroll.

Wagoner’s removal has been held up because senior Treasury officials have yet to decide whether he should get the $20 million severance package that the company had promised him.

The delay is one of many hitches that have slowed a host of important policy actions in the four months since Timothy F. Geithner became Treasury secretary. While Geithner has taken dramatic steps to address flashpoints in the economy, the work of carrying out those policies has bogged down because critical decisions about how to do so aren’t being made, interviews with a broad range of federal officials show.

Pakistan Is Rapidly Adding Nuclear Arms, U.S. Says



By THOM SHANKER and DAVID E. SANGER

Published: May 17, 2009

WASHINGTON – Members of Congress have been told in confidential briefings that Pakistan is rapidly adding to its nuclear arsenal even while racked by insurgency, raising questions on Capitol Hill about whether billions of dollars in proposed military aid might be diverted to Pakistan’s nuclear program.

Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed the assessment of the expanded arsenal in a one-word answer to a question on Thursday in the midst of lengthy Senate testimony. Sitting beside Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, he was asked whether he had seen evidence of an increase in the size of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal.

USA

Prosecutors Block Access to DNA Testing for Inmates



By SHAILA DEWAN

Published: May 17, 2009

In an age of advanced forensic science, the first step toward ending Kenneth Reed’s prolonged series of legal appeals should be simple and quick: a DNA test, for which he has offered to pay, on evidence from the 1991 rape of which he was convicted.

Louisiana, where Mr. Reed is in prison, is one of 46 states that have passed laws to enable inmates like him to get such a test. But in many jurisdictions, prosecutors are using new arguments to get around the intent of those laws, particularly in cases with multiple defendants, when it is not clear how many DNA profiles will be found in a sample.

The laws were enacted after DNA evidence exonerated a first wave of prisoners in the early 1990s, when law enforcement authorities strongly resisted reopening old cases. Continued resistance by prosecutors is causing years of delay and, in some cases, eliminating the chance to try other suspects because the statute of limitations has passed by the time the test is granted.

Will The Host’s

Of The Sunday

Morning Interview Programs

Ask The Tough Questions

About Torture? Don’t Hold

Your Breath

Afghan civilian deaths: Who is to blame?

Commanders and villagers give conflicting accounts of the attack that Afghan officials say killed 140 civilians, a toll disputed by the U.S. But injured girls make clear the costs for two families.

By Laura King

May 17, 2009

Reporting from Qale Zaman, Afghanistan — The road to Bala Baluk district stretches arrow-straight ahead, with heat-shimmered cucumber fields on either side. But determining exactly what transpired nearly two weeks ago in a hamlet called Garani takes a far more twisted path.

A battle raged. Bombs fell. Afghan officials say at least 140 civilians died, two-thirds of them children and teenagers, in what may prove the most lethal episode of civilian casualties since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

Days of interviews with U.S. and Afghan commanders, mourning villagers and jittery provincial authorities, doctors and human rights activists about the fighting of May 4 yielded accounts that could be likened to a series of linked circles; some elements overlap while others appear irreconcilable.

Villagers consistently told of a bombardment that came at least 90 minutes after the Taliban had melted away from Garani, a village just 22 miles from the provincial capital, Farah City.

How Neanderthals met a grisly fate: devoured by humans

A fossil discovery bears marks of butchering similar to those made when cutting up a deer

Robin McKie, science editor

The Observer, Sunday 17 May 2009

One of science’s most puzzling mysteries – the disappearance of the Neanderthals – may have been solved. Modern humans ate them, says a leading fossil expert.

The controversial suggestion follows publication of a study in the Journal of Anthropological Sciences about a Neanderthal jawbone apparently butchered by modern humans. Now the leader of the research team says he believes the flesh had been eaten by humans, while its teeth may have been used to make a necklace.

Fernando Rozzi, of Paris’s Centre National de la Récherche Scientifique, said the jawbone had probably been cut into to remove flesh, including the tongue. Crucially, the butchery was similar to that used by humans to cut up deer carcass in the early Stone Age. “Neanderthals met a violent end at our hands and in some cases we ate them,” Rozzi said.

USA

Gay-Marriage Issue Awaits Court Pick

Same-Sex Unions Supplant Abortion As Social Priority for Conservatives

By Shailagh Murray

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, May 17, 2009

As President Obama prepares to name his first Supreme Court justice, conservatives in Washington are making clear that his nominee will face plenty of questions during the confirmation process on the legal underpinnings of same-sex marriage.

In addition to shedding more light on the nation’s most contentious unfolding social drama and legal frontier, Senate Republicans say the debate could provide a road map to an Obama nominee’s judicial philosophy.

“It may reflect the degree to which they think that they’re not bound by the classical meaning of the Constitution, and that they may want to let a personal agenda go beyond what the law said,” said  Sen. Jeff Sessions (Ala.), the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Torture Is A Crime  

CIA Chief Rebuts Pelosi’s Charges

Panetta Says Lawmakers Were Told About Use of Interrogation Methods

By Perry Bacon Jr. and Joby Warrick

Washington Post Staff Writers

Saturday, May 16, 2009

CIA Director Leon Panetta yesterday rejected  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s charge that the agency misled her about its use of coercive interrogation methods, escalating a controversy that has dogged the speaker for weeks and intensifying a debate over Bush administration policies that the Obama administration has tried to avoid.

Panetta, whom President Obama tapped to lead the CIA this year, reasserted the agency’s claim that it told congressional leaders about the use of such methods during a closed-door briefing in September 2002.

Pelosi (D-Calif.) has acknowledged attending the briefing but says she was told only that the CIA was considering the use of waterboarding, a technique that simulates drowning.

Rumsfeld’s renegade unit blamed for Afghan deaths

Special Forces group implicated in three incidents that claimed the lives of hundreds of innocent civilians / MarSOC was set up by former defence secretary despite opposition from within the Marine Corps

By Jerome Starkey in Kabul

Saturday, 16 May 2009

A single American Special Forces group was behind at least three of Afghanistan’s worst civilian casualty incidents, The Independent has learnt, raising fundamental questions about their ongoing role in the conflict.

Troops from the US Marines Corps’ Special Operations Command, or MarSOC, were responsible for calling in air strikes in Bala Boluk, in Farah, last week – believed to have killed more than 140 men, women and children – as well as two other incidents in 2007 and 2008. News of MarSOC’s involvement in the three incidents comes just days after a Special Forces expert, Lieutenant-General Stanley McChrystal, was named to take over as the top commander of US and Nato troops in Afghanistan. His surprise appointment has prompted speculation that commando counterinsurgency missions will increase in the battle to beat the Taliban.

USA

The machinery behind health-care reform

Lobbyists score unexpected victory channeling billions to electronic records

By Robert O’Harrow Jr.

Washington Post Staff Writer

WASHINGTON – When President Obama won approval for his $787 billion stimulus package in February, large sections of the 407-page bill focused on a push for new technology that would not stimulate the economy for years.

The inclusion of as much as $36.5 billion in spending to create a nationwide network of electronic health records fulfilled one of Obama’s key campaign promises — to launch the reform of America’s costly health-care system.

But it was more than a political victory for the new administration. It also represented a triumph for an influential trade group whose members now stand to gain billions in taxpayer dollars.