Tag: Docudharma Times

How Close Was America

To A Dictatorship?

Just Read The John Yoo Memos  

Obama Offered Deal to Russia in Secret Letter



By PETER BAKER

Published: March 2, 2009

WASHINGTON – President Obama sent a secret letter to Russia’s president last month suggesting that he would back off deploying a new missile defense system in Eastern Europe if Moscow would help stop Iran from developing long-range weapons, American officials said Monday.The letter to President Dmitri A. Medvedev was hand-delivered in Moscow by top administration officials three weeks ago. It said the United States would not need to proceed with the interceptor system, which has been vehemently opposed by Russia since it was proposed by the Bush administration, if Iran halted any efforts to build nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles.

The officials who described the contents of the message requested anonymity because it has not been made public. While they said it did not offer a direct quid pro quo, the letter was intended to give Moscow an incentive to join the United States in a common front against Iran. Russia’s military, diplomatic and commercial ties to Tehran give it some influence there, but it has often resisted Washington’s hard line against Iran.

Sri Lankan cricket team attacked by gunmen

Up to 12 gunmen sprayed team bus with bullets as it was driven to the Gadaffi stadium in Lahore

Saeed Shah in Islamabad

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 3 March 2009 07.52 GMT

Gunmen today carried out a commando-style attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team and their police escort in Lahore, Pakistan, injuring up to six of the visiting players.

In scenes reminiscent of the terrorist attack on Mumbai in November, up to 12 gunmen attacked with heavy weapons, spraying the Sri Lankan team bus with bullets as it drove to the Gadaffi stadium in Lahore, witnesses and cricket officials said.

Several players were reported to have received “superficial” injuries. Other early reports said five policemen were killed and three injured.

Sri Lankan media, quoting the sports minister, said four players – Kumar Sangakkara, Ajantha Mendis, Thilan Samaraweera and Tharanga Paranavithana – suffered minor injuries in the attack. Other reports said six had been hurt.

USA

In Free-Fall, Stocks Hit Lowest Mark Since ’97

Markets Sink Globally as Government Actions Fail to Reassure Investors

By Neil Irwin

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, March 3, 2009; Page A01

The global financial rout worsened yesterday, driving U.S. stocks to their lowest level since 1997 amid deepening questions about whether governments around the world are being forceful enough in combating the economic crisis.

There was no single cause for yesterday’s sell-off, which sent each of the major indicators down at least 4 percent, with the Dow Jones industrial average closing below 7000 for the first time in 12 years. Investors were shaken by another government rescue of insurance giant American International Group, which said it would take on $30 billion more in public money after reporting the largest quarterly loss in U.S. history. The markets were also absorbing news from the weekend from famed investor Warren E. Buffett, who said the economy will be “in shambles” this year and who reported the worst investment returns in the 44 years he has run Berkshire Hathaway.

To Big To Fail

How Much More

Must The U.S. Taxpayer Give?

U.S. Is Said to Offer $30 Billion More to Help A.I.G.

The United States is planning its fourth round of aid to the American International Group, the giant insurer. The government already owns nearly 80 percent of the insurer’s holding company.

By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN and MARY WILLIAMS WALSH

Published: March 1, 2009

The federal government agreed Sunday night to provide an additional $30 billion in taxpayer money to the American International Group and loosen the terms of its huge loan to the insurer, which is preparing to report a $62 billion loss on Monday, the biggest quarterly loss in history, people involved in the discussions said.

The intervention would be the fourth time that the United States has had to step in to help A.I.G., the giant insurer, avert bankruptcy. The government already owns nearly 80 percent of the insurer’s holding company as a result of the earlier interventions, which included a $60 billion loan, a $40 billion purchase of preferred shares and $50 billion to soak up the company’s toxic assets.

Israel may face war crimes trials over Gaza

• Court looks at whether Palestinians can bring case

• International pressure grows over conflict

Peter Beaumont and agencies

The Guardian, Monday 2 March 2009

The international criminal court is considering whether the Palestinian Authority is “enough like a state” for it to bring a case alleging that Israeli troops committed war crimes in the recent assault on Gaza.

The deliberations would potentially open the way to putting Israeli military commanders in the dock at The Hague over the campaign, which claimed more than 1,300 lives, and set an important precedent for the court over what cases it can hear.

As part of the process the court’s head of jurisdictions, part of the office of the prosecutor, is examining every international agreement signed by the PA to decide whether it behaves – and is regarded by others – as operating like a state.

USA

Mine waste trips up Alaska gold rush

A plan to dump mine tailings into a lake, taking advantage of a Bush administration regulatory change, is before the Supreme Court. Environmentalists say it could gut the Clean Water Act.

By Kim Murphy

March 2, 2009

Reporting from Berners Bay, Alaska — Sitting like a turquoise gem in a bowl of hemlock, Sitka spruce and ice, Berners Bay has long been a jewel of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest.

In the spring, swarms of tiny eulachon rush in to spawn, and the bay floods with hundreds of killer whales, humpback whales and sea lions in hot pursuit, along with eagles and seabirds by the thousands. Fishermen flock to its herring, salmon and Dungeness crab. Its chilly, tranquil waters are a favorite destination for kayakers.

Berners Bay also has become one of the epicenters of a new Alaska gold rush. High in the snowy peaks at the top of the bay, miners struck an estimated 1.4 million ounces of gold — a prize that is looking better every day as investors flee the stock market.

An Idaho-based mining company has pledged to rescue southeast Alaska’s crippled timber and fishing economy by opening an industrial-scale mine above the bay. The problem is how to do it.

Rush “I’m A Racist” Limbaugh

Takes Control Of The Republican Party

Commercial Free  

Serbian spy’s trial lifts cloak on his CIA alliance

As Milosevic’s intelligence chief, Jovica Stanisic is accused of setting up genocidal death squads. But as a valuable source for the CIA, an agency veteran says, he also ‘did a whole lot of good.’

By Greg Miller

March 1, 2009

Reporting from Belgrade, Serbia — At night, when the lawns are empty and the lamps along the walking paths are the only source of light, Topcider Park on the outskirts of Belgrade is a perfect meeting place for spies.

It was here in 1992, as the former Yugoslavia was erupting in ethnic violence, that a wary CIA agent made his way toward the park’s gazebo and shook hands with a Serbian intelligence officer.

Jovica Stanisic had a cold gaze and a sinister reputation. He was the intelligence chief for Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, and regarded by many as the brains of a regime that gave the world a chilling new term: “ethnic cleansing.”

Israel’s death squads: A soldiers story

A former member of an Israeli assassination squad has broken his silence for the first time. He spoke to Donald Macintyre

Sunday, 1 March 2009

The Israeli military’s policy of targeted killings has been described from the inside for the first time. In an interview with The Independent on Sunday, and in his testimony to an ex-soldiers’ organisation, Breaking the Silence, a former member of an assassination squad has told of his role in a botched ambush that killed two Palestinian bystanders, as well as the two militants targeted.

The operation, which took place a little over eight years ago, at the start of the present intifada, or uprising, left the former sharpshooter with psychological scars. To this day he has not told his parents of his participation in what he called “the first face-to-face assassination of the intifada”.

USA

Obama’s Backing Raises Hopes for Climate Pact



By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

Published: February 28, 2009

Until recently, the idea that the world’s most powerful nations might come together to tackle global warming seemed an environmentalist’s pipe dream

The Kyoto Protocol, signed in 1997, was widely viewed as badly flawed. Many countries that signed the accord lagged far behind their targets in curbing carbon dioxide emissions. The United States refused even to ratify it. And the treaty gave a pass to major emitters in the developing world like China and India.

But within weeks of taking office, President Obama has radically shifted the global equation, placing the United States at the forefront of the international climate effort and raising hopes that an effective international accord might be possible.

CPAC Continues To Ride

The Ox Cart Into

The Ditch And

They Really Didn’t “Love” Bush

Barack Obama to end US combat operations in Iraq by 2010

President Barack Obama has made the historic announcement that he will end US combat operations in Iraq by the end of August 2010.

By Alex Spillius in Washington

Last Updated: 8:32AM GMT 28 Feb 2009

In a speech at a Marine Corps base, he said around 100,000 troops would be brought home by then with 35,000 to 50,000 staying on to advise Iraqi forces, target terror and protect US interests.

Mr Obama, whose popularity was fuelled by his opposition to the war, issued a “responsible” withdrawal timetable three months slower than he had previously promised voters.

More controversial among fellow Democrats was his decision to leave up to 50,000 troops in the country until the end of 2011, which he said was vital to preserve a dramatically improved security and political climate.

Nancy Pelosi, Democrat speaker of the house, said she thought the number was unnecessarily high. She said: “I don’t know what the justification is for … the 50,000 troops in Iraq. I would think a third of that, maybe 15,000 or 20,000.”

Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, said: “I’m happy to listen to the secretary of defence and the president, but when they talk about 50,000, that’s a little higher number than I had anticipated.”

Iraq hero goes on the warpath

Victoria Cross holder condemns government failure to care for veterans suffering post-combat stress.

Exclusive by Terri Judd

Saturday, 28 February 2009

The Army’s most decorated serving war hero has accused the Government of failing soldiers suffering from mental trauma resulting from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Lance Corporal Johnson Beharry, who was awarded the Victoria Cross for twice saving the lives of colleagues in Iraq while under heavy rocket fire, told The Independent it was “disgraceful” that some veterans were struggling to receive treatment. He said the Government was relying on military charities to cover its own deficiencies and called on it to act to better help the growing number of his comrades suffering from severe combat stress, depression and mental breakdowns.

USA

Sharper Downturn Clouds Obama Spending Plans



By PETER S. GOODMAN

Published: February 27, 2009

The economy is spiraling down at an accelerating pace, threatening to undermine the Obama administration’s spending plans, which anticipate vigorous rates of growth in years to come.

A sense of disconnect between the projections by the White House and the grim realities of everyday American life was enhanced on Friday, as the Commerce Department gave a harsher assessment for the last three months of 2008. In place of an initial estimate that the economy contracted at an annualized rate of 3.8 percent – already abysmal – the government said that the pace of decline was actually 6.2 percent, making it the worst quarter since 1982.

CPAC Fools And Racists

Writ Large

Obama Plans Major Shifts in Spending



By JACKIE CALMES

Published: February 26, 2009

WASHINGTON – Proclaiming a “once in a generation” opportunity, President Obama proposed a 10-year budget on Thursday that reflects his determination in the face of recession to invest trillions of dollars and his own political capital in reshaping the nation’s priorities.Mr. Obama would overhaul health care, begin to arrest global warming, expand the federal role in education and shift more costs to some corporations and the wealthiest taxpayers.

In a veiled gibe at the Bush years, Mr. Obama said his budget broke “from a troubled past” and attributed the current economic maelstrom to “an era of profound irresponsibility that engulfed both private and public institutions from some of our largest companies’ executive suites to the seats of power in Washington, D.C.”

Genital mutilation: Women fight Africa’s taboo



They broke the silence from tribal elders and politicians – but paid a high personal price for trying to protect millions of young girls from the knife

By Katrina Manson in Sierra Leone

Friday, 27 February 2009

The female journalist was snatched by members of a secret society, forcibly stripped and made to parade naked through the streets. It might sound like an atrocity from the time when Sierra Leone was ripped apart by a bloody civil war, but in fact the public humiliation was exacted in the diamond-rich eastern town of Kenema just this month. The woman’s alleged crime was reporting on female genital mutilation.

While the attack was condemned by media watchdogs as “disgraceful behaviour worthy of a bygone age”, one woman who was not surprised was Rugiatu Turay. When she was 12 Ms Turay was stolen away by family members and underwent what some politely refer to as “circumcision”. She calls it “torture”. For the past six years, she has been waging a war against the practice, which many in Sierra Leone, including senior politicians, see as an initiation rite.

USA

‘Combatant’ Case to Move From Tribunal To U.S. Court



By Carrie Johnson and Julie Tate

Washington Post Staff Writers

Friday, February 27, 2009; Page A01

The Justice Department is preparing to announce criminal charges against Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri for allegedly providing material support to al-Qaeda terrorists, sources said, a groundbreaking step that would place the alleged sleeper agent in the purview of the U.S. courts rather than before a military tribunal.

Marri is the last remaining “enemy combatant” in the United States, and he has spent 5 1/2 years in a military brig in South Carolina. Indicting him in a federal district court in central Illinois could avert a Supreme Court ruling that would tie the Obama administration’s hands in dealing with future terrorism suspects.

Lawyers for Marri said yesterday that they will press ahead for a Supreme Court hearing in April, hoping to use his case as a vehicle to formally repudiate the Bush administration’s position that enemy combatants can be held indefinitely by U.S. authorities.

Bobby Jindal

And The

Sheriff He Never Met

So How About Those Boats

In President’s Budget Plan, Broad Agenda and a Few Gaps



By Lori Montgomery

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, February 26, 2009; Page A01

President Obama’s spending plan is built on the assumption that lawmakers can resolve some hugely contentious issues — and it relies on a few well-worn budget tricks.

The request he will deliver to Congress today proposes to provide what administration officials are calling a “down payment” on a major expansion of health care coverage for the uninsured. It identifies $634 billion in tax increases and spending cuts to cover the cost of part of the program, but does not say how the administration hopes to raise the rest of the money — hundreds of billions of dollars more. “TBD” has been penciled into categories for cost savings and benefit reductions.

Why 88 Arab homes received eviction notices



Israel has plans to demolish Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem to make way for a tourist site. Activists say it’s a demographic play that amounts to ethnic cleansing.

By Ilene R. Prusher | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the February 26, 2009 edition

JERUSALEM – Israel plans to demolish 88 homes in Silwan, a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem, to make way for a new archaeological park, adding new fuel the slow-burning dispute over Jerusalem.

A variety of neighborhood activists, Muslim leaders in Jerusalem, and even figures from the Palestinian Authority (PA) held a press conference Wednesday, saying that Israel was trying to minimize the Arab presence in this city claimed by both Palestinians and Jews as their capital. They say such a move amounts to ethnic cleansing.

“They have made a decision to clear out 88 houses, and with about three families living in each of these houses, we’re looking at the eviction of about 1,500 people. But people in Silwan are clinging to their land and will not leave, despite the eviction orders,” says Adnan Husseini, who is PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s adviser on Jerusalem Affairs.

Israel’s Jerusalem municipality, which has been mulling over this plan for four years, says that the homes were built without permits in an area not designated for residential use.

USA

U.S. Is a Vast Arms Bazaar for Mexican Cartels



By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.

Published: February 25, 2009

PHOENIX – The Mexican agents who moved in on a safe house full of drug dealers last May were not prepared for the fire power that greeted them.

When the shooting was over, eight agents were dead. Among the guns the police recovered was an assault rifle traced back across the border to a dingy gun store here called X-Caliber Guns.

Now, the owner, George Iknadosian, will go on trial on charges he sold hundreds of weapons, mostly AK-47 rifles, to smugglers, knowing they would send them to a drug cartel in the western state of Sinaloa. The guns helped fuel the gang warfare in which more than 6,000 Mexicans died last year.

Senator Richard Shellby Of Alabama

Decides That Wild Wing Nut Conspiracy Theories      

Are True That Tin Foil Hat

Must Be A Little Tight

‘Those I hoped would rescue me were allied with my abusers’



Richard Norton-Taylor

The Guardian, Tuesday 24 February 2009

Britain’s role in the secret abduction of terror suspects came under intense new scrutiny with the return to the UK of Binyam Mohamed yesterday after more than four years in Guantánamo Bay.

Senior MPs said they intended to pursue ministers and officials over what they knew of his ill-treatment and why Britain helped the CIA interrogate him.

In a statement released shortly after he arrived in a US Gulfstream jet at RAF Northolt in west London, Mohamed said: “For myself, the very worst moment came when I realised in Morocco that the people who were torturing me were receiving questions and materials from British intelligence.”

Once inside the terminal building he met his sister for the fist time in more than seven years and in the most emotionally charged moment of the day they both cried and hugged.

North Korea ‘plans rocket launch’

North Korea has announced that it is preparing to launch a rocket carrying a communications satellite.

The BBC

It did not give a date for the launch, but said it would mark a great step forward for the communist state.

Correspondents say the statement is Pyongyang’s clearest reference yet to what neighbours believe may be the imminent test of a long-range missile.

When it tested the Taepodong-1 missile in 1998, it claimed to have put a satellite in orbit.

In July 2006 it test-fired the three-stage long-range Taepodong-2, but the missile failed shortly after launch.

North Korea’s move comes amid heightened tensions with South Korea, and with Pyongyang pushing for a top spot on the agenda of the new US administration.

Alaska reach

The announcement came in a statement from the national space agency, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

USA

U.S. Pressed to Add Billions to Bailouts



This article is by Edmund L. Andrews, Andrew Ross Sorkin and Mary Williams Walsh

The government faced mounting pressure on Monday to put billions more in some of the nation’s biggest banks, two of the biggest automakers and the biggest insurance company, despite the billions it has already committed to rescuing them.

The government’s boldest rescue to date, its $150 billion commitment for the insurance giant American International Group, is foundering. A.I.G. indicated on Monday it was now negotiating for tens of billions of dollars in additional assistance as losses have mounted.

Separately, the Obama administration confirmed it was in discussions to aid Citigroup, the recipient of $45 billion so far, that could raise the government’s stake in the banking company to as much as 40 percent.

More Interested In Political Power

Louisiana Governor  Bobby Jindal Rejects Stimulus Money

Which Would Have Helped 25,000 People In That State      

Secret U.S. Unit Trains Commandos in Pakistan



By ERIC SCHMITT and JANE PERLEZ

Published: February 22, 2009

BARA, Pakistan – More than 70 United States military advisers and technical specialists are secretly working in Pakistan to help its armed forces battle Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the country’s lawless tribal areas, American military officials said.

The Americans are mostly Army Special Forces soldiers who are training Pakistani Army and paramilitary troops, providing them with intelligence and advising on combat tactics, the officials said. They do not conduct combat operations, the officials added.

They make up a secret task force, overseen by the United States Central Command and Special Operations Command. It started last summer, with the support of Pakistan’s government and military, in an effort to root out Qaeda and Taliban operations that threaten American troops in Afghanistan and are increasingly destabilizing Pakistan. It is a much larger and more ambitious effort than either country has acknowledged.

Suspend military aid to Israel, Amnesty urges Obama after detailing US weapons used in Gaza

• White phosphorus shells traced back to America

• Activists call for arms embargoes on both sides

Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem

The Guardian, Monday 23 February 2009

Detailed evidence has emerged of Israel’s extensive use of US-made weaponry during its war in Gaza last month, including white phosphorus artillery shells, 500lb bombs and Hellfire missiles.

In a report released today, Amnesty International detailed the weapons used and called for an immediate arms embargo on Israel and all Palestinian armed groups. It called on the Obama administration to suspend military aid to Israel.

The human rights group said that those arming both sides in the conflict “will have been well aware of a pattern of repeated misuse of weapons by both parties and must therefore take responsibility for the violations perpetrated”.

USA

Government Gets Chance To Prove It Can Work

Stimulus Act Will Test Civil Servants’ Abilities

By Alec MacGillis

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, February 23, 2009; Page A01

For weeks, the economic stimulus package lay in the hands of President Obama and congressional leaders. But with Obama having signed the $787 billion bill on Tuesday, its fate has been dispersed far and wide — to places such as the state office building in Crownsville, Md., outside Annapolis, where three workers face the challenge of a career.

The team oversees the home-weatherization program in Maryland’s Department of Housing and Community Development, disbursing $2.6 million a year in federal funds to cities and community groups to insulate the homes of 1,000 low-income residents. The stimulus package provides $65 million over two years, enough to cut deep into the waiting list of 22,000 homes.

Former Bush Administration Officials Can’t Find Work

Wing Nut Welfare Circles The Drain    

UK agents ‘colluded with torture in Pakistan’

• Intelligence sources ‘confirm abuse’

• Extent of Mohamed injuries revealed

Mark Townsend

The Observer, Sunday 22 February 2009

A shocking new report alleges widespread complicity between British security agents and their Pakistani counterparts who have routinely engaged in the torture of suspects.

In the study, which will be published next month by the civil liberties group Human Rights Watch, at least 10 Britons are identified who have been allegedly tortured in Pakistan and subsequently questioned by UK intelligence officials. It warns that more British cases may surface and that the issue of Pakistani terrorism suspects interrogated by British agents is likely to “run much deeper”.

The report will further embarrass the foreign secretary, David Miliband, who has repeatedly said the UK does not condone torture. He has been under fire for refusing to disclose US documents relating to the treatment of Guantánamo detainee and former British resident Binyam Mohamed.

Save the whale (again): Secret plan to lift hunting ban

Twenty years ago, commercial whaling was outlawed. But hush-hush meetings between officials have paved the way for its return

By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor

Sunday, 22 February 2009

Governments are preparing to breach the worldwide whaling ban, legitimising commercial killing of the giant creatures for the first time in more than 20 years.

Key whaling and anti-whaling nations have thrashed out a plan at a series of unpublicised closed-door meetings to allow Japan to kill the leviathans for gain, after outlawing it for two decades. It is to be presented to a special meeting of the official International Whaling Commission (IWC) early next month.

Environmentalists say that the plan amounts to “waving the white flag” to Japan and they fear that it will usher in a new era of legal whaling around the world.

USA

Obama Has Plan to Slash Deficit, Despite Stimulus Bill



By JACKIE CALMES

Published: February 21, 2009

WASHINGTON – After a string of costly bailout and stimulus measures, President Obama will set a goal this week to cut the annual deficit at least in half by the end of his term, administration officials said. The reduction would come in large part through Iraq troop withdrawals and higher taxes on the wealthy.

Mr. Obama’s budget outline, which he will release on Thursday, will also confirm his intention to deliver this year on ambitious campaign promises on health care and energy policy.

The president inherited a deficit for 2009 of about $1.2 trillion, which will rise to more than $1.5 trillion, given initial spending from his recently enacted stimulus package.

Off The Rails And Into

The Ditch

Alan Keys Calls Barrack Obama

A Radical Communist  

Obama Widens Missile Strikes Inside Pakistan



By MARK MAZZETTI and DAVID E. SANGER

Published: February 20, 2009

WASHINGTON – With two missile strikes over the past week, the Obama administration has expanded the covert war run by the Central Intelligence Agency inside Pakistan, attacking a militant network seeking to topple the Pakistani government.

The missile strikes on training camps run by Baitullah Mehsud represent a broadening of the American campaign inside Pakistan, which has been largely carried out by drone aircraft. Under President Bush, the United States frequently attacked militants from Al Qaeda and the Taliban involved in cross-border attacks into Afghanistan, but had stopped short of raids aimed at Mr. Mehsud and his followers, who have played less of a direct role in attacks on American troops.

Obama was unconvinced by Bibi’s desire for peace

Barack Obama, they say, did not get on well with Bibi Netanyahu when he met him in Jerusalem before the American elections.

Robert Fisk  Saturday, 21 February 2009

Mr Obama, who figured out the Middle East pretty quickly, apparently found Bibi arrogant and unconvincing in his professed desire for peace with the Palestinians. What Mr Netanyahu thought of Mr Obama is not known, but he could scarcely have tried to hide his election line: security for Israel, but no Palestinian state.

Much depends, of course, on whether Tzipi Livni will consent to join a Netanyahu government. For if Avigdor Lieberman slips into a ministerial position, Obama is in trouble. Does he congratulate a new Israeli prime minister who has introduced into his government a man who is prepared to demand loyalty signatures from his own country’s Arab minority? How would that go down in the United States, where a similar proposal – for a loyalty pledge by American minorities, for example – would be a scandal?

But those Palestinians who believe that Lieberman should be in a Netanyahu administration – on the grounds that the “true” face of Israel would then be clear to all Americans – are being a little premature. Obama is not going to change the US relationship with Israel. American foreign policy – like that of most states – is based not on justice but on power.

USA

Bear Market’s Bite Could Go Deeper

Dow at 6-Year Low, but Analysts Say More Pain Lies Ahead

By Tomoeh Murakami Tse and Alejandro Lazo

Washington Post Staff Writers

Saturday, February 21, 2009; Page D01

NEW YORK, Feb. 20 — With the Dow Jones industrial average plunging past its lowest point since the financial crisis began, panicked investors are asking: How much uglier can it get?

Many market analysts and technicians armed with reams of historical data say that even though the Dow has given back all its gains — and more — from the five-year bull market that ended in 2007, it is unlikely the market has hit bottom.

Mark Arbeter, chief technical strategist at Standard & Poor’s Equity Research, said the current market environment is showing few of the signs that have characterized previous lows — high price volatility, high volumes of trading and even higher levels of fear.

New York Post’s Non Apology Apology

Followed By An Attack On Its Critics

Trouble Trickles From Steep Drop in Oil Prices

Once Flush Global Economies, Energy Projects Stall

By Steven Mufson

Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, February 20, 2009; Page A01

The precipitous fall in the price of oil in recent months, while good for consumers, has contributed to the confusion in the global economy, wreaking havoc with the budgets and economies of oil-exporting nations and putting many expensive energy projects on hold.

In Canada, where President Obama visited yesterday, the drop in oil prices has done more to slow development of controversial oil sands projects than the protests of environmental groups, who note that the energy-intensive process of mining those sands contributes to global warming. Executives in the past have said oil must cost $60 to $90 a barrel to justify the investment.

Clinton suggests North Korea’s Kim Jong Il may step down soon

The secretary of State says the U.S. and allies are trying to figure out how to respond to a change of power. Experts fear a new regime could be even more belligerent.

By Paul Richter

February 20, 2009

Reporting from Seoul — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday that U.S. officials and allies were scrambling to prepare for the possible departure from power of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, a development she said threatened to increase turbulence in one of the world’s most heavily armed regions.

Arriving in Seoul for security talks, Clinton said persistent signs in the secretive Pyongyang government suggested that a change of leadership might be at hand. She said the South Korean government had been especially concerned about possible developments inside its impoverished northern neighbor.

“Everybody’s trying to read the tea leaves about what’s happening and what’s likely to occur,” Clinton told reporters on her plane during a flight from Jakarta, Indonesia, to Seoul, broaching a topic that has rarely been discussed publicly by U.S. officials.

Clinton said that even a peaceful succession “creates more uncertainty, and it could create conditions that are even more provocative” as the ascendant leadership tries to consolidate power.

USA

U.S. Tries a Trillion-Dollar Key for Locked Lending



By VIKAS BAJAJ

Published: February 19, 2009

Credit cards, home equity lines, student loans, car financing: none come cheaply or easily in these credit-tight times. The banks, the refrain goes, just will not lend money.

But it is not simply the banks that are the problem. It is also what lies behind them.

Largely hidden from view is a vast financial system that serves as the banker to the banks. And, like many lenders, this system is in deep trouble. The question is how to fix it.

Most banks no longer hold the loans they make, content to collect interest until the debt comes due. Instead, the loans are bundled into securities that are sold to investors, a process known as securitization.

Bipartisanship Is A Funny

Thing

In The Media’s Eyes  

G.M. Presses Union for Cuts in Health Care



By BILL VLASIC and NICK BUNKLEY

Published: February 16, 2009

DETROIT – With its access to a government lifeline possibly at risk, General Motors executives were locked in intense negotiations Monday with leaders of the United Automobile Workers over ways to cut its vast bills for retiree health care.

G.M. will file what is expected to be the largest restructuring plan of its 100-year history on Tuesday, a step it must take to justify its use of a $13.4 billion loan package from the federal government.

The plan will outline in considerable detail, over as many as 900 pages, how G.M. will further cut its work force, shutter more factories in North America and reduce its lineup of brands to just four, from eight, according to executives knowledgeable about its contents. The remaining core brands will be Chevrolet, Cadillac, GMC and Buick.

Whitehall devised torture policy for terror detainees

MI5 interrogations in Pakistan agreed by lawyers and government

an Cobain and Richard Norton-Taylor

guardian.co.uk,

A policy governing the interrogation of terrorism suspects in Pakistan that led to British citizens and residents being tortured was devised by MI5 lawyers and figures in government, according to evidence heard in court.

A number of British terrorism suspects who have been detained without trial in Pakistan say they were tortured by Pakistani intelligence agents before being questioned by MI5. In some cases their accusations are supported by medical evidence.

The existence of an official interrogation policy emerged during cross-examination in the high court in London of an MI5 officer who had questioned one of the detainees, Binyam Mohamed, the British resident currently held in Guantánamo Bay.

USA

Late Change in Course Hobbled Rollout of Geithner’s Bank Plan



By Neil Irwin and Binyamin Appelbaum

Washington Post Staff Writers

Tuesday, February 17, 2009; Page D01

Just days before Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner was scheduled to lay out his much-anticipated plan to deal with the toxic assets imperiling the financial system, he and his team made a sudden about-face.

According to several sources involved in the deliberations, Geithner had come to the conclusion that the strategies he and his team had spent weeks working on were too expensive, too complex and too risky for taxpayers.

They needed an alternative and found it in a previously considered initiative to pair private investments and public loans to try to buy the risky assets and take them off the books of banks