Tag: Docudharma Times

I Only Know What They Tell Me

So Quit Asking

Thursday’s Headlines:  China likely to beat U.S. back to the moon, NASA says   ‘Al-Qaeda’ claims Pakistan attack     Charles takes on China to save Ming dynasty houses from Beijing’s concrete carbuncles    Mecca talks stress religious tolerance  Nuclear report: parsing Iran’s intent   Zimbabwean opposition held, then released by police   Why Africa exults at Obama’s victory   Bury Lenin’s body, says Gorbachev  

Revealed: Secret plan to keep Iraq under US control

By Patrick Cockburn

Thursday, 5 June 2008

A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.

The terms of the impending deal, details of which have been leaked to The Independent, are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq. Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilise Iraq’s position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country.

But the accord also threatens to provoke a political crisis in the US. President Bush wants to push it through by the end of next month so he can declare a military victory and claim his 2003 invasion has been vindicated.

USA

Clinton Ready to End Bid and Endorse

By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JEFF ZELENY

Published: June 5, 2008

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton will endorse Senator Barack Obama on Saturday, bringing a close to her 17-month campaign for the White House, aides said. Her decision came after Democrats urged her Wednesday to leave the race and allow the party to coalesce around Mr. Obama.Howard Wolfson, one of Mrs. Clinton’s chief strategists, and other aides said she would express support for Mr. Obama and party unity at an event in Washington that day.

The Never Ending Story

That’s Not Over Till It’s Over

Tuesday’s Headlines:  Nearby Firing Ranges Complicate Soldiers’ Recovery From Stress   Death and dirt collide in mafia violence   Germans told how to avoid British tourists   In darkened Rangoon, Burmese get resourceful   Chinese police officers pull parents away from protest over school construction   Ayatollah vows Iran’s nuclear program will go on   UN atomic watchdog to investigate claims of secret Syrian reactor  Argentine farmers extend strike   Toll mounts in Mexico’s drug war  Navies to tackle Somali pirates

‘This is like inviting Pol Pot to a human rights conference’

Julian Borger in Rome

The Guardian,

Tuesday June 3 2008

Robert Mugabe made a surprise appearance yesterday at a world food summit in Rome, drawing fierce criticism from the British government, which accused him of causing Zimbabwe’s food crisis.

In his first official trip abroad since coming second in presidential elections in March, Mugabe attended the summit organised by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation to address the global crisis caused by dramatic increases in the prices of staple foods over the past year.

“This is like Pol Pot going to a human rights conference,” Mark Malloch Brown, the Foreign Office minister for Africa, Asia and the UN, told the Guardian. “Zimbabwe is one of the few countries whose food crisis is not due to climate change or global prices, but due to the disastrous policies pursued by Mugabe.”

USA

‘Relief’ nears for uncommitted superdelegates

By Eli Saslow

Washington Post

WASHINGTON – The novelty of famous suitors and media interviews long ago eroded into exhaustion, and now state Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter of South Carolina is just plain sick of all this.

An undecided superdelegate to the Democratic National Convention in August, Cobb-Hunter opens her e-mail inbox each morning and deletes a handful of threatening notes sent by strangers. Campaign followers call her incessantly. She struggles to find time to run her own campaign for re-election.

The United States Constitution

Continues To Weep

Monday’s Headlines:  Immigration Prosecutions Hit New High    Australia ends operations in Iraq   Turkish star faces jail for criticising army    Murdered by Mugabe’s mob    Department for International Development has diplomacy in Africa   Yves Saint Laurent, fashion designer, dies at 71   Italy grapples with Iranian leader’s visit    After China’s quake, disarray for kids    Singapore opposition leader sentenced to jail for contempt   Chavez party picks candidates in primary

US accused of holding terror suspects on prison ships

· Report says 17 boats used

· MPs seek details of UK role

· Europe attacks 42-day plan

Duncan Campbell and Richard Norton-Taylor

The Guardian,

Monday June 2 2008

The United States is operating “floating prisons” to house those arrested in its war on terror, according to human rights lawyers, who claim there has been an attempt to conceal the numbers and whereabouts of detainees.

Details of ships where detainees have been held and sites allegedly being used in countries across the world have been compiled as the debate over detention without trial intensifies on both sides of the Atlantic. The US government was yesterday urged to list the names and whereabouts of all those detained.

Taliban Leader Flaunts Power Inside Pakistan

By JANE PERLEZ

Published: June 2, 2008

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – With great fanfare, the Pakistani Army flew journalists to a rugged corner of the nation’s lawless tribal areas in May to show how decisively it had destroyed the lairs of the Taliban, including a school for suicide bombers, in fighting early this year. Then, just days later, the usually reclusive leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, held a news conference of his own, in the same region, to show just who was in charge.

He rolled up in an expensive-looking Toyota pickup packed with heavily armed Taliban fighters, according to the Pakistani journalists invited to attend.

USA

Clinton rolls to Puerto Rico win

By Susan Milligan

Globe Staff / June 2, 2008

SAN JUAN – Senator Hillary Clinton scored a lopsided victory in the Puerto Rico primary yesterday, boosting both her spirits and her popular vote count, but offering little hope that she can catch rival Senator Barack Obama by the end of the Democratic presidential primary season tomorrow.

Even in defeat, Obama crept closer to the nomination, picking up 17 of Puerto Rico’s 55 pledged delegates. Obama is now 47 delegates short of the 2,118 needed to sew up a clear majority, according to the latest Associated Press tally, and Obama’s advisers believe they will get a slew of superdelegate endorsements after tomorrow’s primaries to make it official.

Chaos Brings Happiness

Sunday’s Headlines:   Displaced by Katrina and edged out of FEMA trailer park  S Korea beef protesters detained  Chinese bloggers slip censors’ net to attack smiling party boss  DNA explodes Greek myth about women  Drink ban party sparks Tube closures and arrests Robert Fisk: So al-Qa’ida’s defeated, eh? Go tell it to the marines   Tzipi Livni: terrorist-hunter secret of woman tipped to lead Israel   No nudes is bad news for Cairo art students    Vote Mugabe or else, army chief tells his soldiers  Yachts encountering real pirates of the Caribbean

Baghdad Jews Have Become a Fearful Few

By STEPHEN FARRELL

Published: June 1, 2008

BAGHDAD – “I have no future here to stay.”

Written in broken English but with perfect clarity, the message is a stark and plaintive assessment from one of the last Jews of Babylon.

The community of Jews in Baghdad is now all but vanished in a land where their heritage recedes back to Abraham of Ur, to Jonah’s prophesying to Nineveh, and to Nebuchadnezzar’s sending Jews into exile here more than 2,500 years ago.

Just over half a century ago, Iraq’s Jews numbered more than 130,000. But now, in the city that was once the community’s heart, they cannot muster even a minyan, the 10 Jewish men required to perform some of the most important rituals of their faith.

USA

Democrats Approve Deal on Michigan and Florida

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE and JEFF ZELENY

Published: June 1, 2008

WASHINGTON – To jeers and boos that showcased deep party divisions, Democratic Party officials agreed Saturday to seat delegates from the disputed Florida and Michigan primaries at the party’s convention in August but give them only half a vote each, dealing a setback to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The agreement, reached by the rules committee of the Democratic National Committee behind closed doors and voted on publicly before a raucous audience of supporters of the two candidates, would give Mrs. Clinton a net gain of 24 delegates over Senator Barack Obama. But this fell far short of her hopes of winning the full votes of both delegations and moved the nomination further out of her reach.

Aerial Photographs

Prove Existence Of A Shrub

In The White House

Do Not Contact

Saturday’s Headlines:    Presidential primary brings attention, frustration to Puerto Rico   Drug Massacre Leaves a Mexican Town Terrorized   Post-Ponzi scheme, Grenada to reopen for offshore banking   North Korean film that a hero finds too painful to watch    China says 200,000 evacuated because of flood risk    Nuclear bomb blueprints for sale on world black market, experts fear  Battle of Mont St Michel erupts – and it’s all about car parks   For Israelis, Golan is home, not a bargaining chip    Iraq operation gives Basra a reprieve  

Burma policy costs lives, says US

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has accused Burma of causing the loss of tens of thousands of lives by hindering international cyclone relief efforts.

Mr Gates said the United States had had ships and aircraft ready to help after Cyclone Nargis hit a month ago.

Unlike Indonesia and Bangladesh after major natural disasters, Burma had denied entry to the country, he said.

An estimated 2.4m people remain homeless and hungry following the cyclone, which struck on 2 May.

USA

Democrats Meet Today To Hash Out Fla., Mich.

By Dan Balz

Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, May 31, 2008; Page A01

When Democratic Party leaders voted on Aug. 25, 2007, to sanction Florida Democrats for moving up the date of their presidential primary, no one anticipated that the decision would lead to a tense showdown that will help decide the outcome of the nomination battle between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Today, the 30 members of the Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee will hear challenges to that decision and a later ruling, which together barred delegations from Florida and Michigan from the national convention in Denver because those states violated the party’s rules governing the nomination process.

Al-Qaeda In Retreat

Al-Qeada In Retreat

Al-Qeada In Retrea

Until The Need

For Good Old Fashion Fear Mongring

Friday’s Headlines:  Former prosecutors challenge White House immunity claim   Europe fuel protests spread wider   Party leader faces ruin over Stasi spy claims    Low-caste tribe riots in Delhi for right to be ‘untouchable’   Internet backlash forces Japan to shelve plans to send relief planes to China   Rogue Sadr militias roam Baghdad   U.S. Withdraws Fulbright Grants to Gaza    Mugabe presides over decline in Zimbabwe’s wildlife parks    Aerial images prove existence of remote Amazon tribe

The last Briton in Guantanamo faces death penalty

After being held prisoner by the US for six years, inmate to be charged with terrorism offences despite protesting his innocence

By Robert Verkaik, Law Editor

Friday, 30 May 2008

A British resident who is facing the death penalty in Guantanamo Bay has made a final desperate plea to Gordon Brown to end his six-year ordeal and bring him home today.

In a letter delivered to Downing Street, Binyam Mohamed, the last Guantanamo inmate with the automatic right to British residency, calls on the Prime Minister to use his influence with President George Bush to stop an American military “kangaroo court” sending him to his death.

Mr Mohamed, 29, from Kensington, west London, who is expected to be charged by the Americans with terrorism-related offences in the next few days, claims he has suffered horrific abuse during more than six years in detention without trial.

USA

Campaign Jousting Returns to Iraq War

McCain, Obama Trade Attacks

After a strong push from Sen. John McCain’s allies, the war in Iraq has moved back to center stage in the presidential election, with McCain attacking Sen. Barack Obama for making up his mind about the war without visiting the war zone and Obama charging that McCain has yet to learn the lessons of President Bush’s mistakes.

“The next commander in chief is going to have to make decisions that will either lead to peace and security in Iraq or chaos and conflict,” said Alex Conant, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, sounding a theme that Republicans have pushed all week. “The voters need to know how the candidates will make that decision. And the fact that there are 2-year-old Iraqi children who weren’t born the last time Obama was in their country raises questions about what he is making his decisions on.”

Scott McClellan Is Not Himself

He’s Someone Else

The Truth Is Out There

Thursday’s Headlines:  Marines pass out Gospel verse to Iraqi Muslims, Iraqis say   Italy officer tells of spying on spies in cleric’s kidnapping  Secular Turks attack religious council’s code for women   Olmert urged to stand down over corruption claims   China quake: Controls cautiously lifted on flood of volunteers   End of a dynasty: Nepal’s Hindu king loses his crown   S.Africa union replaces sacked Mbeki ally   Nigeria militants step up oil attacks   Azteca shifts production of U.S. newscasts to Mexico

Citizens’ Groups Step Up In China

Wary Rulers Allow Role in Quake Aid

YINGXIU, China — Grass-roots organizations and informal networks of private citizens are playing a vital role in getting supplies to rescue workers and survivors of this month’s devastating earthquake in China. The government, in a notable shift, appears content to let them do so.

Officially, nongovernmental organizations in China must register with the government; the larger groups are as rigid and controlled as their official sponsors. Authorities remain deeply suspicious of smaller, independent groups.

USA

Ex-Colleagues Ask, ‘What Happened?’

Former Bush Aide Stuns Many With Critical New Book

Scott McClellan was the ultimate Bush loyalist. He went to work for George W. Bush when he was Texas governor in 1999, helped Bush gain the White House in 2000, and then came to Washington to defend the president for the next six years on such issues as the war in Iraq and Hurricane Katrina.

But McClellan’s explosive new book, which alleges that the Bush administration waged a “political propaganda campaign” in favor of the Iraq war and bungled the response to the storm that devastated the Gulf Coast, prompted a counterattack yesterday from some of his oldest political colleagues, who accused him of disloyalty and questioned his credibility.

Stay Left

Never Right

Tuesday’s Headlines: Burden on Dean to bring harmony  Egypt: bread shortages, hunger and unrest   Fears of new civil war as Sudanese town razed   German snoopers ‘tracked thousands of phone calls’  Health care fees trouble Eastern Europe   The two faces of Burmese aid: a starving village and a state lie   Protests in S Korea over US beef   Sadr Pursues Image to Match His Power  FARC leader’s death: another blow to Colombian rebels

Nuclear Agency Accuses Iran of Willful Lack of Cooperation

PARIS – The International Atomic Energy Agency, in an unusually blunt and detailed report, said Monday that Iran’s suspected research into the development of nuclear weapons remained “a matter of serious concern” and that Iran continued to owe the agency “substantial explanations.”

The nine-page report accused the Iranians of a willful lack of cooperation, particularly in answering allegations that its nuclear program may be intended more for military use than for energy generation.

USA

U.S. Medical Research Gets $600 Million From Institute

Hughes Supplements Gap As Government Funds Lag

One of the world’s largest private philanthropies will announce today a $600 million initiative to fund risky but potentially lifesaving medical research by 56 of America’s top scientists.

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute is expanding its flagship investigators program to nurture a new class of scientists. By endowing scientists’ research over many years, the institute hopes they will make major discoveries in a variety of fields, including genetics and biology.

Come In

It’s Cheaper Than Driving To The Mail Box

Monday’s Headlines:  Exemptions for Charities Face New Challenges  An Iron Procession of Honor   Japan has first European sumo champion  Afghan prison nightmare may be coming to an end for Pervez   Fury over Berlusconi’s bid to solve rubbish crisis   Mob of Nazi youths goes on immigrant rampage in ‘tolerant’ Rome   Robert Mugabe threatens to expel US Ambassador    Burundi, rebels repledge peace  Iraqi military says al-Qaida is fleeing Mosul   Carter urges ‘supine’ Europe to break with US over Gaza blockade   Mexico’s War Against Drugs Kills Its Police

Billions wasted on UN climate programme

Energy firms routinely abusing carbon offset fund, US studies claim

Billions of pounds are being wasted in paying industries in developing countries to reduce climate change emissions, according to two analyses of the UN’s carbon offsetting programme.

Leading academics and watchdog groups allege that the UN’s main offset fund is being routinely abused by chemical, wind, gas and hydro companies who are claiming emission reduction credits for projects that should not qualify. The result is that no genuine pollution cuts are being made, undermining assurances by the UK government and others that carbon markets are dramatically reducing greenhouse gases, the researchers say.

The criticism centres on the UN’s clean development mechanism (CDM), an international system established by the Kyoto process that allows rich countries to meet emissions targets by funding clean energy projects in developing nations.

My Aim Was True

Until It Curved

Sunday’s Headlines:  Safety Lapses Raised Risks In Trailers for Katrina Victims   Defending KSM, ‘the most hated man in the   world’   Burma seeks crucial aid donations   Tibetan exiles compete in alternative ‘Olympic Games’   Naples street battles erupt  Go-It-Alone France Shifts Military Stance   Is this the end of the Rainbow nation?   Tsvangirai returns and calls on Mugabe to ‘set the people free’   Al-Qa’ida in Iraq ‘has never been closer to defeat’  Lebanon MPs to vote in president   Mexico will spend £21m to clean up Acapulco    Argentina turns against new president as strike worsens

Chinese Are Left to Ask Why Schools Crumbled

Grief in the Rubble

This story was reported by Jim Yardley, Jake Hooker and Andrew C. Revkin, and was written by Mr. Yardley.

DUJIANGYAN, China – The earthquake’s destruction of Xinjian Primary School was swift and complete. Hundreds of children were crushed as the floors collapsed in a deluge of falling bricks and concrete. Days later, as curiosity seekers came with video cameras and as parents came to grieve, the four-story school was no more than rubble.

In contrast, none of the nearby buildings were badly damaged. A separate kindergarten less than 20 feet away survived with barely a crack. An adjacent 10-story hotel stood largely undisturbed. And another local primary school, Beijie, catering to children of the elite, was in such good condition that local officials were using it as a refugee center.

Editorial

Joe Lieberman, Would-Be Censor

The Internet is simply a means of communication, like the telephone, but that has not prevented attempts to demonize it – the latest being the ludicrous claim that the Internet promotes terrorism.

Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut is trying to pressure YouTube to pull down videos he does not like, and a recent Senate report and a bill pending in Congress also raise the specter of censorship. It is important for online speech to be protected against these assaults.

I Didn’t Mean  To Say That

Until I said It

But It Wasn’t Really Me Who Said It

Saturday’s Headlines:   270 Illegal Immigrants Sent to Prison in Federal Push   Obama would take California in November, Times/KTLA poll finds   Ban praises China quake response   Tibet could be ‘swamped’ by mass Chinese settlement after Olympics, says Dalai Lama  French trawlers blockade straits of Dover in fuel protest   Rubbish threatens Tuvixeddu necropolis   Opposition leader returning to Zimbabwe  ANALYSIS-Poverty a recipe for wider South Africa unrest    Sign of change? Israeli, Palestinian officers meet  Marines Won’t Charge 2 Officers Whose Men Killed Afghans After Car Bombing   Cuban sting shows US diplomat handing over cash to dissidents  

Hillary Clinton forced to apologise for staying in race ‘in case of an assassination’

From The Times

May 24, 2008

Hillary Clinton rushed out an apology last night after citing the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy as a reason for her to remain in the race against Barack Obama – an extraordinary admission which caught her campaign aides off guard.

Mrs Clinton, dismissing the idea of abandoning her increasingly longshot attempt to win the Democratic presidential nomination, said in South Dakota: “My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. You know I just, I don’t understand it.”

She added that she did not understand why, given this history, some Democrats were calling for her to quit. The former First Lady had been responding to a question from a newspaper editorial board.

One Always Loves The Rules

Until They Work Against You

Friday’s Headlines: Here’re the savings from Arctic drilling – 75 cents a barrel    Texas had no right to seize sect children, appellate court says   Afghan anti-US protest leaves three dead   Human cost of cut-price concrete in China revealed in the rubble   10,000 Iraqi troops bring calm to Sadr City   Why Qatar is emerging as Middle East peacemaker    Strikes over pension reforms grip France   Abramovich, Lugovoy and Putin – the background    Foreigners attacked in Cape Town   UN says arms illegally going to Somalia   Panama tribe exiles its king over power plant deal

Burma ‘to let in all aid workers’

Burma’s top leader has agreed to let all foreign aid workers into the country for relief work in cyclone-hit areas, UN head Ban Ki-moon has said.

Mr Ban announced the news after talks in Burma’s remote capital, Naypyidaw, with Gen Than Shwe.

Burma’s military leaders had previously refused to allow a full-scale relief effort by foreign aid workers, and claimed everything was under control.

About 78,000 people died and 56,000 are missing after the 2 May cyclone.

Mr Ban said he thought Gen Than’s decision was a breakthrough.