Docudharma Times Saturday Oct. 27

This is an Open Thread: Speak To Me

USA

‘I Don’t Think This Place Is Worth Another Soldier’s Life’

Oct. 26 Their line of tan Humvees and Bradley Fighting Vehicles creeps through another Baghdad afternoon. At this pace, an excruciating slowness, they strain to see everything, hoping the next manhole cover, the next rusted barrel, does not hide another bomb. A few bullets pass overhead, but they don’t worry much about those.

“I hate this road,” someone says over the radio.

They stop, look around. The streets of Sadiyah are deserted again. To the right, power lines slump down into the dirt. To the left, what was a soccer field is now a pasture of trash, combusting and smoking in the sun. Packs of skinny wild dogs trot past walls painted with slogans of sectarian hate.

From CIA Jails, Inmates Fade Into Obscurity

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — On Sept. 6, 2006, President Bush announced that the CIA’s overseas secret prisons had been temporarily emptied and 14 al-Qaeda leaders taken to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But since then, there has been no official accounting of what happened to about 30 other “ghost prisoners” who spent extended time in the custody of the CIA.

Some have been secretly transferred to their home countries, where they remain in detention and out of public view, according to interviews in Pakistan and Europe with government officials, human rights groups and lawyers for the detainees. Others have disappeared without a trace and may or may not still be under CIA control.

63 years later, Army exonerates black troops

By Jonathan Martin

Seattle Times staff reporter

For more than a half-century, the convictions of 28 African-American soldiers for a riot that ended in the lynching of an Italian prisoner of ISTANBUL, Turkey – Turkey’s leadership will hold off on ordering an offensive against Kurdish guerrilla bases in northern Iraq until the prime minister visits Washington early next month, the military chief said Friday.war at Seattle’s Fort Lawton during World War II has held an uneasy place in history.

It was the Army’s largest court-martial of the war, and it was one of the region’s worst conflicts between blacks and whites.

Merrill Lynch Weighs Ouster of Top Officer

The board of Merrill Lynch, its frustration mounting over the brokerage firm’s credit losses and the decision-making of its embattled chief executive, E. Stanley O’Neal, has begun to actively consider whether to replace him and with whom, according to people briefed on the board’s deliberations.

The discussions underscore Mr. O’Neal’s precarious position. Once credited with turning Merrill Lynch around, Mr. O’Neal is struggling to retain his job in the wake of a third-quarter loss of $2.3 billion and an $8.4 billion charge for failed credit and mortgage-related investments. He has also clashed with his directors over an approach he made to a rival bank, Wachovia, for a possible merger, The New York Times reported yesterday.

Middle East

Turkey: Wait-and-see approach in Iraq

ISTANBUL, Turkey – Turkey’s leadership will hold off on ordering an offensive against Kurdish guerrilla bases in northern Iraq until the prime minister visits Washington early next month, the military chief said Friday.

The country’s civilian leaders, meanwhile, said they were not satisfied with proposals from Iraq’s U.S.-backed government for dealing with Turkish Kurd separatist fighters who take shelter across the border.

Discontent boils among Egypt workers

By Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

October 27, 2007

EL MAHALLA EL KUBRA, EGYPT — President Hosni Mubarak faces discontent from many quarters, but perhaps the most intense criticism resonates from the banners and shaking fists of militant workers who have broken away from government-controlled unions and staged sporadic strikes across the nation.

The Egyptian government frequently muffles free speech and political dissent, but these ragged and often disorganized picket lines present a widening crisis for a president viewed as detached from the working class and unable to lift wages and stem double-digit inflation.

“Mubarak doesn’t care about workers at all anymore,” said Mohammed Shorbagy, who held a Koran in a plastic bag and stood amid litter and lean-tos during a strike last month at the Misr Spinning and Weaving Factory in this Nile Delta city. “Why is the president asleep? We’ve been here for four days and he’s done nothing.”

Europe

Litvinenko worked for British intelligence: report

LONDON (AFP) – Murdered Russian former agent Alexander Litvinenko had been working for British secret intelligence service MI6, the Daily Mail newspaper reported Saturday.

Citing unnamed diplomatic and intelligence sources, it said that Litvinenko, who died last November in London of radiation poisoning, was receiving a monthly retainer of about 2,000 pounds from MI6 when he was murdered.

Sir John Scarlett, who is now the head of MI6 and was once based in Moscow, was involved in recruiting Litvinenko, the paper added.

Europe faces tough choices on Iran

By Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

October 27, 2007

LONDON — With tough new U.S. sanctions against Iran now in place, the next step falls to European nations: Will they agree on biting measures of their own, the only way to make the unilateral U.S. action truly effective?

European officials expressed worry Friday that the Bush administration’s designation of Iranian agencies and firms as supporters of terrorism and purveyors of weapons threatens efforts to bring Iran back into the fold of diplomacy. That could erect a formidable barricade against relations with Tehran for years to come, some analysts warned.

Latin America

Court drops charges vs. Pinochet family

SANTIAGO, Chile – A Chilean appeals court on Friday dropped corruption charges against former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s widow and four of his children, who had been accused of misuse of state funds related to multimillion-dollar overseas bank accounts.

The Santiago Court of Appeals also dropped charges against 10 of the late dictator’s former associates and aides, court President Juan Eduardo Fuentes said.

A judge failed to question the Pinochet family and former associates before indicting them on the corruption charges, the appeals court ruled.

Film casts light on rough justice in Rio

This heavily armed group wears black uniforms and their faces are often masked, and their symbol includes a skull with crossed pistols.

It is not some illegal paramilitary force but an elite battalion of the police in Rio de Janeiro known as Bope, the Battalion for Special Police Operations.

They were created to deal with kidnappings, but their job now is to take on the most dangerous drug gangs in the country, a battle fought with high-calibre weapons in the city’s favelas or shanty towns

Africa

2 Darfur rebel groups shun peace talks

SIRTE, Libya – Darfur peace mediators vowed to press on with negotiations due to start Saturday in Libya despite the decision by two main rebel groups to boycott the talks, saying time was running out for the Sudanese region torn by years of fighting.

Officials from the United Nations and the African Union plan to open the negotiations with a call for an immediate cease-fire commitment from all parties attending the talks.

Asia

Militants behead security officers in Pakistan’s northwest

SLAMABAD (AFP) – Militants kidnapped and beheaded four security officers in northwest Pakistan after government troops clashed with supporters of a pro-Taliban cleric, a senior official said Saturday.

The men were seized while shopping at a bazaar in Matta in the outskirts of Swat by unknown militants, local sources said, and their bodies were later displayed in the village, although this could not be confirmed by officials.

Heavy fighting erupted in the scenic Swat valley in North West Frontier Province on Friday between troops and militants loyal to the radical cleric, who has been driving a fierce campaign to introduce pro-Taliban laws.

US caught in South Korean scandal

By Donald Kirk

SEOUL – The United States faces a Faustian decision that may influence the outcome of Korea’s presidential election in December and shape the immediate future of US-Korean relations.

Much though US leaders would like to avoid the whole nasty topic, they’ve got to decide soon when or whether to extradite to Korea a runaway financier whose sorry story of a scandal is linked to the conservative presidential candidate Lee Myung-bak. Lee’s peop