Docudharma Times Thursday Oct. 25

This is an Open Thread: Can We Talk?

USA

New Steps by U.S. Against Iranians
By HELENE COOPER
Published: October 25, 2007

WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 – The Bush administration will announce a long-debated policy of new sanctions against Iran on Thursday, accusing the elite Quds division of the Revolutionary Guard Corps of supporting terrorism, administration officials said Wednesday night.

The administration also plans to accuse the entire Revolutionary Guard Corps of proliferating weapons of mass destruction, the officials said. While the United States has long labeled Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism, the decision to single out the Guard reflects increased frustration in the administration with the slow pace of diplomatic negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program.

Then There Is This
Buried in the $196.4 billion supplemental war spending proposal that Bush submitted to Congress on Oct. 22 is a request for $88 million to modify B-2 bombers so they can drop a Massive Ordnance Penetrator
the bombs came in response to “an urgent operational need from theater commanders.” […]

Previous statements by the Defense Department and the program’s contractors, along with interviews with military experts, suggest the weapon is meant for the kind of hardened targets found chiefly in Iran.

Calif. Firefighters Get Their Chance
Diminishing Santa Ana Winds Let Crews Focus on Attacking the Wildfires

By Karl Vick and Sonya Geis
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 25, 2007; Page A01

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 24 — In a disaster driven more than anything by wind, the breezes dying across Southern California on Wednesday translated into rising hope.

About 20 brush fires continued to roar, part of a conflagration that has blackened an area 10 times the size of the District of Columbia, destroyed 1,600 structures, displaced hundreds of thousands and sullied air for millions more across the region.
But gradually decreasing winds allowed the 8,000 exhausted firefighters to stand and fight the flames rather than dash from one hot spot to another.

Voters favor Democratic ideas to mend healthcare
Survey also finds that Americans are pessimistic about the direction of the country and are dissatisfied with Bush and Congress.
By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Janet Hook, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
October 25, 2007
WASHINGTON — Democratic ideas for fixing the healthcare system to cover the uninsured enjoy more support among Americans than proposals coming from Republicans, a new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll shows.

The poll also found that a restive public was pessimistic about the direction of the country and that voters were dissatisfied with President Bush and the Democratic-controlled Congress. Congress was shown to be more unpopular than Bush: Its approval rating was 22%, the president’s 35%.

Pyongyang Bobby: Is this Kim Jong-Il’s man in New Jersey?
To his customers, he is just a restaurateur. But is he also a pivotal figure in US relations with a pariah regime? David Usborne meets the mysterious Bobby Egan
Published: 25 October 2007

Bobby Egan ushers me out into the lobby of his brightly lit BBQ restaurant, Cubby’s, in Hackensack, an unprepossessing New Jersey town 10 minutes from Manhattan’s George Washington Bridge, to listen to some voices on a cassette tape. “You are the first person who has ever heard this,” he says

Asia

Lead Detective Quits Bhutto Attack Probe

Thursday October 25, 2007 7:01 AM

By ZARAR KHAN

Associated Press Writer

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) – The detective leading Pakistan’s inquiry into the suicide attack on Benazir Bhutto withdrew from the case Wednesday after the former prime minister accused him of involvement in the torture of her husband in 1999, a senior official said.

On Thursday, the official said a new investigator had been appointed.

Saud Mirza, the chief of criminal investigations at Karachi, will now head the five-man team probing last week’s bombing of Bhutto’s homecoming parade that killed 136 people, said Ghulam Muhammad Mohtarem, the home secretary of Sindh province.

China rejects sanctions as UN Myanmar envoy ends talks
BEIJING (Reuters) – The United Nations envoy on Myanmar concluded talks with China on Thursday, with no indication Beijing had agreed to exert tougher pressure on the junta that runs the troubled Southeast Asian nation.
U.N. special envoy Ibrahim Gambari has been visiting Asia to press neighbors — especially India and China — to take a tougher line against Myanmar’s military government, which harshly quelled pro-democracy protests led by Buddhist clergy.

Middle East

Lebanon troops fire on Israeli warplanes
BEIRUT, Lebanon – Lebanese troops opened fire Thursday on Israeli warplanes flying low over southern Lebanon but no hits were reported, Lebanese officials said.
sraeli warplanes frequently fly over Lebanese airspace in what Israel says are reconnaissance missions, but this was the first time the army has on the aircraft since an Aug. 14, 2006 cease-fire ended a monthlong war between Israeli and Hezbollah guerrillas

Kurdish fighters defy the world from mountain fortress as bombing begins
By Patrick Cockburn in the Qandil mountains, Iraq
Published: 25 October 2007

Turkey used its helicopters and artillery to attack Kurdish guerrillas inside northern Iraq yesterday as the Turkish army massed just north of the border. The helicopter gunships penetrated three miles into Iraqi territory and warplanes targeted mountain paths used by rebels entering Turkey.

Guerrilla commanders of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) were defiant in the face of an impending invasion. In an interview high in the Qandil mountains, Bozan Tekin, a PKK leader, said: “Even Alexander the Great couldn’t bring this region under his rule.” The PKK has its headquarters in the Qandil mountains, one of the world’s great natural fortresses in the east of Iraqi Kurdistan, stretching south from the south-east tip of Turkey along the Iranian border. If Turkey, or anybody else, is to try to drive the PKK out of northern Iraq they would have to capture this bastion and it is unlikely they will succeed.

Americas

Mexico oil rig accident kills 18
MEXICO CITY – At least 18 oil workers were killed when a drilling rig hit an oil platform in stormy weather, spilling gas and oil into the Gulf of Mexico, the state-owned oil company said Wednesday. Seven workers were still missing.
Rescuers have pulled 61 oil workers to safety from storm-tossed waters but have yet to control the oil leak, Mexico’s oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, said in a news release.

Woolmer murdered, expert insists
A Jamaican government pathologist who conducted Bob Woolmer’s autopsy has maintained his view that the Pakistan cricket coach was murdered.

Dr Ere Shesiah’s findings prompted a global murder inquiry and speculation about corruption and match-fixing.

But the inquiry was dropped after three independent experts said Mr Woolmer died of natural causes.

Africa

Darfur peace talks in crisis after boycott by rebel groups

· Diplomats trawl refugee camps for any delegates
· UN also faces ‘disaster’ over international force

Julian Borger, diplomatic editor
Thursday October 25, 2007
The Guardian

International mediators are in an eleventh-hour scramble to find delegates willing to attend Darfur peace talks on Saturday after a string of boycott announcements by rebel movements.

Diplomats from the UN and the African Union are scouring relief camps in Darfur and Chad, looking for tribal elders, refugee leaders and the heads of women’s groups, in an attempt to salvage the negotiations in Sirte, Libya, according to officials familiar with the efforts.

Europe

Russia ‘chessboard killer’ guilty
A Russian shop assistant has been found guilty of 48 murders, which he once said he recorded on a chessboard.

A Moscow jury convicted Alexander Pichushkin, known to the Russian media as the “Bittsa maniac”, after four hours of deliberation.

Most of the murders were committed over five years, in the Bittsa Park in Moscow’s southern suburbs.

Dutch smash ‘voodoo’ child trade
Police in the Netherlands say they have cracked a crime ring which allegedly trafficked Nigerian children into the West to work as sex slaves.

At least 19 people were arrested in the Netherlands and five other countries including the US and Britain.

Traffickers used voodoo to gain a hold over children before smuggling them abroad in a racket which exploited the asylum system, police say.