Docudharma Times Tuesday Oct. 16

This an Open Thread

USA

Verizon Says It Turned Over Data Without Court Orders

Firm’s Letter to Lawmakers Details Government Requests

By Ellen Nakashima

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, October 16, 2007; Page A01

Verizon Communications, the nation’s second-largest telecom company, told congressional investigators that it has provided customers’ telephone records to federal authorities in emergency cases without court orders hundreds of times since 2005.

The company said it does not determine the requests’ legality or necessity because to do so would slow efforts to save lives in criminal investigations.

In an Oct. 12 letter replying to Democratic lawmakers, Verizon offered a rare glimpse into the way telecommunications companies cooperate with government requests for information on U.S. citizens.

Failing Schools Strain to Meet U.S. Standard

By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO

Published: October 16, 2007

LOS ANGELES – As the director of high schools in the gang-infested neighborhoods of the East Side of Los Angeles, Guadalupe Paramo struggles every day with educational dysfunction.

For the past half-dozen years, not even one in five students at her district’s teeming high schools has been able to do grade-level math or English. At Abraham Lincoln High School this year, only 7 in 100 students could. At Woodrow Wilson High, only 4 in 100 could.

For chronically failing schools like these, the No Child Left Behind law, now up for renewal in Congress, prescribes drastic measures: firing teachers and principals, shutting schools and turning them over to a private firm, a charter operator or the state itself, or a major overhaul in governance.

The Real Iraq We Knew

By 12 former Army captains

Tuesday, October 16, 2007; 12:00 AM

Today marks five years since the authorization of military force in Iraq, setting Operation Iraqi Freedom in motion. Five years on, the Iraq war is as undermanned and under-resourced as it was from the start. And, five years on, Iraq is in shambles.

As Army captains who served in Baghdad and beyond, we’ve seen the corruption and the sectarian division. We understand what it’s like to be stretched too thin. And we know when it’s time to get out.

Middle East

Iraqis shot by contractors stymied in search for justice

By Tina Susman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

October 16, 2007

BAGHDAD — In the days after Usama Abbass was shot dead in a Baghdad traffic circle by security guards working for Blackwater USA, his brother visited the U.S.-run National Iraqi Assistance Center seeking compensation.

Like other Iraqis who have done the same, he learned a harsh truth: The center in Baghdad’s Green Zone handles cases of Iraqis claiming death or damages due to military action, but not due to actions of private contractors such as Blackwater, who work in Iraq for the U.S. government, private agencies and other governments.

“There will be no compensation because the American Army did not kill your brother,” an apologetic U.S. soldier told Abbass’ brother, who did not want his name published

Turkey fears Kurds, not Armenians

By Spengler

Turkey’s integration into the global economy was sealed last week by a billion-dollar offer by the American private-equity firm KKR for a local shipping company. Days later, Turkish troops shelled Kurdish villages in northern Iraq and prepared an incursion against Kurdish rebels, a measure that would undermine Turkey’s economic standing. Whether Turkey will fling away its new-found prosperity in a fit of national pique is hard to forecast, but that has been the way of all flesh. Europe plunged into World War I in 1914

at the peak of its prosperity for similar reasons.

News accounts link Turkey’s threat to invade northern Iraq with outrage over a resolution before the US Congress recognizing that Turkey committed genocide against its Armenian population in 1915.

Asia

Taiwan urges China to drop preconditions for talks on peace accord

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

By ANNIE HUANG, AP

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan urged Chinese leaders Tuesday to dismantle hundreds of missiles and recognize the self-ruled island’s separate identity before the two rivals negotiate an end to the nearly six decades of hostility between them.

Beijing’s insistence that Taiwan is a part of China has been the main “political obstacle” hampering a dialogue between the sides, said Chen Ming-tong, chairman of the Cabinet-level Mainland Affairs Council.

US still hopeful on implementation of nuke deal

16 Oct 2007, 1231 hrs IST,PTI

WASHINGTON: With India virtually putting the Indo-US nuclear deal on hold in view of Left’s reservations, Washington has hoped that New Delhi would continue its efforts to implement the agreement “in a time that is appropriate for both sides”.

Without disclosing the details of the conversation US President George W Bush had with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday, the State Department said the deal was “positive” and “good” for both the countries as well as for the broader efforts of non-proliferation.

Europe

Putin, in Iran, warns on pipeline

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV, Associated Press Writer 16 minutes ago

TEHRAN, Iran – Leaders of Russia and Iran spoke out strongly Tuesday against outside interference into Caspian Sea affairs during a summit that focused on ways to divide the region’s substantial energy resources.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose trip to Tehran is the first by a Kremlin leader since World War II, warned that energy pipeline projects crossing the Caspian could only be implemented if all five nations that border the inland sea support them.

Africa

EU approves 3,000-strong Africa force

LUXEMBOURG – European Union foreign ministers gave their final approval Monday to deploy a 3,000-strong EU peacekeeping force for one year to help refugees and displaced people living along Darfur’s borders with Chad and the Central African Republic.

U.N. officials estimate around 3 million people have been uprooted by conflicts in the region, including the fighting in Darfur and rebellions in Chad and the Central African Republic. The majority – some 2 1/4 million – are Darfurians displaced within the vast Sudanese desert region.

Zimbabwe dismisses boycott threat

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown is “not qualified” to talk about human rights, Zimbabwe’s Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu has said.

Mr Ndlovu also insisted Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe would attend an EU-Africa summit in December that Mr Brown has threatened to boycott.

Americas

The Amazon burns once again

The restraint of the last few years is brought to an end by rising demand for crops the land could bear

Tom Phillips in Alta Floresta

Tuesday October 16, 2007

The Guardian

Veteran Amazon pilots such as Fernando Galvao Bezerra are hard men to shock. During 20 years in aviation Mr Bezerra, 45, has ferried prostitutes and wildcat miners to remote, lawless goldmines. He has taxied wealthy loggers between ranches, lost countless colleagues to malaria and once survived when his plane plummeted out of the sky.

But as his 10-seater Cessna banked over a vast expanse of burning rainforest in the state of Mato Grosso, the pilot, who now works for the environmental group Greenpeace, was virtually speechless. “Holy shit,” he blurted over the plane’s PA system,

22 die as makeshift Colombian gold mine collapses

· 16 of the dead are women, many single mothers

· Survivors and relatives blame poverty for tragedy

Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent

Tuesday October 16, 2007

The Guardian

They were mostly women, often single mothers, the poorest of Colombia’s poor, and they were at the bottom of a deep pit scrabbling for gold. For black shack dwellers in Suarez, a forgotten backwater in Cauca province of African slave descendants, artisanal mining is arduous but the only way to survive.

Last Saturday it became a way to die. The makeshift mine collapsed, sending an avalanche of mud and rock on top of the miners, killing 22 and injuring 26. At least 16 of the dead were women, of whom many were young mothers.