Docudharma Times Tuesday Oct. 23

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Editorial
Even Closer to the Brink
Published: October 23, 2007

The news out of Iraq just keeps getting worse. Now Turkey is threatening to send troops across the border to wipe out Kurdish rebel bases, after guerrillas killed at least a dozen Turkish soldiers. This latest crisis should have come as no surprise. But it is one more widely predicted problem the Bush administration failed to plan for before its misguided invasion – and one more problem it urgently needs to deal with as part of a swift and orderly exit from Iraq.

Turkey’s anger is understandable. Guerrillas from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., have been striking from bases in Iraqi Kurdistan with growing impunity and effect, using plastic explosives, mines and arms that are far too readily accessible in Iraq. The death toll for Turkish military forces is mounting.

USA

250,000 Urged to Flee in California as Fires Spread
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
Published: October 23, 2007

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 22 – More than a quarter of a million people were urged to flee their homes on Monday as wildfires ravaged Southern California for a second day, destroying hundreds of homes and businesses and charring swaths of scrub and forestland.
The fires, a Hydra with at least 15 separate burns in seven counties fed by gale-force winds, burned some 267,000 acres from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border. Engines and firefighters from as far as Nevada and Arizona were summoned as resources were stretched to the limit.

Houses burned with no firefighters in sight as emergency crews on the ground and in the air struggled to keep up with shifting wind that fanned new fires and made others recede and reignite.

Senators Say White House Cut Deal With Panel on FISA
Documents Said to Be Traded for Telecom Immunity

By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 23, 2007; Page A09

Senate Judiciary Committee members yesterday angrily accused the White House of allowing the Senate Intelligence Committee to review documents on its warrantless surveillance program in return for agreeing that telecommunications companies should get immunity from lawsuits.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), the ranking Republican, said any such agreement would be “unacceptable,” signaling that legislation granting immunity to certain telecom carriers could run into trouble. Leahy and Specter demanded that the documents, which were provided only to the Intelligence Committee, be turned over to the Judiciary Committee as well.

GOP team revives electoral vote initiative
The intent is to change California’s winner-take-all system, which would give Republicans an edge in the presidential race.
By Dan Morain and Joe Mathews, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
October 23, 2007
SACRAMENTO — Veteran GOP consultants said Monday that they were relaunching a drive to change the way California allocates its electoral college votes, aimed at helping the 2008 Republican presidential nominee capture the White House.

Political strategist David Gilliard said he was taking over the ballot initiative campaign, along with strategist Ed Rollins and fundraiser Anne Dunsmore. Consultant Mike Arno will oversee the signature-gathering effort.
“Our budget is going to be whatever it takes to make the June ballot,” said Gilliard, who played a key role in getting the recall of Democratic Gov. Gray Davis onto the 2003 ballot.

Middle East

Bin Laden urges Iraq insurgents to unite
BAGHDAD – Osama bin Laden scolded his al-Qaida followers in Iraq and other insurgents, saying they have “been lax” for failing to overcome fanatical tribal loyalties and unite in the fight against U.S. troops.
The message of his new audiotape Monday reflected the growing disarray among Iraq’s Sunni Arab insurgents and bin Laden’s client group in the country, both of which are facing heavy U.S. military pressure and an uprising among Sunni tribesmen.

In the brief tape played on Al-Jazeera television, the terrorist leader urged militants to “beware of division … The Muslim world is waiting for you to gather under one banner.”

Israel accused after 30 injured in prison battle
By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
Published: 23 October 2007

A Palestinian prisoner was in a serious condition in hospital last night after pitched battles between prison officers and detainees at the remote Ketziot prison left at least 30 people injured.

The Israeli Prison Service said yesterday that staff used “non lethal devices” to quell what it said was widespread rioting by mainly Hamas prisoners after it began a search for contraband, weapons and mobile phones in the early hours of yesterday.

Palestinian officials responsible for prisoners’ welfare said the guards – believed to be members of the prison service’s Nahshon security force -used teargas and rubber bullets after prisoners reacted to what they said was an unusually timed search as they slept.

Europe

US missile deal may face obstacles
PRAGUE, Czech Republic – The Bush administration wants deals by the end of the year for missile defense bases in Eastern Europe, but getting the Czech Republic and Poland to go along with that timetable could be difficult.
Poland’s opposition party ousted ruling conservatives in parliamentary elections on Sunday, though Defense Secretary Robert Gates suggested Monday he still believes Warsaw will cooperate.

The Pentagon wants to install 10 interceptor rockets in Poland which, when linked to a proposed tracking radar in the Czech Republic and to other elements of the existing U.S. missile defense system based in the United States, could defend all of Europe against a long-range missile fired from the Middle East.

Poll winner: I will end Poland’s isolation
By Daniel McLaughlin in Warsaw
Published: 23 October 2007

Poland’s victorious Civic Platform promised to return the country to Europe’s mainstream and push for swift adoption of the euro after ousting Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski yesterday.

With 99 per cent of votes counted following Sunday’s election, Civic Platform had 209 seats in the 460-seat parliament, with the Law and Justice party of Mr Kaczynski on 166 seats. The Left and Democrats bloc had 53 seats and the Polish Peasants Party claimed 31. One independent deputy also won re-election.

Civic Platform is expected to form an alliance with the moderate, pro-EU Polish Peasants Party, with which it has co-operated successfully at local level and which has a strong rural power base to complement its own urban popularity. Coalition talks will begin this week, with a final decision on 10 November, Civic Platform officials said.

Americas

US official urges passage of trade deal
NEW YORK – The Bush administration warned Monday that failure by Congress to adopt a free trade agreement with Colombia would bolster the anti-American campaign of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said that refusal by lawmakers to pass the agreement “will embolden someone like Hugo Chavez to think that he can make hay out of that crisis, and it will be a crisis if the free trade agreement does not pass.”

Africa

Ethiopia ONLF rebels say killed 250 troops
NAIROBI (Reuters) – Ethiopia’s Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) rebels said further fighting with security forces in the nation’s remote east had brought the number of government soldiers killed to more than 250.
The Ethiopian government has been denying ONLF reports of mass casualties as falsehoods spread by their foreign-based supporters. No independent verification has been possible.

Facing several insurgencies in remote areas, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s government has waged an unprecedented offensive against the ONLF after they killed 74 people during a raid on a Chinese-run oil exploration field earlier this year.

Somali government frees WFP head
The head of the World Food Programme in Somalia has been freed after six days of detention by government forces.

Mr Osman’s arrest halted food distribution to some 75,000 people displaced by recent fighting.

Asia-Pacific

Claims of Maori separatist plot begin to unravel
By Kathy Marks, Asia-Pacific Correspondent
Published: 23 October 2007

A week after 17 people were arrested in anti-terrorist raids, New Zealanders are asking whether their security forces foiled an astonishing plot by militant Maori separatists – or whether they made a monumental error of judgement.

Extreme secrecy surrounds the affair, with only two of the 17 detainees being identified and the media excluded from court hearings. But those held in dawn raids across the nation are said to include a mixture of white anarchists and environmental activists as well as Maori radicals.

As well as swooping on homes in cities including Auckland and Wellington, police sealed off a hamlet in the Ureweras, a mountainous area of the North Island, which they claim was the site of terrorist training camps. The isolated, thickly forested region, home to the Tuhoe tribe, is now the focus of national attention.

Asia

Bhutto accuses government of cover-up in suicide bombing

Declan Walsh in Karachi
Tuesday October 23, 2007
The Guardian

Benazir Bhutto yesterday accused the Pakistani government of staging a cover-up after it refused her request for British and American experts to join the inquiry into last Thursday’s suicide bombing.

“If people have nothing to hide then they should be open to investigators from all over the world,” the former prime minister told a press conference at her closely guarded Karachi home. “It’s simply not right that attempts should be made to cover up an assassination attempt … Obviously some people are being protected.”

Earlier the interior minister, Aftab Khan Sherpao, rejected her call for foreign technical help. “I would categorically reject this. We are conducting the investigation in a very objective manner,” he said.

Burma allows human rights visit
The military government in Burma has agreed to allow the UN’s expert on human rights to visit after refusing permission for four years.

Paolo Sergio Pinheiro, who visits countries to check on their human rights performance, made repeated requests to visit during that time.

Burmese Foreign Minister Nyan Win wrote to the UN suggesting that Mr Pinheiro could arrive before mid-November.

The UN’s special envoy to Burma is also hoping to be allowed to return soon.