Docudharma Times Friday Dec. 14

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Headlines For Friday December 14: House Passes Bill to Ban CIA’s Use of Harsh Interrogation Tactics: Arizona Is Split Over Hard Line on Immigrants: Writers file labor charges against studios:

USA

House Passes Bill to Ban CIA’s Use of Harsh Interrogation Tactics

Friday, December 14, 2007; Page A07

The House approved legislation yesterday that would bar the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics, drawing an immediate veto threat from the White House and setting up another political showdown over what constitutes torture.

The measure, approved by a largely party-line vote of 222 to 199, would require U.S. intelligence agencies to follow Army rules adopted last year that explicitly forbid waterboarding. It also would require interrogators to adhere to a strict interpretation of the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war. The rules, required by Congress for all Defense Department personnel, also ban sexual humiliation, “mock” executions and the use of attack dogs, and prohibit the withholding of food and medical care.

Arizona Is Split Over Hard Line on Immigrants

PHOENIX – A new Arizona law against employing illegal immigrants has shaken businesses, scared workers, delighted advocates of stricter immigration controls and added to tensions in a state split over who belongs here and who does not.

And that is even before the law’s scheduled effective date, Jan. 1.

State officials are seeking to curb illegal immigration by choking the supply of jobs with the law, which threatens to pull the business license of any employer that knowingly hires an illegal immigrant.

It is an example of the scores of state and municipal laws meant to address illegal immigration on the belief that the federal government has not done enough to thwart it. But the Arizona version is among the toughest and could test states’ ability to crack down on the countless businesses that have relied on illegal workers.

Writers file labor charges against studios

A bitter labor dispute intensified today when Hollywood’s striking writers filed charges against the studios, alleging they had not bargained in good faith.

In a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, the union representing 10,500 writers asserted that the studios broke federal law by ending contract negotiations Friday after writers refused to meet their demand to take several proposals off the table.

“It is a clear violation of federal law for the [studios] to issue an ultimatum and break off negotiations if we fail to cave to their illegal demands,” the guild said in a statement.

Europe

EU set for Serbia deal on Kosovo

European Union leaders are expected to offer Serbia a fast track route towards candidacy for EU membership.

The plan is seen as a way of stabilising the Balkans, with Kosovo set to declare independence from Serbia against its wishes.

The plan, which is due to be agreed at a summit in Brussels, would come as the EU prepares for a major role in Kosovo.

The leaders are likely to pledge to step up preparations for a big police mission in Kosovo if it leaves Serbia.

The future of the breakaway Serbian region is widely seen as the biggest test so far for EU foreign policy.

T-shirt sellers not guilty in terrorism case

Seven Danes accused of sponsoring terrorism by selling T-shirts bearing the logos of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine were found not guilty of the charges yesterday.

Judges at Copenhagen city court ruled that Farc and the PFLP were not terrorist groups, so the accused – members of an activist group named Fighters and Lovers – could not have been supporting terrorism by donating profits from T-shirt sales to the groups. About £3.50 from the £15 price of each T-shirt was to be donated.

Latin America

Bid to kidnap Uribe sons ‘foiled

Colombian police say they have foiled a plot by left-wing Farc guerrillas to kidnap the two grown-up sons of President Alvaro Uribe.

Police chief Oscar Naranjo said 10 people had been arrested after phone calls made by imprisoned guerrillas were monitored.

Reporters heard a tape allegedly recorded in October in which two inmates apparently plan the kidnapping.

Farc is seeking to negotiate a swap of hostages for its own jailed

members.

Crossing From Mexico The Old-Fashioned Way, Powered by Forearms

By Manuel Roig-Franzia

Washington Post Foreign Service

Friday, December 14, 2007; Page A30

GUSTAVO DIAZ ORDAZ, Mexico

The Rio Bravo makes a big, lazy turn through the cornfields, half its channel in Mexico, half in the United States. At the bend, the wind picks up speed and whips through the ebony trees, trees so hard and strong that their wood resembles polished stone.

It’s quiet here at 8 a.m., just the wind and the giggly gurgle of the rapid current. A handful of cars sit idling nearby.

Miles away, in the urban clog of Reynosa, cars are lining up for blocks and hawkers are hawking and the border crossing into Texas is alive with noise. But here in Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, along the river also known as the Rio Grande, the daily commute across “la linea” is slow and calm.

Middle East

Top Fatah official kidnapped in Gaza

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Gunmen burst into the home of a top Fatah official in Gaza early Friday and kidnapped him, the man’s family said, in the first such abduction of a politician since Hamas forces routed their Fatah rivals and overtook the strip in June.

Omar Al-Ghoul is an adviser to Salam Fayyad, the moderate Palestinian prime minister appointed to lead the West Bank government after Hamas took control of Gaza. Al-Ghoul is considered a harsh critic of Hamas and has a regular newspaper column in which he frequently attacks the Islamic movement.

Al-Ghoul arrived in Gaza from the West Bank on Thursday to attend the funeral of his mother-in law. Around 4 a.m. Friday, gunmen in civilian clothes burst into his Gaza home, turning it upside down and seizing Al-Ghoul, his relatives said.

World Bank urges Israel to ease Palestinian blockade

· Restrictions threaten efforts to boost economy

· Blair confident $5.6bn donor target will be met

Ian Black, Middle East editor

Friday December 14, 2007

The Guardian

Israel must ease crippling restrictions on the Palestinians if international efforts led by Tony Blair to boost the Palestinian economy are to be successful, the World Bank and Oxfam said yesterday.

Next Monday Blair, representing the Quartet of Middle East peacemakers, is to chair a conference in Paris of 90 countries and organisations expected to pledge $5.6bn (£2.75bn). The event is being billed as “the economic Annapolis” – the follow-up to last month’s relaunch of peace talks at the Maryland summit.

Africa

Uganda and Congo meet for talks on border, oil

KAMPALA (Reuters) – Senior diplomats from Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo met in Kampala on Friday to settle a border dispute in an area where there is potential for crude oil discoveries.

“All the ministers are here, the meeting has started. We expect them to issue a communique around five o’clock (0900 EST),” James Mugume, a senior foreign ministry official, told Reuters by telephone.

A string of shootouts between the two former enemies on Lake Albert since August has a number of civilians, including a British contractor doing a seismic survey for Heritage Oil Corp.

ANC seeks compromise to solve leadership crisis

By Basildon Peta in Johannesburg

Published: 14 December 2007

Senior figures in South Africa’s ruling African National Congress are pushing for a compromise to prevent the leadership tussle between President Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma from plunging the country into turmoil.

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, former wife of Nelson Mandela and a heroine of the struggle against white rule, took the lead yesterday by suggesting a deal in which Mr Mbeki would stay on as ANC leader until 2009 when his second and final term as president of the country expires. Mr Mbeki would then hand over the leadership of both the country and ANC to Mr Zuma from 2009.

Under her proposal to avoid a face-off between the two leaders at a congress starting this weekend, Mr Mbeki would also stop Mr Zuma from being charged with corruption over his alleged involvement in a multibillion-dollar arms scandal. But both men seem prepared to take their battle to the wire and have roundly rejected Mrs Madikizela-Mandela’s plan.

Asia

Poor nations demand green technology

BALI, Indonesia – Uganda gets plenty of sun, making it a great spot for solar energy. There’s only one problem: In one of the world’s most impoverished nations, few people can afford an imported solar panel.

Poorer countries accuse the rich of pressuring them to control emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, while refusing to provide them with technology needed to do so without hurting their economies.

They have made their demands that rich nations provide cheap access to green know-how a centerpiece of the U.N. climate change conference in Bali, Indonesia.

For China and Vietnam, a Highway Link Means Speedy Growth

HONG KONG – On a frontier where Vietnamese and Chinese soldiers exchanged bullets in a short but bloody war nearly three decades ago, construction workers from the two countries will soon join forces to build a highway that promises to bring new wealth to their once heavily guarded border regions.

Plans for a four-lane highway from Hanoi to Kunming cleared the last hurdle on Friday when the board of the Asian Development Bank gave the green light to a loan that will underwrite the Vietnamese side of the project.

By 2012, when the highway is supposed to be completed, a journey that now takes three days by truck could take just nine hours. Goods made in China’s Yunnan Province would have quick access to the Vietnamese seaport of Haiphong, and Vietnamese exporters should be able to reach untapped markets in China.