Docudharma Times Monday Dec.3

This is an Open Thread for the Curious

Headlines for Monday December 3: Arab-American paratrooper faces deportation after Afghan service :New Orleans Hurt by Acute Rental Shortage: Obama’s Gains Show Volatility Of Iowa Contest: Chavez Loses Constitutional Vote

USA

Arab-American paratrooper faces deportation after Afghan service

· Highly decorated sergeant ordered to stand trial

· Anti-discrimination committee protests

Ed Pilkington in New York

Monday December 3, 2007

The Guardian

A highly decorated Arab-American sergeant in the US army, who is currently serving as a paratrooper in Afghanistan, faces deportation on his return to the United States because of an irregularity in his immigration papers.

Sgt Hicham Benkabbou has been served with an order to stand trial for deportation as soon as he arrives home, despite the fact that he has been on active service in Afghanistan for almost two years with the 508th parachute infantry regiment, known as the Red Devils.

New Orleans Hurt by Acute Rental Shortage

NEW ORLEANS, Dec. 2 – Inside trailer No. 27 here at the A. L. Davis Playground, where the government set up a camp last year for displaced residents of Hurricane Katrina, Tracy Bernard’s meager possessions are all packed up, even though she has nowhere to go.

About a month ago, workers for the Federal Emergency Management Agency swept through her trailer park, a bleak tableau of housing of the last resort, taping eviction notices on the flimsy aluminum doors. Thousands of other trailer residents across Louisiana were informed by FEMA last week that they too would be evicted in the next six months.

Obama’s Gains

Show Volatility

Of Iowa Contest

DES MOINES, Iowa — A month before Iowa holds the first contest of the 2008 presidential campaign, a newly energized Sen. Barack Obama has opened a narrow lead here, but many Iowans in both parties say they could change their minds in the next 30 days about which candidate to support.

Mr. Obama’s rising popularity was fueled by a fiery speech three weeks ago in which he vowed to turn away from the partisan battles of the Clinton-Bush years. That, plus the surprising strength of his Iowa ground organization, is galvanizing his campaign.

Latin America

Chavez Loses Constitutional Vote

CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez suffered a stunning defeat Monday in a referendum that would have let him run for re-election indefinitely and impose a socialist system in this major U.S. oil provider.

Voters defeated the sweeping measures Sunday by a vote of 51 percent to 49 percent, said Tibisay Lucena, chief of the National Electoral Council, with voter turnout at just 56 percent.

She said that with 88 percent of the votes counted, the trend was irreversible.

Opposition supporters shouted with joy as Lucena announced the results on national television early Monday, their first victory against Chavez after nine years of electoral defeats.

Colombian hostage reveals her ‘living death’

By John Lichfield

Published: 03 December 2007

The former Colombian presidential candidate, Ingrid Betancourt, spoke of her “living death” as a hostage of the Farc guerrillas in a moving letter released at the weekend.

Mme Betancourt, 45, who has joint French and Colombian nationality, is one of hundreds of captives believed held by the ultra-leftist guerrillas in the Colombian jungle.

Almost six years after her capture, and four years since the last proof that she was still alive, Mme Betancourt – and three American hostages – were seen on videotapes captured by the Colombian military last week.

Europe

An idyllic Greek island becomes the new frontier for African migrants

Hazardous journeys end in small but perilous voyage from Turkey to Samos

Helena Smith in Samos

Monday December 3, 2007

The Guardian

For two days they huddled together in a bobbing dinghy, keeping close to the shore and waiting for the storm to die down. When the waters had calmed, Ali the Tunisian smuggler began to row, taking the overladen boat out into the night across the narrow straits towards Greece.

For Medhani Zegebria, who had walked from Eritrea to Sudan, flown on an illicit student visa to Turkey and been beaten and detained, this was the moment that all 12 Africans had dreamt of – the last lap on a very long journey to the Promised Land.

Turkish Cypriots favour a permanent split with south

By Jerome Taylor in northern Cyprus

Published: 03 December 2007

They were the people who, three years ago, voted overwhelmingly for a peaceful resolution to the division of their island and were rewarded by being denied entry into the European Union. Now for the first time in years, thanks to a string of broken promises by Brussels and the wider international community, the population of north Cyprus favour the permanent partition of their Mediterranean island.

According to a recent poll conducted by the self-declared Turkish Republic of North Cyprus, 60 per cent of Turkish Cypriots now favour a two-state solution that would see their population permanently separated from their Greek counterparts on the south of the island along the infamous Green Line border that carves the island in two.

Middle East

KETZIOT PRISON CAMP, Israel – Israel on Monday began releasing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in a gesture meant to strengthen moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas after the two sides’ recent agreement to try to reach a peace deal.

The release of the 429 prisoners began a day after Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel was not bound by the December 2008 target for the peace agreement set at last week’s U.S.-hosted Mideast summit in Annapolis, Md.

UK ‘failed to make Basra safe’

The UK will hand over control of Basra to Iraqi forces despite failing in its goal to establish security there, an MPs’ report is to say.

The city is dominated by militias and the police contains “murderous” and “corrupt” elements, the report added.

The whole purpose of the UK forces’ presence may be in question due to cuts, the Defence Committee suggested.

Defence secretary Des Browne said security forces in Basra had grown in ability during the past year.

Africa

Brisk business at “closed” Morocco-Algeria border

OUJDA, Morocco (Reuters) – On the last stretch of Moroccan highway before the Algerian frontier, an end-of-the- world atmosphere appears to confirm the message of travel guides and government officials: the land border to Algeria is shut.

Spacious roadside cafes once packed with travelers lie empty. Where the road ends, weeds push through wide cracks.

The only sound is the wind in the trees, the fluttering of Moroccan flags and the heels of two mustachioed border guards as they emerge from their office.

Mbeki may be forced to call election if rival wins ANC poll

· President’s critics threaten no confidence vote by MPs

· Corruption claims fail to erode Zuma’s lead in race

David Beresford and agencies in Johannesburg

Monday December 3, 2007

The Guardian

President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa may be forced to call a general election if he loses the leadership of the African National Congress to the party’s deputy president, Jacob Zuma – or face a vote of no confidence in parliament, it was reported yesterday.

The ANC will choose a new leader at the party’s conference on December 16-20. Analysts say Mbeki, who is not allowed to run for a third term as state president, wants to remain head of the ANC to influence the country’s politics and help pick his successor.

Asia

Miss World sets the tone as new China follows the line of beauty

They were forbidden for 54 years – frowned upon for their bourgeois decadence. But three years after Beijing lifted a ban on beauty pageants, China is celebrating the capture of the Miss World crown for the first time.

The coronation – on home soil – of Zhang Zilin, a 23-year-old secretary who is 6ft tall and has a degree in business administration, was greeted with widespread public delight in a country whose people have taken to such competitions with abandon. Miss Zhang’s blog received well over a million hits yesterday as congratulations poured in from cyberspace.

Sea turtles face threat from Indian ports plan

By Debabrata Mohanty

Published: 03 December 2007

One of the world’s largest sea-turtle nesting beaches is facing a double development threat from industry on India’s east coast.

A large port is planned either side of the main nesting site of the threatened Olive Ridley turtles in Orissa where up to 300,000 of the reptiles come ashore to lay their eggs every year.

The Olive Ridley, among the smallest of the world’s seven marine turtle species, is found in the tropical and subtropical waters of the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans, and swims great distances to haul itself out on to the sandy beaches of Orissa for its annual egg laying ritual.

However, over the past 13 years, more than 130,000 Olive Ridleys have been washed up dead in the area, after being caught in the nets of trawlers and gill netters. And now the species, listed as “vulnerable” by the World Conservation Union, is facing the risk of being driven from the coast completely by the proposed ports on either side of its nesting site.