Docudharma Times Thursday Dec. 6

This is an Open Thread: Please Come Inside

Headlines for Thursday December 7:As N.H. Primary Nears, Clinton Clings to Narrow : Details in Military Notes Led to Shift on Iran, U.S. Says: U.S. military brass in Iraq resist quick drawdown : Japan’s Bloggers: Humble Giants of the Web

USA

Top U.S. military brass in Iraq resist quick drawdown

Commanders fear recent gains would be lost. The Pentagon, meanwhile, turns up pressure to bring more troops home.

By Peter Spiegel and Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

December 6, 2007

BAGHDAD — The U.S. military’s internal debate over how fast to reduce its force in Iraq has intensified in recent weeks as commanders in Baghdad resist suggestions from Pentagon officials for a quicker drawdown.

Army Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the day-to-day military commander in Iraq, said he was worried that significant improvements in security conditions would sway policymakers to move too quickly to pull out troops next year.

“The most important thing to me is we cannot lose what we have gained,” Odierno said in an interview last week with The Times after he toured Nahrawan, a predominantly Shiite city of about 100,000 northeast of Baghdad with a market that is now showing signs of life. “We won’t do that.”

Details in Military Notes Led to Shift on Iran, U.S. Says

WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 – American intelligence agencies reversed their view about the status of Iran’s nuclear weapons program after they obtained notes last summer from the deliberations of Iranian military officials involved in the weapons development program, senior intelligence and government officials said on Wednesday.

The notes included conversations and deliberations in which some of the military officials complained bitterly about what they termed a decision by their superiors in late 2003 to shut down a complex engineering effort to design nuclear weapons, including a warhead that could fit atop Iranian missiles.

As N.H. Primary Nears, Clinton Clings to Narrow Lead

By Dan Balz and Jon Cohen

Washington Post Staff Writers

Thursday, December 6, 2007; Page A01

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton holds a narrow lead over Sen. Barack Obama among Democratic presidential candidates in New Hampshire, a state whose primary her campaign has viewed as a potential firewall should she stumble in the Iowa caucuses, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Clinton is widely seen as the party’s best experienced and most electable presidential candidate, but with most Democratic voters in the state looking for a fresh approach to governing, the first-in-the-nation primary has become fiercely competitive.

Asia

Japan’s Bloggers: Humble Giants of the Web

By Blaine Harden

Washington Post Foreign Service

Thursday, December 6, 2007; Page A01

TOKYO — Compared to the English-speaking world, the Japanese have gone blog wild. They write Web logs at per capita rates that are off the global charts.

Although English speakers outnumber Japanese speakers by more than 5-1, slightly more blog postings are written in Japanese than in English, according to Technorati, the Internet search engine that monitors the blogosphere.

By some estimates, as much as 40 percent of Japanese blogging is done on mobile phones, often by commuters staring cross-eyed at tiny screens for hours as they ride the world’s most extensive network of subways and commuter trains.

India tests interceptor missile: officials

BHUBANESWAR, India (AFP) – India staged a successful missile intercept test over the Bay of Bengal Thursday after thousands of people were evacuated ahead of the exercise, a defence official said.

The Advanced Air Defence (AAD) missile intercepted a modified version of the surface-to-surface Prithvi-1 (earth-1) missile, said a defence official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The test was successful,” said another defence official associated with the test.

The weapons were fired from the Chandipur-on-Sea and Wheeler Island testing sites in eastern Orissa state.

Middle East

Iraq food ration system could get cut

BAGHDAD – Food rations might have to be cut due to a lack of budget funds, the trade minister said, warning such a move would pose hardship for the majority of Iraqis who depend heavily on the Saddam Hussein-era program.

The comments by Trade Minister Abed Falah al-Sudani came as critics have called for the costly system to be revised or eliminated. Two-thirds of the some 26 million Iraqis rely on the rations, al-Sudani said.

“Any change in the ration items will create new problems that will add new burdens on families,” al-Sudani said in a statement Wednesday.

Report on Iran fuels Arab fears

Some analysts say Tehran may feel free to interfere in the Mideast, but a few are relieved that chances of a U.S. attack have dimmed.

By Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

December 6, 2007

CAIRO — The dwindling possibility of a U.S. attack on Iran is changing the dynamics of Middle East politics and raising Arab concern that Tehran may now feel emboldened to strengthen its military, increase its support for Islamic radicals and exert more influence in the region’s troubled countries.

Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations opposed military action against Iran’s nuclear program. But, analysts said, those governments were privately relieved that U.S. threats helped to further preoccupy Tehran, which had irritated much of the Arab world with its deep involvement in the politics of Iraq and Lebanon and support for the radical Palestinian group Hamas.

Europe

‘Eta attack’ kills second officer

A second Spanish policeman has died after being shot during a surveillance operation on suspected members of the Basque separatist group, Eta.

Fernando Trapero, 23, had been in a coma since he was shot on Saturday in the French resort town of Capbreton.

His colleague, Raul Centeno, died immediately in the same attack. Thousands of Spaniards marched in Madrid on Tuesday to denounce Eta.

A Dead Man Has Some Explaining to Do

LONDON, Dec. 5 – John Darwin was declared dead some four and a half years ago, so it was a surprise when he walked into a police station here on Saturday, claiming to have no idea what he had been doing all this time.

It seemed heartwarming, if peculiar. Mr. Darwin’s children said they were delighted. His wife, Anne, who, oddly enough, moved to Panama City six weeks ago, said, “It was the moment I’ve always prayed for,” and speculated that perhaps her husband had lost his memory from hitting his head in the supposed canoeing accident in 2002 in which he supposedly drowned.

Latin America

In Mexico’s drug trade, no glitter for grunts

Héctor Tobar / Los Angeles Times

SIBLING REMEMBERED: Arely Montoya of Guamuchil, Mexico, holds her brother’s ID card from his job as a hospital security guard. Jose Alan Montoya was later recruited to work for drug traffickers and was kiled by army troops.

Despite being portrayed as hip gunslingers, the unskilled workers who toil for traffickers are an expendable lot who often die in obscurity.

By Héctor Tobar and Cecilia Sánchez, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

December 6, 2007

GUAMUCHIL, MEXICO — Jose alan montoya died far from the beloved roosters he raised on his patio, far from the tortilla shop his mother ran, far from the people who still weep for a man gunned down on a marijuana plantation in the mountains of Michoacan.

Chávez Turns Bitter Over His Defeat in Referendum

Foes of Amending Charter Have ‘Nothing to Celebrate’

By Juan Forero

Washington Post Foreign Service

Thursday, December 6, 2007; Page A20

BOGOTA, Colombia, Dec. 5 — Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez on Wednesday used a four-letter expletive to dismiss the opposition victory in Sunday’s referendum and pledged to press forward with plans to approve constitutional changes that would expand his power in one of the world’s leading oil producing-countries.

Chávez’s remarks, made on television programs broadcast in Venezuela, represent a sharp turn from his magnanimous comments Monday after voters narrowly blocked 69 constitutional changes in a national vote. It was the opposition’s first electoral victory since Chávez first won office in a landslide election in 1998.

Africa

South Africa ANC member wants conference stopped: paper

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – A member of South Africa’s ruling ANC has launched a legal bid to postpone the party’s conference this month, citing divisions over its leadership and breaches of the bill of rights, local media said on Thursday.

Infighting between supporters of President Thabo Mbeki and his party deputy Jacob Zuma ahead of the Dec 16-20 ANC conference has opened the worst splits in the history of a party whose strength was long based on discipline and unity.

The Star newspaper said lawyer and ANC member Votani Majola would seek an interdict at the Johannesburg High Court on Thursday to stop the Dec 16-20 conference because “the playing fields are not level.”