Merry Christmas From Docudharma

Let’s Open Our Presents

Headlines For December 25: A School in Georgia as a Laboratory for Getting Along: Alaskans Weigh the Cost of Gold: Court curbs insurers’ ability to rescind medical policies: Italy seeks Condor plot suspects: At Christmas, Iraqi Christians Ask for Forgiveness, and for Peace

USA

A School in Georgia as a Laboratory for Getting Along

DECATUR, Ga. – Parents at an elementary school here gathered last Thursday afternoon with a holiday mission: to prepare boxes of food for needy families fleeing some of the world’s horrific civil wars.

The community effort to help refugees resembled countless others at this time of year, with an exception. The recipients were not many thousands of miles away. They were students in the school and their families.

More than half the 380 students at this unusual school outside Atlanta are refugees from some 40 countries, many torn by war. The other students come from low-income families in Decatur, and from middle- and upper-middle-class families in the area who want to expose their children to other cultures. Together they form an eclectic community of Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews and Muslims, well-off and poor, of established local families and new arrivals who collectively speak about 50 languages.

Alaskans Weigh the Cost of Gold

Mine Could Imperil Salmon, Way of Life

NONDALTON, Alaska — The gold mine proposed for this stunning open country might be the largest in North America. It would involve building the biggest dam in the world at the headwaters of the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery, which it would risk obliterating.

Epic even by Alaskan standards, the planned Pebble Mine has divided a state normally enthusiastic about extracting whatever value can be found in its wide-open spaces. It is an ambivalence that has upended traditional politics, divided families and come to rest at kitchen tables like the one 75-year-old Olga Balluta sat beside one autumn afternoon, listing her favorite foods.

Court curbs insurers’ ability to rescind medical policies

A ruling restricts the ability of California health plans to cancel coverage after patients run up medical bills.

California health insurers have a duty to check the accuracy of applications for coverage before issuing policies — and should not wait until patients run up big medical bills, a state appeals court ruled Monday.

The court also said insurers could not cancel a medical policy unless they showed that the policyholder willfully misrepresented his health or that the company had investigated the application before it issued coverage.

The unanimous decision by a panel of the 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana is the latest blow to California insurance companies and the way they handle policy cancellations after patients get sick and amass major medical claims.

Europe

Italy seeks Condor plot suspects

Prosecutors in Italy have issued arrest warrants for 140 people over a decades-old plot by South American dictatorships called Operation Condor.

One man – 60-year-old Uruguayan former naval intelligence officer Nestor Jorge Fernandez Troccoli – has already been arrested in Salerno, south Italy.

Under Operation Condor, six governments worked together from the 1970s to hunt down and kill left-wing opponents.

Italian authorities have been looking into the plot since the late 1990s.

Pope’s Midnight Mass ushers in Christmas

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI urged the faithful to set aside time in their lives for God and the needy, as he ushered in Christmas early Tuesday by celebrating Midnight Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica.

Echoing a theme he has raised about an increasingly secular world, Benedict said that many people act as if there is no room for spiritual matters in their lives.

“Man is so preoccupied with himself, he has such urgent need of all the space and all the time for his own things, that nothing remains for others, for his neighbor, for the poor, for God,” he said.

Benedict also use the homily to link the Christmas message to the church’s growing environmental concerns, referring to early theologians who interpreted Christ’s role as also a healer of the Earth and universe.

Latin America

Raul Castro says Fidel ready for new bid

HAVANA – Raul Castro said Monday that Communist Party leaders support his brother Fidel’s re-election to parliament, saying he is exercising two hours daily and gaining weight while keeping his mind healthy with reading and writing.

A seat in parliament is the first step in a process that would allow Fidel to retain his post atop the Council of State, Cuba’s supreme governing body.

Communist Party leaders “defend him running again” Raul Castro said of his brother’s candidacy for re-election to the Cuba’s National Assembly, or parliament, on Jan. 20.

Last week, the 81-year-old Fidel Castro suggested he would not cling to power forever, nor stand in the way of a younger generations. He hinted at his political future for the first time since emergency intestinal surgery forced him to cede power to a “provisional” government headed by Raul in July 2006.

Surf’s Up, and So Is the Crime Rate on Baja’s Beaches

By MARC LACEY

Published: December 25, 2007

ROSARITO, Mexico – Surfers talk endlessly about waves – their size, their intensity, their roll. And crime waves are no exception.

In surf shops, on bluffs and even out in the ocean while waiting for the water to crest, Baja California’s surfers have been rehashing a series of recent armed attacks on foreigners, many of whom had been frequenting the beaches here just south of Tijuana for years.

“It’s all we talk about,” said Doug Wampler, 55, who has surfed Baja’s waves since 1967. “We analyze each incident and we wonder if we’re going to be next.”

Pat Weber, 47, who runs the San Diego Surfing Academy, was attacked by two armed men in ski masks while camping with his girlfriend on Oct. 23 on a remote bluff near here. They fired shots at his camper to get them out, then put a gun to his head, sexually assaulted his girlfriend and made away with his laptop, camera equipment and cash.

Asia

Bangladesh workers claim abuse in Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) – More than 200 Bangladeshi migrant workers who claim their employers underpaid and abused them have sought refuge outside their country’s embassy in Malaysia, an envoy said.

The Bangladesh high commission has turned a section of its mission into a temporary shelter for some of the 225 workers but most of them have been sheltering on the pavement since early December due to a lack of space inside.

“Out of sympathy we have provided them a place to stay but we can only accommodate so much,” a senior Bangladeshi envoy told AFP on condition of anonymity.

“We are trying our best to get the workers and employers to reach consensus but it’s difficult because both sides have different views on the matter,” he added.

Heirs of China’s New Elites Schooled in Ancient Values

By Maureen Fan

Washington Post Foreign Service

Tuesday, December 25, 2007; Page A01

CIXI, China — In a borrowed classroom of the provincial Communist Party School, a newly busy philosophy professor addressed 15 well-groomed adult students. His message: Try to have a soul.

“In China, if you are only rich, people will not respect you. You also need good manners, an outgoing personality and good morals,” said Zhang Yinghang of Zhejiang University, a professor increasingly in demand on the lecture circuit. “This is what rich children in China lack.”

Africa

Tribalism Isn’t on the Ballot, But in Kenya It’s Key Issue

Presidential Election Is Most Competitive Since Independence

By Stephanie McCrummen

Washington Post Foreign Service

Tuesday, December 25, 2007; Page A16

NAKURU, Kenya — Along a crowded sidewalk in this city, Esther Thuo and a friend were discussing their choices in Kenya’s upcoming presidential election.

Thuo, a young professional, said she’d vote to keep President Mwai Kibaki in power — “Let him finish the job,” she was saying, when a street vendor began heckling her.

“You’re supporting him because you’re Kikuyu” — Kibaki’s tribe, Peter Ambobo said.

Middle East

At Christmas, Iraqi Christians Ask for Forgiveness, and for Peace

BAGHDAD – Inside the beige church guarded by the men with the AK-47s, a choir sang Christmas songs in Arabic. An old woman in black closed her eyes while a girl in a cherry-red dress, with tights and shoes to match, craned her neck toward rows of empty pews near the back.

“Last year it was full,” said Yusef Hanna, a parishioner. “So many people have left – gone up north, or out of the country.”

Sacred Heart Church is not Iraq’s largest or most beleaguered Christian congregation. It is as ordinary as its steeple is squat, in one of Baghdad’s safest neighborhoods, with a small school next door.