Docudharma Times Tuesday January 15

This is an Open Thread: No International Borders Here

Tuesday’s Headlines: FDA Says Clones Are Safe For Food: Race enters the Democratic fray: Nigeria takes on big tobacco over campaigns that target the young: Barenboim becomes first to hold Israeli and Palestinian passports: Road hell: mind the cows!

Iraq Defense Minister Sees Need for U.S. Security Help Until 2018

FORT MONROE, Va. – The Iraqi defense minister said Monday that his nation would not be able to take full responsibility for its internal security until 2012, nor be able on its own to defend Iraq’s borders from external threat until at least 2018.

Those comments from the minister, Abdul Qadir, were among the most specific public projections of a timeline for the American commitment in Iraq by officials in either Washington or Baghdad. And they suggested a longer commitment than either government had previously indicated.

Pentagon officials expressed no surprise at Mr. Qadir’s projections, which were even less optimistic than those he made last year.

Militants Escape Control of Pakistan, Officials Say

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Pakistan’s premier military intelligence agency has lost control of some of the networks of Pakistani militants it has nurtured since the 1980s, and is now suffering the violent blowback of that policy, two former senior intelligence officials and other officials close to the agency say.

As the military has moved against them, the militants have turned on their former handlers, the officials said. Joining with other extremist groups, they have battled Pakistani security forces and helped militants carry out a record number of suicide attacks last year, including some aimed directly at army and intelligence units as well as prominent political figures, possibly even Benazir Bhutto.

USA

FDA Says Clones Are Safe For Food

Report Finds No Evidence of Risks

A long-awaited final report from the Food and Drug Administration concludes that foods from healthy cloned animals and their offspring are as safe as those from ordinary animals, effectively removing the last U.S. regulatory barrier to the marketing of meat and milk from cloned cattle, pigs and goats.

The 968-page “final risk assessment,” not yet released but obtained by The Washington Post, finds no evidence to support opponents’ concerns that food from clones may harbor hidden risks.

But, recognizing that a majority of consumers are wary of food from clones — and that cloning could undermine the wholesome image of American milk and meat — the agency report includes hundreds of pages of raw data so that others can see how it came to its conclusions.

Race enters the Democratic fray

Voters disagree over whether Clinton meant to target Obama with racially charged comments, but say the matter was bound to come up sometime.

ATLANTA — Jarvis Jenkins and Kytu Ivory are two black voters with two very different ideas about the racial tensions that have flared between presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Jenkins, a transit system worker, was not offended by Clinton’s recent comment that “it took a president” to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — a remark that some critics have found disrespectful toward the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Ivory, however, thinks that those words are part of a concerted effort by Clinton to inject race into the campaign.

But like many other African American voters here, the men could agree on one thing: In a presidential contest featuring perhaps the most viable black candidate in history, it was inevitable that race would emerge. It was just a matter of time.

Africa

Nigeria takes on big tobacco over campaigns that target the young

Developing world’s first such case seeks £22bn from three cigarette firms

Chris McGreal, Africa correspondent

Tuesday January 15, 2008

The Guardian

The Nigerian government has launched a £22bn lawsuit against three multinational cigarette manufacturers it accuses of trying to hook young Africans on tobacco, to replenish a market that is dwindling in the west.

The first legal case of its kind against big tobacco in the developing world opened at Abuja’s high court yesterday. The government is seeking the multi-billion pound damages from British American Tobacco (BAT), Philip Morris and International Tobacco Ltd over what anti-smoking activists in Nigeria have characterised as a cynical disregard for young African lives through strategies seeking to glamorise cigarettes in ways that are now banned in Europe.

John Simpson: The abject poverty in a country where everyone is a millionaire

Travelling undercover, the BBC’s World Affairs Editor, discovers a nation running out of patience with Robert Mugabe

Published: 15 January 2008

In Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, everyone is a millionaire. You have to be: a loaf of bread costs a million Zimbabwe dollars, a newspaper costs two million, and a decent joint of beef costs a hundred million. The only problem is that the average wage is 20 million dollars a month. They’re called Mugabe dollars and it isn’t a term of affection.

Everyone queues here: in the supermarkets, at the petrol stations and in the banks, in order to draw out the money to buy anything. Inflation is so high that items which cost a mere20 million dollars yesterday are likely to cost double that by tomorrow. For some reason, the government refuses to print million-dollar notes; perhaps it thinks it would look bad. The highest note is for 750,000 dollars, and doing the maths is horrendous.

Middle East

Barenboim becomes first to hold Israeli and Palestinian passports

The Israeli pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim has been granted Palestinian citizenship for his work in promoting cultural exchange between young people in Israel and the Arab world.

The Argentine-born musician is believed to be the first person in the world to possess both Israeli and Palestinian passports after receiving his new documentation at the end of a piano recital in Ramallah in the West Bank at the weekend.

“Under the most difficult circumstances he has shown solidarity with the Palestinian people,” Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian MP and presidential candidate, said at the recital held to raise money for medical aid for children in the Gaza Strip.

George Bush offers allies $20bn of arms to counter Iran

President Bush backed his political rhetoric against Iran yesterday with the promise of a $20 billion arms deal to boost the military clout of Washington’s key allies in the Gulf.

The deal, which could still be blocked by Congress, would see weapons, including Patriot missiles and precision-guided bombs, parcelled out to Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, to counter Iran. The announcement was timed to coincide with Mr Bush’s arrival in Riyadh, where he sought further support from King Abdullah for his continuing campaign against the Islamic Republic.

Europe

UK defies Russian order to shut British Council offices

Luke Harding in Moscow

Tuesday January 15, 2008

The Guardian

Russia and Britain were last night locked in a standoff over the future of the British Council after Britain defied an order from the Kremlin to close down the council’s regional offices.

The council’s St Petersburg branch reopened yesterday following the Christmas and new year break, despite an edict from Russia’s foreign ministry ordering it to cease operations from January 1.

The Kremlin reacted swiftly and angrily. It dubbed the British move a “deliberate provocation” and summoned Britain’s ambassador in Moscow, Tony Brenton, to the foreign ministry for a rare public dressing down. It promised further measures against the government-funded cultural organisation, and said that Britain was wholly to blame for harming relations between London and Moscow.

Guggenheim lost £4.5m in art sale

The authorities at Bilbao’s Guggenheim Museum are facing intense criticism over the botched purchase of a sculpture by Richard Serra that cost millions in public money.

Instead of paying for the work in euros, the Guggenheim Foundation and the Tenedora Museum Modern of Contemporary Art decided to pay in dollars. The only problem was the bad exchange rate meant they lost more than ¿6m (£4.5m).

Asia

Road hell: mind the cows!

Driving in Delhi is a hazardous experience – and that’s before the city’s roads are invaded by the cut-price Tata Nano. Andrew Buncombe takes his life into his hands behind the wheel

Published: 15 January 2008

“Not too fast. Mind the cows,” says the instructor, trying to remain calm. “Yes, there are lots of cows in India.”

We edge around the half-dozen hump-backed creatures merrily eating the contents of an overflowing rubbish skip. The wheels rattle, the car shakes. We pass a handful of shop-fronts, stray dogs and children before turning into what seems like an impossibly narrow back street. Surely we’re not going to drive down there? “It’s very narrow, very slowly,” the instructor says unnecessarily. “Now go straight.”

In India, driving is not for the faint-hearted. The roads are crowded and cluttered and filled with a rare energy. There is noise and dust and heat and honking and pushing. Barely anyone obeys either the traffic rules or else the most basic rules of common sense as they jostle for position. Sometimes it feels like Rollerball, the futuristic, full-contact “sport” that gave its name to the 1975 movie starring James Caan. Frankly, it is terrifying.

Samsung Group headquarters raided

SEOUL, South Korea – Special prosecutors raided the headquarters of Samsung Group on Tuesday in a widening probe into allegations that the massive conglomerate set up a slush fund to bribe influential figures.

The raid, which occurred in the same building where global technology giant Samsung Electronics, the flagship of the conglomerate, has its Seoul offices, came a day after investigators searched an office of Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee and seven other locations.

As the raid was occurring, Samsung Electronics said net profit in the fourth quarter fell 6.6 percent from a year ago amid sharp declines in prices for computer memory chips. That was a smaller drop than expected, and investors – apparently unfazed by news of the raid – sent the company’s stock as much as 3 percent higher.

Yim Jun-seok, a Samsung spokesman, confirmed that investigators entered the strategic planning office at the conglomerate’s headquarters in Seoul. He provided no details. Investigators could not immediately be reached for comment.

Latin America

Guatemala president takes oath of office

At his inauguration, leftist Alvaro Colom pledges to work to alleviate poverty.

GUATEMALA CITY — Alvaro Colom was sworn in Monday as Guatemala’s first leftist president in more than 50 years, promising to fight poverty in a nation where half the people live on less than $1 a day.

Colom, who led Guatemala’s efforts to coax thousands of war refugees back home after its civil war ended in 1996, took office in a ceremony attended by world leaders including Presidents Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Alvaro Uribe of Colombia, who recently clashed over a hostage-release mission.

“Today is the beginning of privileges for the poor, the beginning of privileges for those without opportunities,” Colom, 56, said after receiving the presidential sash to the tune of traditional Maya music.

Despite his ideology, Colom said he doesn’t want to be identified with other leftist governments in Latin America, including that of Chavez.