Docudharma Times Tuesday January 23

This is an Open Thread: Phones Lines are now available.

Tuesday’s Headlines: Crossing Mayor Giuliani Often Had a Price: Clinton, Obama reach new level of rancor: Looking Beyond Feudal Politics in Pakistan: Humiliation for Ahmadinejad as veto is overruled: Just the ticket! Painter finds his perfect ‘canvas’ on Paris Métro

In Asia, Global Market Decline Accelerates

Amid fears that the United States may be in a recession, the decline in stock markets accelerated Tuesday morning as exchanges opened across Asia.

Markets in Tokyo, Hong Kong and Sydney all fell farther in the opening hours of trading Tuesday than they had all day on Monday. The Hong Kong market plunged another 8 percent by early afternoon after tumbling 5.49 percent on Monday. In Tokyo, the Nikkei dropped 5 percent, hitting a low not seen since September 2005 and facing its worst two-day drop in 17 years on concern global growth is faltering.

Crossing Mayor Giuliani Often Had a Price

Rudolph W. Giuliani likens himself to a boxer who never takes a punch without swinging back. As mayor, he made the vengeful roundhouse an instrument of government, clipping anyone who crossed him.

In August 1997, James Schillaci, a rough-hewn chauffeur from the Bronx, dialed Mayor Giuliani’s radio program on WABC-AM to complain about a red-light sting run by the police near the Bronx Zoo. When the call yielded no results, Mr. Schillaci turned to The Daily News, which then ran a photo of the red light and this front page headline: “GOTCHA!”

Clinton, Obama reach new level of rancor

In S.C. debate, they attack one another’s credibility as Edwards struggles to get a few words in.

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. — Their debate truce obliterated in a blizzard of recriminations, Democratic candidates for president on Monday questioned each other’s honesty and fitness for the White House in a televised confrontation notable for its nasty tone.

The harshness of their exchanges was an odd coda to a day in which the Democrats paid tribute to the nonviolent movement propelled by the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., whose birthday was celebrated Monday and in whose honor the Congressional Black Caucus Institute and CNN sponsored the two-hour session.

Asia

Looking Beyond Feudal Politics in Pakistan

Ahead of Feb. 18 Vote, Many Denounce Country’s Feeble Democratic Tradition

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — For Ishaq Khan Khakwani, a member of Pakistan’s National Assembly, the sooner people like him are out of a job, the better.

Khakwani, 58, calls himself and other lawmakers “brokers” between the people and “the oppressive arms” of the state, such as police officers and tax collectors. It is a system held over from British rule, he explained, in which politicians from powerful families act as intermediaries, often using methods such as extortion and false arrests to extract bribes for their services.

China’s celebrities ‘buy’ extra children

· Anger over wealthy breaking one-child rule

· Beijing to impose higher penalties to enforce law

Tania Branigan in Beijing

Tuesday January 22, 2008

The Guardian

Their wealth and fame buy apparently endless privilege. But celebrities’ perks do not extend to larger families, Chinese authorities have warned.

Sports people and pop stars who violate the one-child policy will face harsher fines and tarnished credit records, according to a senior family planning official.

The authorities believe the rich and famous are setting a bad example to ordinary couples – yet barely notice the financial penalties because of their wealth.

“Celebrities and wealthy people would be more heavily fined for giving birth to more than one child. The commission is still deliberating on the amount,” said the head of the municipal family planning commission, Deng Xingzhou.

Middle East

Humiliation for Ahmadinejad as veto is overruled

Robert Tait

Tuesday January 22, 2008

The Guardian

The political authority of the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, suffered a serious blow yesterday after the country’s most powerful figure, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sided with MPs by ordering him to supply cheap gas to villages suffering power cuts in an unexpectedly harsh winter.

In a humiliating rebuff, Iran’s supreme leader, who has the final say over all state matters, ordered the enactment of a law requiring the government to provide £500m-worth of gas supplies from emergency reserve funds.

Israel blames Gaza for power crisis but agrees to allow one delivery of fuel

Israel agreed under intense international pressure last night to allow a one-off delivery of fuel and medicines to Gaza to avert a humanitarian crisis.

Ehud Barak, the Defence Minister, said that he would allow the emergency shipment after the Gaza Strip’s sole remaining power plant shut down for lack of fuel and UN officials gave warning that they would be forced to stop food handouts to about a million Gazans if the total blockade, imposed last week, was not lifted.

President Mubarak of Egypt had called Mr Barak and Ehud Olmert, the Prime Minister of Israel, to urge them to end the blockade. Israel had hoped that it would force Gaza’s Islamist rulers to end the constant rocket attacks on Israeli towns close to the Palestinian territory.

Europe

Just the ticket! Painter finds his perfect ‘canvas’ on Paris Métro

By Emily Murphy in Paris

Published: 22 January 2008

You’ve heard of underground writers but Luc Grateau’s work gives the term underground artist a new meaning. Every day for three years, the artist has used old Métro tickets to create miniature portraits of fellow passengers in Paris.

Since he began the project in the autumn of 2004, Grateau, 47, a manager at a French government research organisation, has painted more than 1,000 portraits. Only once has someone got annoyed and asked him to stop. More often people are just curious.

“Every day in Paris, you see dozens of different faces but by the evening, you can’t remember any of them,” he said. “For me, it is important to try and remember.”

Grateau paints to record all those tiny moments, a look, a smile, that thousands of people fleetingly exchange every day while travelling on the Métro. “Frequently I am so absorbed in what I am doing I forget to get off,” he said.

Small traders meet force of Belarus law

Minsk Riot police barred the way to the presidential palace in Belarus, where 20 people were arrested after several thousand people marched in protest against new restrictive employment laws. Vladimir Naumov, the Interior Minister, personally grabbed some of the demonstrators.

Entrepreneurs are angry about a new law that stops small-business owners employing people who are not relatives. The law forces them to re-register as private companies which doubles their tax burden if they want to hire staff outside the family. It is the second big protest in the capital this month.

Latin America

‘Huge’ oil field found off Brazil

A huge natural gas field has been found a short distance off Rio de Janeiro’s coastline, Petrobras, Brazil’s state-controlled oil company, says.

The company believes the new field, Jupiter, could match the recently discovered Tupi oil field in size.

Tupi is thought to be one of the largest fields discovered in the past 20 years.

But Petrobras officials say further work needs to be done to establish Jupiter’s exact dimensions.

Paraguay’s ruling party confirms woman as candidate

Former Cabinet minister Blanca Ovelar faces a court challenge from a former vice president who says he was robbed of the nomination.

BUENOS AIRES — Paraguay’s long-dominant ruling party on Monday confirmed that a former Cabinet minister would be its candidate in the coming presidential election, though her nomination faced a court challenge.

If elected in the April balloting, Blanca Ovelar would become the country’s first female head of state and the third woman elected president in South America in recent years. Women now lead Argentina and Chile.

However, her chief rival for the nomination, former Vice President Luis Castiglioni, vowed to pursue his legal challenge. Their Colorado Party has dominated Paraguayan politics for six decades.

If her candidacy withstands the internal test, Ovelar will probably confront a pair of popular opposition leaders who have said they intend to challenge the Colorado Party’s hegemony in the general elections, scheduled for April 20.

Africa

Nationwide Outages Hit Zambia, Zimbabwe Almost Simultaneously

HARARE, Zimbabwe, Jan. 20 — Power outages shut down basic services across Zambia and Zimbabwe as anger mounted in South Africa over power cuts that have wreaked havoc in the continent’s economic hub.

There was no immediate explanation for the nationwide blackouts, which hit Zambia and neighboring Zimbabwe almost simultaneously early Saturday evening. It was unclear whether there was any connection.

Power was restored in Zambia about eight hours later, but long-suffering Zimbabweans remained without electricity, water, telephones and traffic signals for much of Sunday.