Docudharma Times Tuesday January 8

This is an Open Thread: Welcome to Dixville Notch

Headlines For Tuesday: Their last bids for the first primary: Violent Crime Down In First Half of 2007: New Leaders Of Sunnis Make Gains In Influence: German rail operator attacked over track fees for ‘Holocaust train’

Justices Weigh Injection Issue for Death Row

With conservative justices questioning their motives and liberal justices questioning their evidence, opponents of the American manner of capital punishment made little headway Monday in their effort to persuade the Supreme Court that the Constitution requires states to change the way they carry out executions by lethal injection.

Donald B. Verrilli Jr., the lawyer for two inmates on Kentucky’s death row who are facing execution by the commonly used three-chemical protocol, conceded that theoretically his clients would have no case if the first drug, a barbiturate used for anesthesia, could be guaranteed to work perfectly by inducing deep unconsciousness.

Their last bids for the first primary

Candidates show wear and tear in the push to stay alive in New Hampshire. A record turnout is expected.

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Hillary Rodham Clinton choked up. Barack Obama flubbed his lines. Even Chuck Norris, Mike Huckabee’s action-star sidekick, was laid low.

Fatigue, tension and, for some, the prospect of harsh judgment weighed heavily on White House hopefuls — and their supporters — as they churned across New Hampshire in a final burst of campaigning before today’s first-in-the-nation primary.

A record turnout of more than 500,000 voters, many of them independents, was expected, reflecting the hard-fought nature of the Democratic and Republican races, and New Hampshire’s pride in its traditional role in culling the field of contenders.

Violent Crime Down In First Half of 2007

Two-Year Increase May Have Ended

Tuesday, January 8, 2008; Page A02

The number of violent crimes reported nationwide appears to have fallen modestly in the first half of 2007, signaling the first notable decline in violence in two years, the FBI said yesterday.

Violent crimes including homicides, robberies and assaults fell 1.8 percent in January to June of last year compared with the same period in 2006, according to the preliminary FBI statistics.

The largest declines were in the Northeast and in cities with more than 250,000 residents, while crime in rural areas and cities with fewer than 25,000 residents increased 1.1 percent. The number of homicides in suburbs rose by 5 percent.

Middle East

New Leaders Of Sunnis Make Gains In Influence

U.S.-Backed Fighters Find Empowering Role

MADERIYAH, Iraq — Saad Mahami wanted more firepower. He didn’t trust the Iraqi government to give him support, so inside Patrol Base Whiskey, at the edge of this village south of Baghdad, he told U.S. commanders that his 71 Sunni fighters needed additional weapons to fight the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq.

As he listened to Mahami’s demand, Capt. David Underwood reminded his superiors that Mahami’s men — all members of a U.S.-backed Sunni paramilitary movement called Sahwa, or “Awakening” — were already buying arms with U.S. reward money for finding enemy ammunition dumps.

Leaders prepare for key Bush tour

Israeli and Palestinian leaders are set to meet in Jerusalem to try to ease problems in the Mid-East peace process ahead of the US president’s key tour.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli PM Ehud Olmert had vowed at a US summit last year to try to achieve a two-state solution by the end of 2008.

But conflict over Israeli settlements and security have soured the process.

Afica

Kenya diplomatic moves intensify

The chairman of the African Union is due to arrive in Kenya as diplomatic moves to try to end the country’s political crisis intensify.

John Kufuor, also Ghana’s president, will try to help resolve divisions that erupted after the disputed victory of President Mwai Kibaki in elections.

Opposition head Raila Odinga has said he would only talk with President Kibaki if Mr Kufuor mediated.

Kenyan president invites rival to face-to-face talks on disputed poll

By Steve Bloomfield in Nairobi

Published: 08 January 2008

Kenya’s President Mwai Kibaki extended an olive branch to the opposition leader Raila Odinga last night, inviting him to face-to-face talks about the disputed election result which has plunged the country in chaos.

His offer of negotiations this Friday about how to stop the violence, consolidate peace and forge “national reconciliation” came as the senior US official for Africa acknowledged that Kenyans had been cheated by their leaders, but urged them to “haul themselves back from the brink”.

Jendayi Frazer, who has spent three days meeting the two rivals in Nairobi, pointedly refused to recognise the disputed re-election of Mr Kibaki, which has sparked violent clashes across the country and left the Kenyan people reeling. “They have been cheated by their leadership and their institutions,” said Ms Frazer. “The political leaders have to stop the violence and they have to reform the institutions.”

Europe

Prodi under pressure as army moves in to clear Naples trash

By John Phillips in Rome

Published: 08 January 2008

Soldiers were deployed to clear piles of rubbish outside schools in the Naples area yesterday as protests flared over months of failure to collect rotting refuse. Italian Army engineering units were called in to carry out the refuse clearance in Caserta on the outskirts of the chaotic city in the south of the country so pupils could resume classes. “The schools must reopen,” said the Italian prime minister, Romano Prodi.

The EU Environment Commissioner last week warned Rome that Brussels would impose sanctions on Italy if the Government does not resolve the crisis.

German rail operator attacked over track fees for ‘Holocaust train’

By Tony Paterson in Berlin

Published: 08 January 2008

The organisers of a rolling train exhibition about the Holocaust are embroiled in a furious row with Germany’s national rail company because the state-owned network is charging the exhibitors tens of thousands of euros to use its system.

The Train of Memory, a vintage steam-engine pulling two coaches containing photographs and biographies of child Holocaust victims, began a 1,864-mile educational tour of Germany last November and is scheduled to reach the Auschwitz death camp in Poland in early May. The demand by Deutsche Bahn, the state rail company, and the Ministry of Transport for toll fees is especially controversial for Deutsche Bahn, the successor to the Deutsche Reichsbahn, which willingly collaborated with the Nazi regime and sent millions to their deaths by rail during the Holocaust.

Asia

Tribal killings shatter hopes for ceasefire

Jeremy Page in Islamabad

Suspected Islamist militants shot dead eight tribal leaders in coordinated attacks just hours before they were due to discuss a planned ceasefire between Pakistan’s security forces and al-Qaeda and Taleban insurgents near the border with Afghanistan.

The killings took place yesterday morning and on Sunday night in the mountainous region of South Waziristan, home to Baitullah Mehsud, the Pakistani Taleban leader who has been blamed by the Government for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto last month.

There are now fears that fighting could worsen in northwestern Pakistan, after the expiry of a militant deadline and the resignation on Saturday of a leading local official who had long advocated a negotiated solution. While not explicitly blaming Mr Mehsud for the latest killings, the Pakistani Government announced yesterday that it was preparing to launch a big offensive against him.

Sri Lankan minister dies in blast

A Sri Lankan minister, DM Dassanayake, has died in hospital after his convoy was hit by a powerful roadside blast near the capital, doctors said.

The minister for nation-building was in a convoy between Colombo and the international airport when the bomb went off. Seven others were wounded.

The blast, in Ja-Ela town, 12 miles (19kms) north of Colombo, has been blamed on the Tamil Tiger rebels.

Latin America

Colombia rejects foreign missions

The Colombian government said it will not accept any more international commissions like that set up last month by President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

Mr Chavez had launched an operation to receive three of the 46 hostages held by the Farc rebels.

In the end the Farc did not free the hostages because one of them, a three-year-old boy called Emmanuel, was found to be in a foster home instead.

The government seized on this to resume control in dealings with the Farc.