Docudharma Times Friday February 1

This is an Open Thread: Can you feel it coming in the air tonight

Friday’s Headlines: NFL Pulls Plug On Big-Screen Church Parties For Super Bowl: Clinton seeks to upstage Obama in Hollywood debate: Three Japanese prisoners executed:  Oscar boost for Kazakh filmmakers: Comics to teach Germans about Nazis: Iraq’s revival boosted as oil production rises to 2.4m barrels a day: Ex-SAS in ‘coup plot’ vanishes from prison : Talk of Independence in a Place Claimed by 2 Nations

Kurds’ Power Wanes as Arab Anger Rises

BAGHDAD – As a minority group in Iraq, the Kurds have enjoyed disproportionate influence in the country’s politics since the ouster of Saddam Hussein in 2003. But now their leverage appears to be declining as tensions rise with Iraqi Arabs, raising the specter of another fissure alongside the sectarian divide between Sunnis and Shiites.

The Kurds, who are mostly Sunni but not Arab, have steadfastly backed the government, most recently helping to keep it afloat when Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki lacked support from much of Parliament.

With their political acumen, close ties to the Americans and technical competence at running government agencies, the Kurds cemented a position of enormous strength. This allowed them to all but dictate terms in Iraq’s Constitution that gave them considerable regional autonomy and some significant rights in oil development.

NFL Pulls Plug On Big-Screen Church Parties For Super Bowl

For years, as many as 200 members of Immanuel Bible Church and their friends have gathered in the church’s fellowship hall to watch the Super Bowl on its six-foot screen. The party featured hard hitting on the TV, plenty of food — and prayer.

But this year, Immanuel’s Super Bowl party is no more. After a crackdown by the National Football League on big-screen Super Bowl gatherings by churches, the Springfield church has sacked its event. Instead, church members will host parties in their homes.

Immanuel is among a number of churches in the Washington area and elsewhere that have been forced to use a new playbook to satisfy the NFL, which said that airing games at churches on large-screen TV sets violates the NFL copyright.

Clinton seeks to upstage Obama in Hollywood debate

The 2 Democrats are congenial but point to differences between themselves, and the Republicans, in last debate before Super Tuesday vote.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton sought tonight to derail some of the momentum behind rival Sen. Barack Obama in their final debate heading into the coast-to-coast balloting Tuesday that could determine the Democratic presidential nomination.

Seated onstage at Hollywood’s Kodak Theatre, the two main surviving Democratic contenders struck a congenial tone as they drew distinctions not only between themselves but against whoever emerges as the Republican presidential nominee.

The debate was the first head-to-head showdown between the two since former Sen. John Edwards suspended his own campaign Wednesday, reducing the field of candidates to a historic juncture: The Democratic nominee is all but certain to be either a woman or an African American.

Asia

Three Japanese prisoners executed

Three prisoners have been executed in Japan, the authorities have announced.

The three convicted murderers were hanged at separate prisons, according to a justice ministry spokesman, who declined to give further details.

Human rights groups are critical of the secrecy surrounding executions in Japan, one of the few industrialised countries to retain the death penalty.

Names of those executed are not usually published, and relatives are only told after the hangings have taken place.

Oscar boost for Kazakh filmmakers

An Oscar nomination for a film made in Kazakhstan is allowing filmmakers there to showcase their talents – and recover from the embarrassment of the comedy film Borat, writes the BBC’s Natalia Antelava.

“I can’t wait to get to LA,” beams Gulnara Sarsenova. She straightens the extravagant sunglasses that cover half of her face and turns her attention to the film set.

It is a dark room, where two actors are rehearsing a scene from her new project, a psychological thriller about murder and love in modern day Kazakhstan.

For her home country Kazakhstan, Gulnara’s upcoming trip to Los Angeles is a huge deal.

Europe

Russia seeks extradition of shipping magnate in UK

· Oligarch accused of £250m tanker deals fraud

· Demand may worsen crisis in diplomatic relations

James Lewis, Rob Evans and David Leigh

Friday February 1, 2008

The Guardian

The Kremlin is demanding the extradition of another Russian oligarch who has fled to England, the Guardian has discovered.

Moscow claims Yuri Nikitin has swindled £250m from his country’s shipping fleet. Whitehall sources confirm that an arrest request has been sent to the home secretary in London, but has not so far been acted on.

The Russian embassy will not comment on the case and a Home Office spokesman said: “We will neither confirm or deny this.”

Comics to teach Germans about Nazis

By Tony Paterson in Berlin

Friday, 1 February 2008

Comic books land in German classrooms today to help schoolchildren learn about Hitler and the Nazi persecution of the Jews. Entitled The Search, the cartoons are similar in style to the Tin Tin books, but their subject matter includes Hitler’s rise to power and the horror of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz.

The comic strip has been produced by the Dutch-based Anne Frank Centre, and relies heavily on drawings by the Dutch artist, Eric Heuvel. It will be used during history lessons for pupils aged 13 to 16 in Berlin and the state of North Rhine Westphalia from today, the end of the week that marked the 75th anniversary of the Nazi Party gaining power.

The comic tells the story of a fictional Jewish family called Hecht who initially think: “Nobody will vote for the Nazis because they talk such rubbish.” Their story begins in 2007 with Esther Hecht telling her grandson Daniel of her parents’ arrest by the Nazis at the beginning of the Second World War and their subsequent deportation to Auschwitz with a neighbour called Bob.

Middle East

Iraq’s revival boosted as oil production rises to 2.4m barrels a day

Oil production in Iraq is at its highest level since the US-led invasion of 2003, reaching 2.4 million barrels a day, thanks largely to improved security measures in the north.

The country’s Oil Ministry will shortly invite international oil companies to bid for contracts to help Iraq to boost output at its investment-starved “super-giant” oilfields. Production is expected to pass the prewar level of 2.6 million barrels by the end of the year, and Hussain al-Shahristani, the Iraqi Oil Minister, told The Times that he expected production to reach six million barrels a day within four years.

The International Monetary Fund predicts that Iraq’s economy, boosted by rising oil revenues, will grow by more than 7 per cent this year, compared with 1.3 per cent last year.

Bomb kills 14 at pet market in Baghdad

BAGHDAD – A bomb struck a popular pet market in central Baghdad on Friday, killing at least 14 civilians and wounding nearly two dozen, police said.

The blast occurred about 10:20 a.m. as the al-Ghazl market was crowded with shoppers during the weekly bazaar.

Police and hospital officials said 14 people were killed and 22 were wounded, making it the deadliest bombing in the capital in weeks.

The market, which has recently re-emerged as a popular venue as security has improved, has been struck several times since the war started.

Africa

Ex-SAS in ‘coup plot’ vanishes from prison

A former SAS officer accused of planning a failed coup in West Africa has disappeared from Zimbabwe’s maximum security prison. Fears were growing last night over the fate of Simon Mann.

The Old Etonian had lost an appeal against extradition to the West African state of Equatorial Guinea, the oil-rich dictatorship which accuses him of recruiting mercenaries to overthrow its president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema.

Mann was jailed in Zimbabwe in 2004 when 67 mercenaries arrived in Harare on a Boeing 727, allegedly en route to Equatorial Guinea. Mann, who met the group at Harare airport, served four years for trying to buy illegal weapons, allegedly for the operation.

Israeli embassy in Mauritania attacked

NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania – At least one gunman opened fire on the Israeli Embassy in Mauritania Friday, setting off a battle with guards that wounded one person, according to Israeli officials and witnesses.

The Israeli ambassador to the northwest African nation said the wounded person was a Mauritanian who lived nearby and no embassy employees were hurt.

Two witnesses told The Associated Press that the attack had been carried out by a group of men who shouted “God is Great!” in Arabic before opening fire on the embassy around 2 a.m.

Mauritanian officials issued no immediate comment.

Latin America

Talk of Independence in a Place Claimed by 2 Nations

SAN ANDRÉS, Colombia – Down the road from a neighborhood here called the Hill, where reggae blares out of weathered houses and parishioners sing hymns in English at the First Baptist Church, President Álvaro Uribe recently inaugurated a hospital with a decidedly Colombian name: Amor de Patria.

That translates as “Love of the Fatherland” for the English-speaking descendants of African slaves who inhabit this Caribbean archipelago, as if they needed a sharp reminder that they must be loyal to distant Bogotá.

But many Raizals, as the English speakers here are known, feel loyalty neither to Colombia, a Bush administration ally, nor to Nicaragua, a supporter of President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. Nicaragua has claimed San Andrés in a bitter territorial dispute, and while the two countries press their cases, a nonviolent separatist movement is growing increasingly vocal here.