This is an Open Thread:
Once I used to join in
Every boy and girl was my friend.
Now theres revolution, but they dont know
What theyre fighting.
USDA Orders Largest Meat Recall in U.S. History
The Agriculture Department has ordered the largest meat recall in its history — 143 million pounds of beef, a California meatpacker’s entire production for the past two years — because the company did not prevent ailing animals from entering the U.S. food supply, officials said yesterday.Despite the breadth of the sanction, USDA officials underscored their belief that the meat, distributed by Westland Meat, poses little or no hazard to consumers, and that most of it was eaten long ago.
The recall comes less than three weeks after the release of a videotape showing what the USDA later called “egregious violations” of federal animal care regulations by employees of a Westland partner, Hallmark Meat Packing in Chino.
USA
Obama seeks to turn table in Ohio, Texas
Latinos and blue-collar whites, two mainstays of Clinton support, are being aggressively courted in crucial primary states.
BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS — With the Democratic presidential race about to enter another crucial phase of voting, Barack Obama has launched a newly aggressive strategy to undermine two pillars of support for rival Hillary Rodham Clinton: Latinos and working-class white voters.Each is an important constituency in major March 4 primaries — Latinos in Texas and blue-collar workers in Ohio — which many believe Clinton must win to keep her White House hopes alive.
In Ohio, Obama backers are courting local union leaders and members with promises that the Illinois senator will change U.S. trade policies enacted by Clinton’s husband, and which the unions blame for severe job losses.
Did politics trump law in case of polluting Canadian smelter?
WASHINGTON – Though the dumping stopped more than a dozen years ago, no one is sure who will clean up the 26 billion pounds of hazardous waste from a Canadian smelter that has turned the reservoir behind Grand Coulee Dam into an environmental nightmare.The dispute has plowed new legal ground and threatened cross-border retaliation. It also prompted a heated clash between federal regulators in Seattle and Environmental Protection Agency and Justice Department lawyers in Washington, D.C., amid allegations of interference by political appointees with ties to the mining industry.
Asia
Pakistanis vote in tense election
People in Pakistan are voting in a crucial election overshadowed by political violence and fears of fraud.The parliamentary poll was delayed after the killing of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, and is intended to complete a transition to civilian rule.
The two major opposition parties say President Pervez Musharraf’s allies are planning massive fraud. They have vowed to protest if they suspect foul play.
The worst act of pre-poll violence saw 47 killed at a rally on Saturday.
Attack kills 82 in the worst atrocity since fall of Taliban
By Kim Senguptain Gereshk
Monday, 18 February 2008The carnage was savage even by the bloody standards of the spiralling and vicious violence in Afghanistan. More than 80 people watching a dog fight on the outskirts of Kandahar were killed yesterday when a suicide attacker detonated his bomb, causing the worst atrocity in Afghanistan since the ousting of the Taliban in 2001.
Among the dead was Abdul Hakim Jan, the leader of a local militia that had been fighting alongside British and Nato forces against the Taliban. The governor of the province, Assadullah Khalid, who survived an assassination attempt last week, had planned to go to the event, but is said to have changed his mind at the last minute.
Latin America
Mexicans refuse to call time on historic bar
Shutters close on drinking den favoured by presidents, revolutionaries and artists
Mexico City’s oldest licensed bar stands on a corner of the grand Zócalo plaza. Across the road is the huge National Palace, home of Mexican presidents until the 1930s and still the official seat of executive power. Behind lie the ruins of the great Aztec capital, to one side looms the Metropolitan cathedral, and in every available open space is the buzzing, often chaotic street life of the historic centre.But while those other Mexico City landmarks will live on, the doors to El Nivel have closed, taking with them a small piece of history.
“Every big city has a sort of an iconic place. There’s La Fleur in Paris, or the Chelsea hotel in New York, or the French House in Soho. This was a cantina that had a presence and a fullness that you very seldom find,” said Irish-born artist Phil Kelly, who discovered the bar after moving to the Mexican capital in 1982.
The closure of El Nivel, frequented over the years by artists, writers, revolutionaries, presidents and street vendors, has provoked a passionate protest from its regulars. Kelly was among the hundred-odd demonstrators who gathered outside El Nivel last month to drink beer and chant their outrage at the shutters that have stayed down since January 2.
Guyana gunmen kill police, civilians
GEORGETOWN, Guyana – Gunmen killed at least three police officers and several civilians in an assault Sunday night on a small town in Guyana, authorities and local media said, in the second such attack in recent weeks.Police said the men, dressed in military fatigues and armed with assault rifles, invaded a police station and made off with ammunitions and weapons in the southwestern township of Bartica.
Police did not identify any suspects or possible motive, but this impoverished South American country has been beset by gang violence.
Alleged criminal gang leader Rondell Rawlins claimed responsibility for a Jan. 26 assault on another small town that left 11 people dead, including five children.
Europe
Cyprus reunification back on agenda after presidential poll favours moderates
The hardline President of Cyprus, Tassos Papadopoulos, conceded defeat after the first round of presidential elections last night, raising hopes that international efforts to re-unite the divided island could be back on track.The surprise election results left two moderates, who both want to resume reunification talks, to contest a run-off vote next Sunday.
The President’s departure could also ease the accession of Turkey to the European Union, according to regional analysts.
Ioannis Kasoulides, a former foreign minister and member of the European parliament who is running as an independent backed by the right-wing Disy party, won 33.5 per cent of the vote.
Anger and fear in a city still divided
Marko Tijnic was reading a newspaper headline in the Cafe London in the Serbian enclave of Mitrovica North yesterday. “The Oath Lasts,” it read. “The Ownership Remains.” Meaning Serb ownership. For Tijnic and other Serb residents, the declaration of independence from Serbia means nothing but the prospect of trouble.The 19-year-old history student pulled out a printed map of Kosovo from inside the paper, covered in red dots. “Look, they are the monasteries and other sites important to Serbian culture,” he said. “It’s a tragic situation.”
Tijnic, originally from a small Serb enclave of 20 families, Crkolez near Istok, where his family still lives, blames the international community. But mainly he is worried about the future. “I don’t expect anything to happen today,” he said speaking of fears that violence might again break out along Kosovo’s most dangerous faultline, the divided city of Mitrovica. “But in the coming months I am concerned they will start applying pressure on us. It will happen in the enclaves first.”
Africa
Rice in Nairobi to push for deal
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has arrived in Kenya in an attempt to end the political crisis which has led to widespread unrest.Ms Rice is expected to push President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga to agree a deal to share power, following December’s disputed election.
She will also hold talks with the lead mediator, former UN chief Kofi Annan.
On Friday, both sides agreed to set up an independent panel to review the vote, which Mr Odinga says was rigged.
The dispute has led to political and ethnic violence in which at least 1,000 people have been killed and 600,000 have fled their homes.
Kenya’s Opposition Says Power Sharing the Way Forward
As Kenyans await the arrival of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Monday, an official of the opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) has given more details on what would constitute a possible solution to the country’s post-election crisis. ODM secretary general Peter Anyang Nyong’o said the opposition hopes Secretary Rice is coming to Kenya to re-enforce former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan’s mediation effort and President Bush’s call for a power sharing government.
Nyong’o told VOA that only a power sharing government can produce a needed political stability for Kenya.
“Given what President Bush himself has said, I think she is coming to re-enforce the Kofi Annan initiative to ensure that there’s a political solution that will finally bring justice and peace to our country.
Middle East
Iraqi military hopes security will last
BAGHDAD – Iraqi military officials expressed hope Sunday that security gains from a yearlong crackdown against extremists will allow the removal of thousands of concrete barriers in six months that protect Baghdad residents from bomb attacks.Meanwhile, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki spent the weekend touting the successes of the security operation that began one year ago and peaked last summer with the influx of thousands of U.S. troops. The operation helped restore some security to a country that in January 2007 was on the brink of civil war.
The U.S. military said Sunday that insurgent attacks had declined by 60 percent over the past year, but cautioned the war was not yet won.
Clashes With Israeli Troops Kill 4 Militants in Gaza
JERUSALEM – Four Palestinian militants were killed in clashes with the Israeli Army in southern Gaza early Sunday, and an Israeli soldier was seriously wounded in an exchange of fire.An Israeli Army spokeswoman said the Israeli forces had been “operating against terrorist infrastructures” inside Gaza, near the city of Rafah. About 80 Palestinians from the area were detained and brought back to Israel for questioning.
Palestinian hospital officials said that three of the four gunmen killed belonged to the military wing of Hamas, the Islamic group that controls Gaza, and that the fourth belonged to the Popular Resistance Committees, a smaller militant group. More than 20 Palestinians, including some civilians, were wounded during the army incursion, the hospital officials said. The incursion ended early Sunday afternoon.
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