Docudharma Times Sunday April 20

In the streets there’s no wrong and no right

so forget all that you see

It’s not reality

It’s just a fantasy

Can’t you see

What this crazy life is doing to me

Life is just a fantasy

Sunday’s Headlines:DNA Tests Offer Deeper Examination Of Accused: Military medical malpractice: Seeking recourse: Iraqi cleric threatens ‘open war’: British dealers supply arms to Iran: Beijing gags anti-Western online anger: Tokyo offers free pizza to lure pensioners from their cars: Women in politics: Berlusconi lays into Spain’s ‘too pink’ cabinet: Paper is shut down after report on Vladimir Putin’s love life: Voters flee Zimbabwe’s state terror: Deadly clashes erupt in Mogadishu    

Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand

In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded “the gulag of our times” by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure.

The administration’s communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo.

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

USA

DNA Tests Offer Deeper Examination Of Accused

Biological, Emotional States Scrutinized

Twenty years after DNA fingerprints were first admitted by American courts as a way to link suspects to crime scenes, a new and very different class of genetic test is approaching the bench.

Rather than simply proving, for example, that the blood on a suspect’s clothes does or does not match that of a murder victim, these “second generation” DNA tests seek to shed light on the biological traits and psychological states of the accused. In effect, they allow genes to “testify” in ways never before possible, in some cases resolving long-standing legal tangles but in others raising new ones.

Already, chemical companies facing “toxic tort” claims have persuaded By

courts to order DNA tests on the people suing them, part of an attempt to show that the plaintiffs’ own genes made them sick — not the companies’ products.

Military medical malpractice: Seeking recourse

Outrage over a recent spate of incidents spurs fresh efforts to overturn the Feres doctrine, a 1950 Supreme Court decision denying active-duty service members the right to sue over medical errors.

Minutes after routine surgery for acute appendicitis in October 2003, Staff Sgt. Dean Witt, 25, was being moved to a recovery room at a Northern California military hospital when he gasped and stopped breathing.

A student nurse assisting an understaffed anesthesia team tried to resuscitate Witt and failed. Inexplicably, Witt’s gurney was wheeled into a pediatric area. Lifesaving devices sized for children, not a 175-pound adult, proved useless, according to an internal

Middle East

Iraqi cleric threatens ‘open war’

Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr has threatened to wage “open war” on the Baghdad government if it does not halt operations against his supporters.

Moqtada Sadr said he was giving the government a “last warning”, and urged it to take “the path of peace”.

His statement came as Iraqi troops, with US and UK support, clashed with his forces in Baghdad and the south.

In August the cleric’s militia declared a ceasefire, pledging not to attack government or foreign soldiers.

“I’m giving the last warning and the last word to the Iraqi government,” Moqtada Sadr said.

“Either it comes to its senses and takes the path of peace… or it will be (seen as) the same as the previous government,” he added, referring to former President Saddam Hussein’s fallen regime.

“If it does not stop the militias that have infiltrated the government, then we will declare an open war until liberation,” he added.

British dealers supply arms to Iran

Customs probe reveals sanctions-busting sales of arms, missile technology and nuclear components

nvestigators have identified a number of British arms dealers trading with Tehran, triggering alarm among government officials who fear Iran’s nuclear programme may be receiving significant support from UK sources.

The probe by customs officers suggests that at least seven Britons have been defying sanctions by supplying the Iranian air force, its elite Revolutionary Guard Corps, and even the country’s controversial nuclear ambitions.

Officials say they are perturbed by the number of British dealers who appear to be trading with Tehran, despite a third round of restrictions being recently imposed by the United Nations on exporting arms and components to Iran. However, investigators argue that it is the generous riches being offered by Iran, not any shared ideology, that is seducing the dealers.

Asia

Beijing gags anti-Western online anger

Crackdown as China worries about the flare-up of nationalist passions in the run-up to Olympics

As Chinese nationalism flares across cyberspace, the government is growing concerned that passions could spill over into the real world, and that anger directed against foreigners could turn inward. Critics contend that Beijing has had a role in fanning the xenophobic sentiment to counter international condemnation of its crackdown on Tibetan rioters, but now Chinese officials appear to be trying to reduce the vitriol.

Chinese censors have quietly warned cyber-police and internet businesses to delete all information related to protests against Western policies, nations or companies that have proliferated in the wake of demonstrations surrounding the global Olympic torch relay and high-level calls to boycott the opening ceremony of the summer games in Beijing.

Tokyo offers free pizza to lure pensioners from their cars

By David McNeill

Sunday, 20 April 2008

Like many proud men, Seichi Koyama bristles when his driving skills are questioned. “I’m confident I can drive well,” he told Japanese TV, brandishing his clean licence and telling the viewing millions that he has never had an accident or been penalised.

It’s quite a claim, for Mr Koyama is 102 years old, and his licence was awarded more than 80 years ago.

Not all Japanese pensioners operate their cars as safely as Tokyo’s oldest driver. Last month, a woman in her 70s ploughed into a group of pedestrians, leaving a child in a coma, one of several horrific car accidents involving the elderly. Drivers aged 65 or over caused about 7,000 accidents in Tokyo last year, a two-and-a-half-fold rise in a decade. More than 1,000 pensioners die every year in driving accidents in Japan.

Europe

Women in politics: Berlusconi lays into Spain’s ‘too pink’ cabinet

Centuries-old prejudices were to the fore in the colourful Italian Prime Minister’s remarks about his counterpart in Madrid

By Katy Guest

Sunday, 20 April 2008

Sometimes, a week is a long time in politics. Other times, 350 years fly by and nothing seems to change. One of the following statements about women in politics was made in the 17th century by an unenlightened London satirist; the other was made last week by one of the leaders of the 21st-century free world. Can you guess which is which?

“[He] has formed a government that is too pink,” reads one. “That’s something we cannot do… because there is a prevalence of men in politics and it isn’t easy to find women who are qualified for government. Now he’s asked for it. He’ll have problems leading them.” The other imagines “the merrie Lawes by them newly Enacted, To live in more Ease, Pompe, Pride, and wantonnesse: but especially that they might have superiority and domineere over their husbands [and] cure any old or new Cuckolds…”.

Paper is shut down after report on Vladimir Putin’s love life

A NEWSPAPER that defied the Kremlin by reporting that President Vladimir Putin was planning to marry an Olympic gold medal-winning rhythmic gymnast half his age was shut down yesterday.

The closure of Moskovski Korrespondent, whose editor Grigori Nekhoroshev was forced to resign, was a sharp reminder of the perils of invoking Kremlin displeasure.

Rumours of a romance between Putin, 55, and Alina Kabaeva, 24, who is also an MP in his party, have been circulating in Moscow for months, but until last week no one had dared to print them.

The paper admitted there was no factual basis for its claim that Putin had already divorced Ludmilla, 50, his wife of 24 years, and would marry Kabaeva in June, shortly after standing down as president and becoming prime minister. It cited information from a party planner who claimed to be bidding to organise the lavish reception.

Africa

Voters flee Zimbabwe’s state terror

ALL across Harare yesterday, men, women, and children separated from their parents, including a boy of 12 with suspected malaria and a fragile 15-year-old girl, were hiding from a state-run terror campaign unleashed against Zimbabwe’s opposition.

Beaten and driven from their homes in the countryside and crowded townships in the reprisals that have followed President Robert Mugabe’s apparent electoral defeat three weeks ago, they made their way to the city by any means possible.

They came in their dozens, by bus, by train, by communal taxi. Such was one frightened man’s determination to escape that he walked for many miles with bare feet. Even those who did not need hospital care were still in pain days after their arrival from beaten, swollen limbs.

Deadly clashes erupt in Mogadishu

At least 20 people have been killed in renewed fighting in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, eyewitnesses say.

Ethiopian troops backing the interim government clashed with Islamic fighters in the north-east of the city.

Five Ethiopian soldiers, three government soldiers and civilians are reported to be among those killed.

Somalia has been wracked by violence since Ethiopia rescued the government in 2006, ousting an Islamist militia that had held much of the country.