Docudharma Times Friday May 2

Though his mind is not for rent,

Don’t put him down as arrogant.

His reserve, a quiet defense,

Riding out the days events.

The river

Friday’s Headlines: As Gas Costs Soar, Buyers Are Flocking to Small Cars: Fed to Pursue Aggressive Checks on Credit Cards:  Call to Arabs on Palestinian aid: Turkey launches intensive air strikes in north Iraq: Mugabe invents coup plot as poll chaos continues: Diamond miners strike gold with wreck: The Litvinenko files: Was he really murdered?: Income tax secrets go up online – and promptly come down amid fury: Tibetans shot officer ‘to avenge killing of monk’: Ecuador leader shakes up military

Police remove Hong Kong torch protesters ‘for own protection’

Police removed human rights protesters from the streets of Hong Kong this morning as the anger of pro-China supporters flared on the first day of the Olympic torch’s domestic journey.

Several activists were bundled into a van and driven away after furious pro-Olympic demonstrators waving Chinese flags tried to break through the police line protecting them, haranguing them and attempting to seize their placards and Tibetan flag – which is banned in China.

Around 50,000 spectators gathered to celebrate the approach of the games and set the flame on the road to Beijing. Most were in upbeat mood despite the rain.

“It is a great and solemn honour for Hong Kong, Asia’s world city, to welcome back the Olympic flame on behalf of our proud nation,” the region’s chief executive, Donald Tsang, said at the relay’s start.

Teacher fired for refusing to sign loyalty oath

Cal State system ousts another instructor who objects on religious grounds to a pledge adopted by California in 1952 to root out communists.

When Wendy Gonaver was offered a job teaching American studies at Cal State Fullerton this academic year, she was pleased to be headed back to the classroom to talk about one of her favorite themes: protecting constitutional freedoms.

But the day before class was scheduled to begin, her appointment as a lecturer abruptly ended over just the kind of issue that might have figured in her course. She lost the job because she did not sign a loyalty oath swearing to “defend” the U.S. and California constitutions “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

USA

As Gas Costs Soar, Buyers Are Flocking to Small Cars

DETROIT – Soaring gas prices have turned the steady migration by Americans to smaller cars into a stampede.

In what industry analysts are calling a first, about one in five vehicles sold in the United States was a compact or subcompact car during April, based on monthly sales data released Thursday. Almost a decade ago, when sport utility vehicles were at their peak of popularity, only one in every eight vehicles sold was a small car.

The switch to smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles has been building in recent years, but has accelerated recently with the advent of $3.50-a-gallon gas. At the same time, sales of pickup trucks and large sport utility vehicles have dropped sharply.

Fed to Pursue Aggressive Checks on Credit Cards

The Federal Reserve and two other banking regulators are set to unveil today one of the most aggressive efforts in decades to crack down on the credit card industry, prohibiting practices such as arbitrarily raising interest rates on outstanding balances.

The proposed regulations, which could be finalized by year’s end, would label as “unfair or deceptive” practices that consumers have long complained about. That includes charging interest on debt that has been repaid and assessing late fees when consumers are not given a reasonable amount of time to make a payment. When different interest rates apply to different balances on one card, companies would be prohibited from applying a payment first to the balance with the lowest rate.

Middle East

Call to Arabs on Palestinian aid

The Quartet of major powers mediating in the Middle East peace process has called on Arab states to honour aid pledges to the Palestinians.

The call was made after talks in London between the UN, US, UN, EU and Russia.

US officials say only about a fifth of money promised by Arab nations in December has been paid.

The Gaza Strip faces a strict Israeli blockade, imposed against Hamas militants, as well as in response to rocket attacks fired into Israel.

US officials say that of $717m promised by Arab League members, only $153m of Arab pledges have been delivered, all from three countries: Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Algeria.

Turkey launches intensive air strikes in north Iraq

ARBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Turkish warplanes launched intensive bombing raids on Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq overnight but there were no reports of any casualties, a rebel spokesman said on Friday.

The air strikes began at 11.30 p.m. and lasted for three hours, targeting bases belonging to the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), an off-shoot of the PKK fighting against Iran.

“There has been heavy bombing and many Turkish planes were involved. So far, we have no word of any casualties,” PKK spokesman Ahmed Danees told Reuters by telephone.

Africa

Mugabe invents coup plot as poll chaos continues

· Forged documents outline ‘British invasion plans’

· UK dismisses fakes as ruse to delay election results

It is Gordon Brown’s name on the letter with the familiar Downing Street address at the top. If it weren’t for the pesky business of the signature, it would place the prime minister at the heart of a conspiracy to drag the old Rhodesia from its grave in league with German bankers and South African white supremacists.

You could have read all about it across the front pages of Zimbabwe’s state-run press over recent weeks, backed by what are purported to be documents outlining opposition schemes to steal the unresolved presidential election, British plans to invade and put President Robert Mugabe on trial at The Hague, and the alleged letter from Brown saying that the ruling Zanu-PF party is “no longer relevant to the people of Zimbabwe”.

Diamond miners strike gold with wreck

· Discovery of ship off Africa excites archaeologists

· Experts debate whether captain was pirate

The ship was laden with tonnes of copper ingots, elephant tusks, gold coins – and cannons to fend off pirates lurking off Africa some five centuries ago. It had nothing to protect it from the fierce weather off a particularly bleak stretch of inhospitable coast, however, and sank.

“If you’re mining on the coast, sooner or later you’ll find a wreck,” Dieter Noli, an archaeologist who is researching the ship’s origins, said yesterday as he told how De Beers geologists stumbled on the wreck on April 1 as they prospected for diamonds off Namibia’s south-west coast.

The find “was what I’d been waiting for for 20 years”, Noli said. “I was pretty excited. I still am.”

Namdeb Diamond Corporation, a joint venture of the government of Namibia and De Beers, reported the find for the first time in a statement on Wednesday, and are planning a news conference in the Namibian capital on the discovery next week.

Europe

The Litvinenko files: Was he really murdered?

His gruesome and very public death shocked the world – and threw London and Moscow into their worst diplomatic crisis since the Cold War. But 18 months on, Mary Dejevsky argues we’re still not being told the whole, chilling story

Alexander Litvinenko died on 23 November 2006, after a mysterious and painful illness. The cause was identified, less than two hours before his death, by scientists at the British government’s Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston. They found that he had been poisoned, with the radioactive isotope polonium-210.

The diagnosis came too late for an antidote to be administered. But the victim, who had been a hale and hearty 44-year-old only four weeks before, had time to authorise a thunderous deathbed statement in which he accused Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, of ordering his murder.

Income tax secrets go up online – and promptly come down amid fury

Rich and poor, young and old – for a few hours this week there were no secrets among Italians when millions of tax returns were published online, and promptly taken down again after howls of protest.

The country’s privacy watchdog ordered the national tax office, the Agenzia delle Entrate, to suspend publication on its website of personal information filed by all Italian taxpayers, arguing that the unprecedented move was a violation of privacy.

The information gave full details of tax returns, including not only income declared and tax paid for 2005 but also names, addresses and birthdates. The data were arranged alphabetically and according to the municipality in which the tax declarations were filed.

Asia

Tibetans shot officer ‘to avenge killing of monk’

A policeman shot dead in a rare gun battle in a Chinese village this week was killed by outraged Tibetans after he opened fire on a young monk, local sources said.

The story emerging from the remote village of Shanghongke in the northwestern Qinghai province contradicts the official report issued by state media, which claimed that the police officer, Lama Cedain, had died in a hail of bullets as he tried to arrest an insurgent leader.

The officer arrived at the village on Monday morning to arrest a 21-year-old monk, identified by Tibetan sources as Quduo, and shot him. It was not clear if the monk had been resisting arrest.

The monk was wanted by the authorities after he took part in a demonstration in the nearby town of Dari on March 21.

At South Korean museum, ‘paper bombs’ of the Cold War

JEONGSEON, South Korea: In early April, when North Korea called President Lee Myung Bak of South Korea an “impostor,” a “traitor” and an “American running dog,” the barrage sounded all too familiar to Jin Yong Seon. Jin has a museum filled with such verbiage.

In his Remembrance Museum in this former mining town 140 kilometers, or about 90 miles, east of Seoul, Jin is exhibiting 700 samples of what he calls “paper bombs” – the leaflets North and South Korea fired at each other in the years spanning the 1950-53 Korean War and up to 2000, when reconciliation efforts prompted a cease-fire in the propaganda contest.

Latin America

Ecuador leader shakes up military

President Rafael Correa breaks with tradition in overhauling the armed forces’ command in the wake of a Colombian incursion.

QUITO, ECUADOR — Intelligence failures, security lapses and the lack of civilian oversight brought to light by a recent Colombian military incursion into his country have prompted Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa to overhaul the command of his armed forces.

Correa’s shake-up comes in a nation where the military enjoys a high measure of autonomy, wields considerable economic and political power and has played a hand in the overthrow of three presidents since 1997.

“Past presidents couldn’t have attempted this, but Correa has space to maneuver,” said Bertha Garcia, a professor at the Pontifical Catholic University in Quito, the capital, highlighting Correa’s favorable standing in opinion polls and the country’s oil windfall. “His advantages include enormous popular support, $120-per- barrel oil and the public’s fatigue with the old system.”