Docudharma Times Friday July 11

Cowboy George

Sure Loves

That Good Ole Fashion

Air Pollution

Sudan Leader To Be Charged With Genocide

Peace Efforts in Darfur Could Be Hampered, Some U.N. Officials Fear

By Colum Lynch and Nora Boustany

Washington Post Staff Writers

Friday, July 11, 2008; Page A01

UNITED NATIONS, July 10 — The chief prosecutor of the Internationals Criminal Court will seek an arrest warrant Monday for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, charging him with genocide and crimes against humanity in the orchestration of a campaign of violence that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians in the nation’s Darfur region during the past five years, according to U.N. officials and diplomats.

The action by the prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo of Argentina, will mark the first time that the tribunal in The Hague charges a sitting head of state with such crimes, and represents a major step by the court to implicate the highest levels of the Sudanese government for the atrocities in Darfur.

South Korean tourist shot dead in North Korea



Jonathan Watts, east Asia correspondent

guardian.co.uk,

Friday July 11, 2008

A North Korean soldier shot and killed a South Korean tourist who wandered into a restricted zone today, casting a shadow over hopes of a resumption of bilateral talks between the two sides of the divided peninsular.

The fatal shooting at the Mount Kumgang resort this morning coincided with a breakthrough offer by the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, to resume dialogue and provide food aid to the North.

According to the Seoul-based Yonhap news agency, the soldier opened fire on the 53-year-old woman tourist surnamed Pak after she crossed into a military area.

USA

A Trickle That Turned Into a Torrent  



By CHARLES DUHIGG

Published: July 11, 2008

The word began spreading across Wall Street trading desks on Monday morning: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the giant companies at the heart of the nation’s housing market, might be in trouble.

The tumult, which continued on Thursday, started with a cautionary analyst’s report, one that might have caused few ripples in normal times. But these are not normal times. Within minutes, the price of the companies’ shares was plunging, sending shock waves through the financial markets, the economy and Washington.

EPA Won’t Act on Emissions This Year

Instead of New Rules, More Comment Sought

By Juliet Eilperin and R. Jeffrey Smith

Washington Post Staff Writers

Friday, July 11, 2008; Page A01

The Bush administration has decided not to take any new steps to regulate greenhouse gas emissions before the president leaves office, despite pressure from the Supreme Court and broad accord among senior federal officials that new regulation is appropriate now.

The Environmental Protection Agency plans to announce today that it will seek months of further public comment on the threat posed by global warming to human health and welfare — a matter that federal climate experts and international scientists have repeatedly said should be urgently addressed.

Middle East

Once again, Israel cuts a deal with its worst enemies



By Dion Nissenbaum | McClatchy Newspapers

JERUSALEM – In the first hours after Hezbollah fighters captured two Israeli soldiers in a 2006 cross-border raid from Lebanon, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made it clear that he wouldn’t bargain for their freedom.

“We will not give in to extortion, and we will not negotiate with terrorists regarding the lives of Israeli soldiers,” Olmert said as Israeli warplanes prepared to bomb Beirut nearly two years ago. “That was true yesterday, and it is true today.”

In the coming days, if all goes as planned, Israel will complete a deal that does just that.

After the costly, 34-day war failed to cripple the militant group or secure the return of the captured soldiers, the two sides now have agreed to a prisoner swap that’s meant to bring some closure in both countries. Israel will turn over a militant whom it’s held 29 years and expects in return the bodies of the two soldiers, who Israel thinks are dead.

‘This is like apartheid’: ANC veterans visit West Bank



By Donald Macintyre in Hebron

Friday, 11 July 2008

Veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle said last night that the segregation endured by Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories was in some respects worse than that imposed on the black majority under white rule in South Africa.

Members of a 23-strong human-rights team of prominent South Africans cited the impact of the Israeli military’s separation barrier, checkpoints, the permit system for Palestinian travel, and the extent to which Palestinians are barred from using roads in the West Bank.

After a five-day visit to Israel and the Occupied Territories, some delegates expressed shock and dismay at conditions in the Israeli-controlled heart of Hebron.

Europe

Moscow names British diplomat Chris Bowers as spy



From The Times

July 11, 2008

Tony Halpin, Moscow Correspondent

Russia triggered a new spying row with Britain last night when a senior diplomat in Moscow was accused of working for British Intelligence.

The allegation against Chris Bowers, the British Embassy’s acting director of trade and investment, follows weeks of antagonism and growing tension between London and Moscow.

Interfax news agency quoted an unnamed source within Russia’s intelligence services, who claimed that Mr Bowers was a high-ranking secret service officer who had also worked under cover in the 1990s as a BBC reporter in Uzbekistan.

Dutch court upholds U.N. immunity in genocide case

Plaintiffs plan to appeal, saying peacekeepers failed to protect their relatives in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

By Benjamin Cunningham  | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor

from the July 11, 2008 edition

The Hague – Is the United Nations responsible if its peacekeepers fail to prevent genocide? No, decided a Dutch court Thursday in a case likely to be appealed.

At issue is Europe’s only genocide since World War II: the killing of some 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica, Bosnia, 13 years ago this week. Last month, 6,000 plaintiffs filed a civil suit against the UN and the Dutch government in The Hague District Court. They argued that Dutch peacekeepers failed to protect their relatives in the 1995 massacre, which took place in a UN-declared safe zone.

The Hague District Court said the UN’s immunity – written into its founding charter – means it cannot be held liable in any country’s national court.

“The court’s inquiry into a possible conflict between the absolute immunity valid in international law of the U.N. and other standards of international law does not lead to an exception to this immunity,” the judges wrote in their ruling.

Asia

UN agrees to Bhutto investigation

Pakistan and the United Nations have agreed in principle to set up a UN panel to investigate the killing of Pakistani ex-PM Benazir Bhutto.  

The BBC

Pakistan’s foreign minister said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had agreed to his government’s request for such an investigation.

A UN statement said a broad understanding had been reached, but further consultation would be required.

Ms Bhutto was killed in a suicide attack on a rally last December.

Five people have been arrested in connection with the killing, but no-one has been convicted.

Unofficial schools aim to boost prospects of China’s migrant children

Xingzhi School in Beijing teaches nearly 1,200 kids not allowed to attend public school say their migrant-worker parents lack residency permits.

By Anne Donohue  | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor

from the July 11, 2008 edition

Beijing – Guo Zhilin sits anxiously in the first row of her red-brick schoolroom. She whispers a few words to her friend and then proudly, but hesitantly, announces, “Welcome … our … school.” She nudges the girl next to her. “This is my new friend Han Xi. She is from Anhui Province.”

All of the children in this school are from provinces across China; none have legal permission to attend the Beijing public schools. Their parents are migrant workers, part of China’s massive floating population, and they lack hukuo, or residency permits. So the children are here, at Xingzhi Primary School for migrant children on Beijing’s western outskirts.

“I am from Shandong Province,” beams Zhilin, as she adjusts her plastic headband.

Africa

Sanctions will cause civil war, Zimbabwe tells UN



Haroon Siddique and agencies

guardian.co.uk,

Friday July 11, 2008

Zimbabwe has warned the UN security council that imposing sanctions on the Mugabe regime could turn the country into another Somalia.

The reference to the war-torn Horn of Africa state, where rival factions have clashed for the past 17 years, came in a letter from Zimbabwe’s UN mission.

It was a response to proposals by Britain and the US for an arms embargo and financial freeze on Mugabe and top officials in his government in the wake of the election last month marred by violence and intimidation against the opposition.

The mission said such sanctions would lead to the removal of Zimbabwe’s government and “most probably, start a civil war in the country”.

Kenyan waitress sacked for being HIV positive wins landmark case



Xan Rice in Nairobi

The Guardian,

Friday July 11, 2008

n HIV-positive Kenyan waitress who was sacked from her job has been awarded £17,000 in a landmark ruling against her employer and her doctor.

The woman, known only as JAO to protect her identity, claimed that she had been dismissed after her doctor told her former employer, Home Park Caterers, of her medical status. After a five-year battle for compensation, the Nairobi high court said that it was illegal to end a person’s employment because they were HIV positive – the first time such a ruling has been made in Kenya.

Latin America

Venezuela, Colombia to meet on mending relations



By FABIOLA SANCHEZ, Associated Press Writer

CARACAS, Venezuela – Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Colombia’s Alvaro Uribe are attempting rapprochement after months of sniping that threatened billions of dollars in trade and unleashed a diplomatic crisis

Latin America’s top U.S. opponent and closest U.S. ally will set aside their on-and-off feud for talks on Friday because, analysts say, each benefits politically from normalized relations.

The countries are key commercial partners, with some $6 billion in trade last year and Uribe says he expects to sign accords to link the Andean neighbors with two new railways.