Docudharma Times Saturday July 12

Look Mommy

It’s A

Japanese Enkai

Afghanistan’s ‘sons of the soil’ rise up



By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI – The resilient Taliban have proved unshakeable across Afghanistan over the past few months, making the chances of a coalition military victory against the popular tide of the insurgency in the majority Pashtun belt increasingly slim.

The alternative, though, of negotiating with radical Taliban leaders is not acceptable to the Western political leadership.

This stalemate suits Pakistan perfectly as it gives Islamabad the opportunity to once again step in to take a leading role in shaping the course of events in its neighboring country.

Return of the ivory trade



By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor

Saturday, 12 July 2008

The world trade in ivory, banned 19 years ago to save the African elephant from extinction, is about to take off again, with the emergence of China as a major ivory buyer.

Alarmed conservationists are warning of a new wave of elephant killing across both Africa and Asia if China is allowed to become a legal importer, as looks likely at a meeting in Geneva next week.

The unleashing of a massive Chinese demand for ivory, in the form of trinkets, name seals, expensive carvings and polished ivory tusks, is likely to give an enormous boost to the illegal trade, which is entirely poaching-based, conservationists say.

USA

U.S. Weighs Rescue of Mortgage Giants

After Allaying Anxiety About Fannie and Freddie, Officials Stop Short of Action

By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and Neil Irwin

Washington Post Staff Writers

Saturday, July 12, 2008; Page A01

Senior government officials prepared emergency steps yesterday to rescue troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac but stopped short after a campaign of public statements eased immediate concerns about the stability of the institutions.

But federal regulators were forced yesterday to seize California-based IndyMac Bancorp after a run by depositors led to the second-largest failure ever of a U.S. financial institution. The bank, which was taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., became the first major bank to shutter its doors since the savings and loan crisis of the early 1990s. One of the country’s largest home lenders, IndyMac saw its holdings battered by the downturn in the housing market.

Ex-Bush spokesman Tony Snow dies of cancer

Conservative commentator succumbed to illness at age 53

Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Tony Snow, a conservative writer and commentator who cheerfully sparred with reporters in the White House briefing room during a stint as President Bush’s press secretary, has died of colon cancer, Fox News reported Saturday. Snow was 53 years old.

Snow, who served as the first host of the television news program “Fox News Sunday” from 1996 to 2003, would later say that in the Bush administration he was enjoying “the most exciting, intellectually aerobic job I’m ever going to have.”

55-mph speed limit may have found its Washington patron

WASHINGTON – Is the double-nickel speed limit ready for a comeback?

By Dave Montgomery | McClatchy Newspapers  

Congress thus far has shown no movement toward resurrecting the 55-mph speed limit, but one of the Senate’s senior members – Republican John Warner of Virginia – says it’s time to start the conversation about an energy-saving national speed limit to help spare Americans from usurious fuel costs.

The 55-mph limit was imposed by federal law during the energy crisis of the mid-1970s, remained in effect for 20 years and ultimately was booted off the roadways by Congress in 1995 amid near-universal contempt among motorists.

Warner hasn’t specified what a new limit should be, but he points out that Americans saved 167,000 barrels of petroleum a day when the 55-mph speed limit was in effect. He told fellow senators this week that he’ll probably proceed with legislation after the Energy Department determines the most fuel-efficient speed limit for the nation’s highways.

Asia

As Beijing Olympics Near, Homes and Hope Crumble

Spruce-Up Leaves Residents Few Ways to Save Property

By Maureen Fan

Washington Post Foreign Service

Saturday, July 12, 2008; Page A06

BEIJING — One place tourists aren’t likely to see during the Olympic Games next month is a nut shop just north of the Forbidden City. Plastered with posters of Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao and four Chinese flags, the little building appears held together with tape and string.

The Yu family moved in during the 1950s and opened a small shop in 1981, about the time China began its transformation from a planned economy into one that promotes entrepreneurs and, in theory, protects private property rights.

Liu Heung Shing: China stripped bare

The unseen photographs that chronicle 60 years of growing pains

From The Sunday Times

July 13, 2008

Tony Barrell

Hefty chunks of China are now turning up across the globe. Second only to the Germans in the export stakes, the Chinese fill the world with everything from toys to computers, knickers to suits, ginseng to goji berries, bicycles to cars and table-tennis tables to oil-drilling platforms. There are even two new Travelodge hotels, in Uxbridge and Heathrow, currently being assembled from enormous modules prefabricated in the People’s Republic. But photojournalism has never been high on the export list for this notoriously secretive nation. This is what makes Liu Heung Shing’s achievement all the more jaw-dropping.

The Chinese photographer has spent nearly four years gathering pictures, from 88 indigenous photographers, for a mighty new tome telling the story of the People’s Republic

Africa

China and Russia veto Zimbabwe sanctions

· UN resolution would have cut arms sales to Mugabe

· Outcome raises doubts over world’s ability to act

Daniel Nasaw in Washington and Mark Rice-Oxley

The Guardian,

Saturday July 12, 2008

British and US efforts to apply punitive pressure on Robert Mugabe were abruptly undermined last night when Russia and China vetoed a UN security council resolution seeking sanctions against Zimbabwe.

The resolution, calling for an arms embargo, and financial and travel restrictions on Mugabe and 13 other regime leaders, was backed by nine nations but foundered on the vetoes of the two permanent members. The arms embargo would have affected Russian and Chinese weapons exporters.

The outcome at UN headquarters in New York will raise questions about the international community’s ability to act decisively against Mugabe and his Zanu-PF ringleaders who orchestrated the violence that disfigured Zimbabwe’s election run-off last month.

Sudan angry at threat of charges

Sudan’s ambassador to the UN has reacted angrily to reports that his country’s president could be charged with war crimes over Darfur.

The BBC

Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad said any such charges against President Omar al-Bashir would be a “criminal move”.

Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court are expected to present evidence against Mr Bashir on Monday.

Foreign ambassadors in Khartoum have been warned that an indictment could badly affect the region’s stability.

“If these reports are true this would constitute a very serious development, a criminal move that we strongly condemn,” said Mr Mohamad.

Europe

France rejects Muslim woman over radical practice of Islam

· Expert says Moroccan lives ‘almost as a recluse’

· Case reopens debate about freedom of religion

Angelique Chrisafis in Paris

The Guardian,

Saturday July 12, 2008

France has denied citizenship to a Moroccan woman who wears a burqa on the grounds that her “radical” practice of Islam is incompatible with basic French values such as equality of the sexes.

The case yesterday reopened the debate about Islam in France, and how the secular republic reconciles itself with the freedom of religion guaranteed by the French constitution.

The woman, known as Faiza M, is 32, married to a French national and lives east of Paris. She has lived in France since 2000, speaks good French and has three children born in France. Social services reports said she lived in “total submission” to her husband. Her application for French nationality was rejected in 2005 on the grounds of “insufficient assimilation” into France.

Russia refuses outside help to ease rising tensions with Georgia





Moscow has refused requests to seek international arbitration over its increasingly tense standoff with Georgia as the government in Tblisi threatened to shoot down any Russian planes that flew over its territory.

Georgia’s ambassador to Russia flew back to Tbilisi yesterday, having been recalled after Russia admitted sending fighters to overfly Georgia’s breakaway republic of South Ossetia on Wednesday.

The regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, part of Georgia during Soviet times, have been described as “frozen conflicts” since the early 1990s, when vicious wars left them de facto independent and heavily dependent on Russian support.

Middle East

A Baghdad Bookseller, Bound to His Country



By Sudarsan Raghavan

Washington Post Foreign Service

Saturday, July 12, 2008; Page A01

BAGHDAD Upstairs, the blue bedroom door of Nabil al-Hayawi’s only son was locked, sealing in the artifacts of his short life. Downstairs, the frail bookseller’s voice quivered as he recalled the car bombing that killed his son and his brother and razed his family’s bookshop on Baghdad’s storied Mutanabi Street. More than a year later, Hayawi has not entered the bedroom.

He, too, almost died that day. After five operations, he has trouble standing up. His left arm hangs limp. He takes seven pills a day to cope with aches and depression. Shrapnel is still lodged in his body, posing new threats.

Lebanon agrees unity government

Lebanese political leaders have agreed on the make-up of a national unity government after six weeks of talks

The BBC

The Western-backed parliamentary majority is set to control slightly more than half of the cabinet.

Former opposition groups supported by Syria and Iran will meanwhile have enough seats to veto major decisions.

The recently elected President, Michel Suleiman, who is generally seen as a neutral figure, will appoint the key ministers of defence and the interior.

Latin America

Gunmen in Mexico kill 12 in brazen attack

In broad daylight near the center of Sinaloa’s capital, Culiacan, gunmen kill nine at an auto repair shop and then three police officers in pursuit.

By Marla Dickerson, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer  

MEXICO CITY — Gunmen shot 12 people to death in broad daylight near the center of Culiacan on Thursday, marking one of the more bloody and brazen recent attacks in the capital of a state beset by drug trafficking and violence.

The Sinaloa state prosecutor’s office said armed men opened fire in an auto repair shop about 11:20 a.m., killing six people inside and three more just outside the doors. Fleeing in sport utility vehicles, the gunmen then traded fire with police officers who gave chase in a busy commercial area filled with stores and fast-food restaurants.

The dead included three police officers. One was killed during the chase, and the other two died in a hospital.

The gunmen escaped. There were no immediate arrests.

Home to the so-called Sinaloa cartel headed by Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman, the western state has a long history of drug violence. It has tallied more than 250 narcotics-related killings this year