Docudharma Times Thursday July 17

The Axis

Of

Evil

Is Closed

Management

US plans to station diplomats in Iran for first time since 1979

Washington move signals thaw in relations

Ewen MacAskill in Washington

The Guardian,

Thursday July 17, 2008

The US plans to establish a diplomatic presence in Tehran for the first time in 30 years as part of a remarkable turnaround in policy by President George Bush.

The Guardian has learned that an announcement will be made in the next month to establish a US interests section – a halfway house to setting up a full embassy. The move will see US diplomats stationed in the country.

The news of the shift by Bush who has pursued a hawkish approach to Iran throughout his tenure comes at a critical time in US-Iranian relations. After weeks that have seen tensions rise with Israel conducting war games and Tehran carrying out long-range missile tests, a thaw appears to be under way.

Economic Fears Slice Oil Prices for Second Day  



By JAD MOUAWAD and MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM

Published: July 17, 2008

Concerns about a slowing economy and rising inflation pushed oil prices down sharply for a second day on Wednesday, an unusual dip in the oil price rally that began more than six years ago.

The two-day decline totaled more than $10.50 a barrel, but analysts cautioned that it was still unclear how far prices would fall and that the respite may be temporary.

The drop in oil price contributed to a jump on Wall Street, with most major markets rising more than 2.5 percent. Investors were also buoyed by news that Wells Fargo planned to increase its dividend, easing some concerns about the stability of banks.

USA

Inflation surge puts Fed in a quandary

After the biggest monthly rise in consumer prices since 1991, the central bank can’t ignore the risks of inflation.

By Mark Trumbull  | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the July 17, 2008 edition

Consumer prices took their biggest upward jump in 17 years last month, a surge that highlights the squeeze on America’s standard of living and the difficult policy choices facing the Federal Reserve.

Fed officials are walking a fine line – and at the moment they’d rather not be forced to focus on inflation as their top priority. They’re also trying to revive a moribund economy and prevent a crisis in the financial industry from growing more severe.

Even as consumer prices surged 1.1 percent in June alone, some other news this week gives the central bank some leeway to balance those competing goals. Oil prices, which have been the big driver of inflation around the world this year, fell dramatically.

Results are in: California’s San Joaquin Valley is the worst



By Michael Doyle | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON – Poverty, poor health and plenty of school dropouts have put the San Joaquin Valley’s 20th Congressional District dead last in a new national scorecard that ranks the overall well-being of residents.

Even notoriously grim Appalachia fares better than the congressional district that sweeps in Fresno, Kings and Kern counties, the study, which was released Wednesday, shows. The assessment of health, education and income ranks the district 436th out of 436 districts nationwide.

Asia

Malaysian police arrest Anwar as political tensions deepen

· Opposition leader seized over ‘malicious’ sex claims

· Water cannon deployed after supporters gather

Ian MacKinnon, south-east Asia correspondent

The Guardian,

Thursday July 17, 2008

Armed police in balaclavas seized the Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim yesterday, an hour before the time at which he had agreed to surrender to an arrest warrant on sodomy charges.

The move, two weeks after a 23-year-old male aide complained to police that the former deputy prime minister sexually assaulted him, is bound to stoke political tensions in Malaysia.

Last night after eight hours of questioning Anwar was taken to hospital for tests. He was later remanded in custody.

Team of female commandos to protect cricketer from his fans



By Andrew Buncombe in Delhi

Thursday, 17 July 2008

When the India cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni went for a haircut in his home town of Ranchi a couple of years ago, so many adoring female fans showed up that the police had to be called.

So when it was announced that he would be returning home once again for three weeks’ rest, the local police decided to take pre-emptive action. Their solution for dealing with the unwanted attention? Give him his own team of female bodyguards.

The 15-strong squad of commandos that have been assigned to protect the player have recently completed training that included warfare and counter-insurgency tactics. Now they will be required to protect the cricketer from fans who will not leave him alone.

Middle East

Robert Fisk: ‘Theatrical return for the living and the dead’



Thursday, 17 July 2008

Yesterday was the last day of the 2006 Lebanon war, the final chapter of Israel’s folly and Hizbollah’s hubris, a grisly day of corpse-swapping and refrigerated body parts and coffin after bleak wooden coffin on trucks crossing the Israeli border, which left old Ali Ahmed al-Sfeir and his wife, Wahde, stooped and broken with grief. Ali had a grizzled grey beard and stood propped on a stick while Wahde held a grey-tinged photograph of a young man – her son Ahmed, born in 1970. “He was a martyr, but I do not know which lorry he will be on,” she said. In the slightly torn picture, he looked whey-faced, unsmiling, already dead.

That could not be said for Samir Kuntar – 28 years in an Israeli jail for the 1979 murder of an Israeli, his young daughter and a policeman.

Despite delays, prisoner swap leaves Hezbollah emboldened

In Lebanon, hundreds waited for five prisoners, who were treated as returning heroes.

By Nicholas Blanford  | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the July 17, 2008 edition

Naqoura, Lebanon –  Hundreds of jubilant Lebanese endured hours of blazing heat in the coastal village of Naqoura Wednesday to welcome home five detainees released by Israel in a prisoner exchange that Hezbollah, Lebanon’s militant Shiite group, is hailing as a new “victory” over the Jewish state.

The five prisoners included Samir Kuntar, a Lebanese Druze who served 30 years in an Israeli prison for his role in a deadly 1978 raid that left a policeman and three Israeli family members dead in northern Israel. The other four prisoners were Hezbollah fighters captured in the month-long war with Israel in 2006

Africa

Zimbabwe government puts inflation rate at record 2.2m%

· Experts say true figure could be as much as 15m%

· Bread now costs one-third teacher’s monthly wage

Chris McGreal in Harare

The Guardian,

Thursday July 17, 2008

Zimbabwe’s official inflation rate has escalated to 2.2m%, driving the cost of a loaf of bread to about one-third of a teacher’s monthly salary. But independent economists swiftly dismissed the government’s figure, saying the true rate was several times higher and rising faster than ever.

Yesterday the central bank governor, Gideon Gono, announced a 13-fold increase on the last time he released an inflation rate, in February, when it was put at about 165,000%. Officials admit that the figure is only an estimate because it is now all but impossible to track the cost of individual goods.

One of Zimbabwe’s most respected economists, John Robertson, said that while inflation was probably about 2m% in May, it soared again last month. “I think the June figure is more likely to be 10m% and it could turn out 15m%,” he said.

U.N. peacekeeper slain in Darfur



UNITED NATIONS (CNN)

Another U.N. peacekeeper has been killed in the Darfur region of Sudan, the United Nations said Wednesday.

The death comes as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called efforts to resolve the five-year-old conflict in the region “deeply disappointing.”

The slain peacekeeper’s nationality was not immediately disclosed. U.N. spokeswoman Marie Okabe said he was shot and killed while on patrol in the territory, where Sudan’s government has waged a brutal counter-insurgency campaign in response to a 2003 rebel uprising.

The latest attack follows the deaths of seven peacekeepers from the U.N.-African Union Mission in Darfur force in an ambush last week.

Europe

Mother dressed in ‘burka’ denied French citizenship



From The Times

July 17, 2008

Charles Bremner in Paris

A Muslim member of the French Government has attacked the head-to-toe Islamic dress as a prison, applauding a court decision to deny citizenship to a Moroccan woman who wore it.

“The burka is a prison, a strait-jacket,” Fadela Amara, the Minister for Urban Affairs and a longstanding women’s rights campaigner, said yesterday. “It is not religious. It is the insignia of a totalitarian political project for sexual inequality.”

The court decision denying Faiza Mabchour, 32, French citizenship has drawn approval from both Left and Right, highlighting a rejection of Muslim customs that conflict with the values of the secular French republic

Turkish court adviser backs AKP

An adviser to Turkey’s Constitutional Court has recommended that it should not shut down the ruling AK Party for anti-secular activities, officials say.

The BBC

In a non-binding report, Osman Can said the AKP’s decision to lift a ban on Islamic headscarves had only been intended to expand freedoms, they add.

Turkey’s chief prosecutor has accused it of seeking to replace the country’s secular system with an Islamic state.

The party denies the charges. A verdict on the case is expected within a month.

According to Mr Can, the lifting of the headscarf ban was not an attempt at undermining Turkey’s secular constitution.

As the lifting of the ban had already been reversed by the court, Mr Can argued that no further action was necessary, and the closure case could be dropped.

Latin America

Argentinian Senate rejects farm vote



By MAYRA PERTOSSI, Associated Press Writer

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – Argentina’s Senate narrowly rejected a grain-export tax package early Thursday, a government-backed proposal that has led to nationwide farm strikes and regional food shortages.

Lawmakers rejected the bill by 37 votes to 36 after 17 hours of debate.

The vote was tied until vice president Julio Cobos – who is also leader of the Senate – broke the deadlock with a deciding vote against.

“I think today is the most difficult day of my life,” Cobos said. “They tell me I must go along with the government for institutional reasons, but my heart tells me otherwise. May history judge me, my vote is not for, it’s against.”