Docudharma Times Saturday September 6

That School Looks Familiar And

Using Music Without Permission

Laws Only Apply To The Little People

Just Ask Republicans

U.S. Rescue Seen at Hand for 2 Mortgage Giants  



By STEPHEN LABATON and ANDREW ROSS SORKIN

Published: September 5, 2008  

WASHINGTON – Senior officials from the Bush administration and the Federal Reserve on Friday called in top executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage finance giants, and told them that the government was preparing to place the two companies under federal control, officials and company executives briefed on the discussions said.

The plan, which would place the companies into a conservatorship, was outlined in separate meetings with the chief executives at the office of the companies’ new regulator. The executives were told that, under the plan, they and their boards would be replaced and shareholders would be virtually wiped out, but that the companies would be able to continue functioning with the government generally standing behind their debt, people briefed on the discussions said.

The escalating breakdown of urban society across the US

‘There are two Americas – separate, unequal, and no longer even acknowledging each other except on the barest cultural terms. In the one nation, new millionaires are minted every day.

David Simon

The Guardian,

Saturday September 6 2008

Baltimore – it’s been an ordinary week in Maryland’s largest city. The August heat broke and one can nearly sleep with a window open; the Orioles are again down in the cellar in the American League East; the city murder rate is a bit behind last year’s blood-letting, and if it holds into the fall, politicians and police commanders will compete to claim credit.

The stories in the Baltimore Sun remain fixed on the surface, each of them premised on the givens: schools will open next week and provide more or less the same inferior education as previous years; Johns Hopkins is building its biotech park expansion where the East Baltimore ghetto used to be and the ghetto is migrating due east and north-east; the biotech park will be great for white folk with college degrees, for those with union cards, the factories are still closed and the port is still losing cargo to Norfolk; a shooting here, a cutting there ..

USA

U.S. needs more troops in Afghanistan, commander says

But with Petraeus set to recommend slowing the drawdown in Iraq, more forces are unlikely to be available soon to deal with rising bloodshed.

By Peter Spiegel and Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

10:33 PM PDT, September 5, 2008

WASHINGTON — A top commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan said Friday that he needed thousands of additional troops to combat violence along the border with Pakistan, a requirement that appears to be at odds with recommendations from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus on future troop levels in Iraq.

Because of strains on the military, plans to boost the number of troops in Afghanistan depend on reducing the force in Iraq. Petraeus’ plan, which President Bush is expected to approve Tuesday in an appearance at the National Defense University, would slow the reduction of combat troops in Iraq, freeing up only one full Army combat brigade for redeployment to Afghanistan. That move would not happen until early next year.

In addition to the combat brigade of about 3,500 to 4,000 troops, U.S. officials also plan to withdraw about 2,000 non-combat support personnel from Iraq and transfer about 1,300 Marines from Iraq’s Anbar province to western Afghanistan.

School goes from backdrop to center stage

After appearing as a backdrop during John McCain’s acceptance speech, Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood basks in the glory.?

By Bob Pool, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

September 6, 2008  

 It was an unexpected burst of glory, and the 1,600 students at Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood were basking in it Friday.

None of the youngsters knew for certain why a 50-foot-wide image of the front of their school was projected Thursday night behind Sen. John McCain as he accepted the Republican Party presidential nomination. But there were plenty of theories.

Sixth-grader Joshua Popue offered the explanation most commonly being floated Friday both at the Irvine Avenue campus and in political circles: Somebody in the McCain campaign mistook Walter Reed Middle School for the military’s troubled Walter Reed Army Medical Center when preparing the Republicans’ high-tech video background wall.

Asia

Keeper of the Kajaki dam sees dream come closer to reality

Sayed Rasoul has spent 30 years trying to bring power to Afghanistan. Then the British arrived …>  

Saturday, 6 September 2008

Thirty years of Afghan history has left an indelible mark on Sayed Rasoul. He was 22 when he first came to work at the Kajaki dam three decades ago. Since then he has watched one violent era after another take its toll on the country and his dam.

But somehow he has managed to keep one of the turbines going to provide electricity for his home town as the fighting raged beyond his walls. And this week Mr Rasoul’s ambition to provide electricity to more than a million homes in southern Afghanistan became a very real possibility with the delivery of more than 200 tonnes of new equipment.  

From jail to high office: the strange journey of Asif Ali Zardari



From The Times

September 6, 2008

Zahid Hussain in Islamabad

Asif Ali Zardari, the controversial widower of Benazir Bhutto, is poised to become Pakistan’s new president today when lawmakers elect a successor to Pervez Musharraf, who resigned last month under threat of impeachment.

The expected result is an amazing reversal of fortune for the 53-year-old polo-loving politician, who spent more than a decade in prison on murder, corruption and other criminal charges.

With the economy in crisis and Islamic militants gaining ground, analysts say that it bodes ill for the political stability of the country of 164 million people that is the United States’ main Muslim ally in the War on Terror.

Europe

US warship confronts Russian military in ‘tinderbox’ port



From The Times

September 6, 2008

James Hider in Tbilisi and Tony Halpin in Moscow

A US Navy flagship carrying humanitarian aid yesterday steamed into a Georgian port where Russian troops are still stationed, stoking tensions once again in the tinderbox Caucasus region.

A previous trip by US warships was cancelled at the last minute a week ago amid fears that an armed stand-off could intensify in the Black Sea port of Poti.

The arrival of the USS Mount Whitney, flagship of the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean, came as Moscow accused Dick Cheney, the hawkish US Vice-President, of stoking tensions during a visit to Tbilisi this week. After meeting President Saakashvili, Mr Cheney vowed to bring Georgia into the Nato alliance. Russia sees such moves as Western encroachment on its traditional sphere of influence.

Medvedev says Russia ‘nation to be reckoned with’  



By YURAS KARMANAU, Associated Press Writer  

MOSCOW – President Dmitry Medvedev said Saturday the war with Georgia has shown the world that “Russia is a nation to be reckoned with” – his most aggressive comments to date on the conflict with Russia’s southern neighbor.

Medvedev said the fighting in August was forced upon Russia and insisted that Russia had to act to save lives. He spoke at the opening of State Council, a high-level government body made up of governors and others.

“Russia will never allow anyone to infringe upon the lives and dignity of its citizens. Russia is a nation to be reckoned with from now on,” Medvedev said.

Middle East

Israel nudges Egypt to crack down harder on Gaza smugglers

Networks of tunnels underneath the Egypt-Gaza border are used to ferry everything from food to weapons into the impoverished Gaza Strip.  

By Liam Stack  | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor  

Rafah, Egypt –  The buffer zone between Egypt and Gaza is a no man’s land. But beneath the eight-mile Philadelphi Route, this border town stays busy.

Officials on both sides say a vast network of tunnels is used by smugglers to ferry everything from cigarettes and fuel to machine guns and grenades into the Gaza Strip.

Since Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, Egyptian forces have been responsible for cracking down on this smuggling, with the discrete assistance of US Army specialists. But Israeli officials have increasingly voiced discontent with Egypt’s policing. They strongly dispute its claims of success, saying that Cairo’s efforts have improved over time but that there is still much that needs to be done.

“There is a certain improvement in this arena in the last few weeks. The measures have been tightened but the results are still far from satisfying because there are still smuggling tunnels,” Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told reporters on Aug. 26.

Iran rejects French warning of Israeli strike risk >



Reuters

Sat Sep 6, 2008

Iran dismissed on Saturday a warning by France’s president that the Islamic Republic was taking a dangerous gamble over its nuclear program because one day its arch-foe Israel could strike.

Government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham accused Israel of threatening global peace but reiterated Tehran’s publicly stated view that it was not in a position to attack Iran.

Western powers accuse Iran, the world’s fourth-largest oil exporter, of seeking the atom bomb under the cover of a civilian nuclear program. Iran denies the charge, saying it only wants to master atomic technology in order to generate electricity.

Africa

In Destitute Swaziland, Leader Lives Royally  



By BARRY BEARAK

Published: September 5, 2008

LUDZIDZINI, Swaziland – Once upon a time, a young and handsome king ruled over a land of mountainous splendor near the southern tip of Africa. He liked to marry, and as the years passed he took 13 wives, each of them a great beauty.

His countrymen wanted His Majesty to be happy, but some also thought so many spouses were an extravagance for a poor, tiny nation. After all, the king, Mswati III, often provided these wives a retinue, a palace and a new BMW.

A great event was soon forthcoming – on Saturday, in fact. To prepare for the day – the 40-40 Celebration, so-named to honor the king’s 40th birthday and the nation’s 40th year of independence – a 15,000-seat stadium was built and a fleet of top-of-the-line BMW sedans was ordered for the comfort of visiting dignitaries.

Latin America

Thousands stranded as floods cut off aid in Haiti



Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent

The Guardian,

Saturday September 6 2008

Devastation wreaked by tropical storms overwhelmed rescue efforts in Haiti yesterday and left thousands of people stranded with no food or drinking water as another hurricane approached.

Corpses surfaced in the muddy debris of flooded towns and cities while survivors clung to rooftops and other refuges from the torrents, which washed away crops and infrastructure.

Aid agencies and United Nations peacekeepers mobilised to help, but submerged roads and bridges cut off an estimated 250,000 people who were becoming increasingly desperate.