When Accusing Someone Of Being A Terrorist
And You Say It Enough People Begin
To Believe Them Which Then Leads To
The Incitement Of Violence Through Words And Actions
Rich Nations Pushing for Coordination in Rescue
By MARK LANDLER
Published: October 10, 2008
WASHINGTON – The United States and six other nations that are among the world’s richest agreed on Friday to a coordinated plan to rescue the financial industry, but fell short of offering concrete steps to backstop bank lending on a day when fear tightened its grip on investors from Wall Street to Hong Kong.
Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. said the United States would move aggressively on one part of the plan by infusing American banks directly with cash and taking ownership stakes in return.
Western Journalists in Iraq Stage Pullback of Their Own
By Ernesto Londoño and Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, October 11, 2008; Page A01BAGHDAD — The number of foreign journalists in Baghdad is declining sharply, a media withdrawal that reflects Iraq’s growing stability and the financial strains faced by some news organizations.
In a stark indication of the changing media focus here, the number of journalists traveling with American forces in Iraq has plummeted in the past year. U.S. military officials say they “embedded” journalists 219 times in September 2007. Last month, the number shrank to 39. Of the dozen U.S. newspapers and newspaper chains that maintained full-time bureaus in Baghdad in the early years of the war, only four are still permanently staffed by foreign correspondents. CBS and NBC no longer keep a correspondent in Baghdad year-round.
USA
U.S. to buy shares in banks
Treasury secretary says the move, previously rejected, is now needed to inject cash into the financial system.
By Jim Puzzanghera, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson said today that the Bush administration would buy stakes in banks and other financial institutions to help ease the economic crisis.Paulson said the Treasury Department was working on a plan to use some of the $700 billion in the financial rescue package to purchase equity in “a broad array of financial institutions.” The equity would be in the form of nonvoting shares, with the goal of the plan being to help those institutions raise new private capital.
As Congress worked on the bailout legislation last month, Paulson had dismissed the idea of equity purchases. Today, he said the administration had decided that such a move was needed now, in concert with the purchase of mortgage-backed securities, to help inject cash into the banking system.
Leading in polls, Obama plays it safe
Refers to McCain as ‘my opponent,’ let’s allies respond to sharp attacks?
Associated PressCOLUMBUS, Ohio – Leading in polls with 25 days to the election, Democrat Barack Obama is playing it safe, offering careful proposals to address the economic crisis while letting allies respond to John McCain’s sharpest charges.
The Democratic presidential nominee, famous for his unscripted oratory, now reads his speeches from TelePrompTers, reducing the chance of gaffes. He has not held a news conference in two weeks, although he has done several one-on-one interviews with national and local reporters.
Asia
North Korea film festival: Hollywood need not apply
The reclusive society’s film event is like no other. No paparazzi, no cellphones, and the foreign attendees are sequestered on an island.
By Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 11, 2008PYONGYANG, NORTH KOREA —
You know you’re not in Cannes when the all-female marching band, wearing white go-go boots, belts out communist anthems at the opening ceremony.
This is a film festival like none other in the world.
There are no movie stars, no paparazzi, hardly any press. No studio executives doing deals on their BlackBerrys — cellphones and other wireless devices are banned in North Korea.
For that matter, so are most movies. North Korea is the closest thing the world has to a hermetically sealed society. There is no Internet. Radios and televisions are welded to government stations. Yet every two years since 1987, North Korea has opened its doors, and its screens, just enough to host the Pyongyang International Film Festival.
Suicide bomber kills dozens at Pakistani peace meeting
• Tribal leaders gathered to form anti-Taliban militia
• Polarisation leads to fears of civil war in north-west
Saeed Shah in Islamabad
The Guardian,
Saturday October 11 2008
Peace efforts in Pakistan received a major blow yesterday when a gathering of the country’s nascent anti-Taliban tribal movement was bombed, killing up to 50 and injuring 100.The suicide attack occurred in the tribal belt running along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, in the strategically important Orakzai area, which is used as a crossing point by Taliban and al-Qaida militants.
Some 600 tribal members had come together for a traditional gathering, known as a jirga, when the bomber struck.
The meeting was finalising the establishment of a militia, according to officials, and plans had been made to demolish a local Taliban headquarters immediately afterwards.
Europe
Freedom fighters welcome honour, 70 years on
Giles Tremlett in Madrid
The Guardian,
Saturday October 11 2008
Seventy years have passed since they marched out of Barcelona amid crowds of weeping, cheering Spaniards, but it is only now that the last few British volunteers who fought in Spain against General Franco’s fascist-backed rebels are finally to be rewarded by the Spanish state.The handful of British survivors from the 2,300 men and women in the International Brigades during the civil war are now in their 90s or have passed 100, and most are physically frail.
They still cling to the memories and spirit of battles fought seven decades ago and have welcomed an offer by the cabinet of the Socialist prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, last week, that would allow them joint nationality.
Last treasures of the French royal family go under the hammer in Paris
Marie Antoinette’s purse will be put up for auction next week by heirs to the Comte de Paris
By Hannah Wright in Paris
Saturday, 11 October 2008
The last remaining treasures of the French royal family – including a silk purse embroidered by Queen Marie Antoinette in her prison cell – will be auctioned in Paris next week. The objects, including jewellery, paintings, miniatures and furniture, are the remnants of one of the greatest royal fortunes in Europe, diminished first by revolution and, more recently, by scandal. The auction is also the latest chapter in a dispute that broke in 1999 upon the death of the pretender to the French throne, the Comte de Paris.
Middle East
Chickpea wars: Israelis up in arms at bid to stop them selling hummus
Threatened lawsuit would allow only Lebanese makers to use dish’s traditional name
By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
Saturday, 11 October 2008
Itzhak Rachmo had one word to describe a threatened Lebanese lawsuit against Israeli hummus sellers. “Bullshit”. As a long queue of hungry clients formed at the counter for their staple Friday lunch, he clutched his forearm and declared: “There is hummus flowing through these veins.”This week the Association of Lebanese Industrialists said it was planning international court action to stop Israel marketing its version of what it claims are “Lebanese” foods like hummus and falafel.
Israel hires PR firm on 60th birthday for a political facelift>
Toni O’Loughlin in Jerusalem
The Guardian,
Saturday October 11 2008Israel has hired British public image consultants to give the conflict-battered nation a political facelift for its 60th birthday this year.
Acanchi, which has built its reputation on altering international perceptions of nations such as Lebanon and Bahrain, has been contracted to counter anti-Israel “mindsets”. “Our research shows that Israel’s brand is essentially the conflict,” Ido Aharoni, head of the brand management unit within Israel’s foreign ministry, told Israeli daily, Haaretz.
“Even those who recognise that Israel is in the right are not attracted to it, because they see it as a supplier of bad news. The conclusion is that it is more important for Israel to be attractive than to be right,” he said.
Africa
Congo blames Rwanda for fresh fighting
Clashes between government forces and Tutsi rebels could force 30,000 people from their homes in eastern Congo.
By Scott Baldauf | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the October 11, 2008 edition
GOMA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO – Renewed fighting between Congolese rebels and government forces has worsened one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, sending thousands of villagers from their homes, while Congo’s government accuses the Rwandan government of intervening on its soil.Fighters from the rebel faction of Gen. Laurent Nkunda – an ethnic Tutsi thought to be backed by the Tutsi-led government in neighboring Rwanda – took the strategic town of Rumangabo and a military base from the Congolese Army during heated battle this week, but have since withdrawn. Casualty numbers were not known, but internal refugees told the Monitor that the fighting was fierce and that they were urged to leave their homes by government soldiers.
In Somalia, a ‘forgotten crisis’
By Jeffrey Gettleman
Published: October 10, 2008AFGOOYE, Somalia: There is a sense of overwhelming hopelessness just stepping into one of the feeding centers around here and seeing dozens of women sitting with listless babies in their laps, snapping their fingers, trying to get a flicker of life out of their dying children.
Little eyes close. Wizened one-year-olds struggle to breathe. From the doorway, you can see the future of Somalia fading away.
While the audacity of a band of Somali pirates who recently hijacked a ship full of arms has grabbed the world’s attention, it is the slow-burn suffering of millions of Somalis that seems to go almost unnoticed.
Latin America
For Ousted Candidate, Fight Goes On
Venezuelan Disqualified Along With Other Chávez Foes Campaigns for Those Remaining
By Juan Forero
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, October 11, 2008; Page A16CARACAS, Venezuela — Young and photogenic, Leopoldo López has been running the campaign of his political life, rummaging for votes here amid a warren of crowded slums and as far away as Venezuela’s lawless western frontier. Polls show that the politician has won a strong following by promising a sharp change from the populist government of President Hugo Chávez, who after nearly a decade in office pulls virtually all the levers of power in the hemisphere’s biggest oil power.
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