Docudharma Times Sunday October 12

John McCain And His Campaign Can No Longer

Act Like Nothing Is Happening At

Their Campaign Events. It Was Their Decision To

Associate Senator Obama With William Ayers

They Must Take Responsibility For The Actions

Of These Supporters.      

White House Overhauling Rescue Plan

 

 By EDMUND L. ANDREWS and MARK LANDLER

Published: October 11, 2008

WASHINGTON – As international leaders gathered here on Saturday to grapple with the global financial crisis, the Bush administration embarked on an overhaul of its own strategy for rescuing the foundering financial system.

Two weeks after persuading Congress to let it spend $700 billion to buy distressed securities tied to mortgages, the Bush administration has put that idea aside in favor of a new approach that would have the government inject capital directly into the nation’s banks – in effect, partially nationalizing the industry.

The biggest bet in the world

 By the time G7 finance ministers met on Friday afternoon, they were staring into the abyss. In a desperate effort to restore calm to the markets, they took decisive action and came up with a five-point plan, which includes spending billions of taxpayers’ money to rebuild the global banking system and reopen the flow of credit. This is how the drama unfolded …

Heather Stewart and Larry Elliott in New York, Ruth Sutherland and Lisa Bachelor in London

The Observer, Sunday October 12 2008

It was 19 minutes to noon on Wednesday when Gordon Brown took the call from Mervyn King. With the seconds ticking away to the Prime Minister’s first Question Time in the Commons since the summer break, the governor of the Bank of England had dramatic news: secret consultations between the world’s most powerful central bankers had resulted in the decision to make the biggest co-ordinated cut in interest rates there had ever been.

With the world’s financial system perilously close to complete meltdown, bankers were determined to show they meant business. The move was to be announced at midday in London and 7am New York time, and King was nervous that Brown might be embarrassed by a backbencher picking up the news via BlackBerry as he stood up to speak

USA

Issue of Race Creeps Into Campaign



 By Anne E. Kornblut

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, October 12, 2008; Page A01  

In the first presidential campaign involving an African American nominee of a major party, both candidates have agreed on this much: They would rather not dwell on the subject of race.

But their allies have other ideas.

Yesterday, civil rights leader John Lewis, a Democratic congressman from Georgia, became the latest advocate to excite the racial debate, condemning Sen. John McCain for “sowing the seeds of hatred and division” and accusing the Republican nominee of potentially inciting violence.

Barack Obama rides a wave of bad economic news

?Surveys indicate the financial crisis has drowned out other concerns, pulling even longtime Republican voters away from John McCain.

By Peter Wallsten, David Zucchino and Bob Drogin, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

October 12, 2008  

WASHINGTON — For months, Mark Wagner stuck by John McCain, even as the economy stalled and other Americans came to blame Republican leadership. Then, about three weeks ago, the deepening economic downturn pushed him to reconsider.

Now, the Florida salesman and staunch Republican has abandoned the GOP ticket. Sarah Palin, he thinks, looks under-equipped to be vice president. And McCain, he says, displayed an unsteady response to what may be a global economic depression.

The financial crisis has turned the last three weeks into a crucial and possibly decisive period in the presidential contest — a time when many Americans have taken a new look at each candidate and then moved toward Democrat Barack Obama.

Middle East

Thousands of Christians flee killings in Mosul



 By Leila Fadel | McClatchy Newspapers

BAGHDAD – Christians in Mosul are fleeing their homes after a spate of killings this week that left 12 Christians dead in one of the largest Christian communities in Iraq.

The killings follow large protests by the community last month against the passage of the provincial elections law. An article that would give representation to Christians and other minorities was removed from the law before its passage.

Now the last safe haven for Christians is gone, said Canon Andrew White the vicar of St. George’s church in Baghdad.

Daniella Weiss: ‘The Arabs are a filter through which we find our way to land’

Militant pro-settlement activist who wants to see a Greater Israel, goes on trial today

 By Donald Macintyre in Kedumim, West Bank

Sunday, 12 October 2008

She is a 63-year-old grandmother who uses “revolutionary” and “extremist” as terms of praise. She is a religious former mayor who regards many forms of illegality short of murder as permissible in the cause she passionately espouses. And her image as the idol to many hundreds of militant young supporters in their teens and early twenties will only be enhanced when she appears in an Israeli court this morning on charges of assaulting and hindering police.

Daniella Weiss’s activism is right-wing, in defence of a Greater Israel, including the West Bank, and she openly strives for the annexation of that territory.

Africa

Power deal crisis as top jobs seized by Mugabe

Opposition leaders accuse Zimbabwe’s President of a ‘midnight ambush’ over cabinet posts  

Alex Duval Smith and Tracy McVeigh

The Observer,

Sunday October 12 2008

Robert Mugabe yesterday attempted an ‘ambush’ on the power-sharing agreement in Zimbabwe by claiming all the key cabinet posts and control of the state security forces for his own party.

In an open challenge to the power-sharing pact between the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and the President’s ruling Zanu-PF party, which have reached deadlock over the allocation of ministries, Mugabe made a typically defiant gesture by gazetting the 14 key ministries as having been allocated to Zanu-PF.

Fear Amid Hostility in South Africa

As Camps Are Dismantled, Immigrants Targeted in Violence See Few Options

By Karin Brulliard

Washington Post Foreign Service

Sunday, October 12, 2008; Page A20

AKASIA, South Africa — Mohammed Rage lived here among the dusty tents outside the nation’s capital for one month. At 48, the Somali shopkeeper was considered an elder among hundreds of immigrants who sought refuge in this government-run encampment after brutal attacks against foreigners spread through South Africa’s slums in the spring.

This week, a photo of Rage’s dead body, splayed over splotches of blood on a white mortuary table, was offered by those he left behind as proof that they could not leave, even though the camp was being shut. He had returned to his looted shop in June, they said, and got shot in the chest.

Europe

Welcome to Iceland: Despite the crunch, it’s still worth a visit

The economy may just have imploded, taking huge amounts of Britons’ savings with it, but don’t let that put you off visiting, says Raymond Whitaker

Sunday, 12 October 2008  

“There has never been a cheaper time to visit colourful Reykjavik,” proclaims an opportunistic press release from Icelandic Express, the island’s answer to easyJet. With the krona down 40 per cent since last year, it says (failing to point out that most of this fall has taken place in the past week or two), a pint of beer now costs only £4, down from £6.50, and a three-course meal is £35, compared with £57 previously.

Nobody was pushing the world’s most northerly capital as a budget destination a few years ago. Thanks to the boom engendered by the country’s entrepreneurs, financed by ambitious banks, and to pop exports such as Björk and Sigur Rós, the city had become hip.

Leader of Austria’s resurgent far right dies in car crash>

 

From The Sunday Times

October 12, 2008

Matthew Campbell and Bojan Pancevski

AUSTRIA’S far-right leader Jörg Haider was killed in a car accident yesterday, just two weeks after staging a political comeback.

Haider, 58, is said to have been alone at the wheel of his VW Phaeton near the southern city of Klagenfurt when he veered off the road as he exceeded the speed limit while trying to overtake another car. He suffered head and chest injuries after the car rolled several times, and was pronounced dead in hospital.

“For us it’s like the end of the world,” said Stefan Petzner, Haider’s spokesman, who broke down in tears at a press conference. “He was not only my boss but also my best friend.” The Austrian president, Heinz Fischer, called the death a “human tragedy”.

Asia

North Korea Is Off Terror List After a Deal With the U.S.

 

By HELENE COOPER

Published: October 11, 2008

WASHINGTON – The Bush administration announced Saturday that it had removed North Korea from a list of state sponsors of terrorism in a bid to salvage a fragile nuclear deal that seemed on the verge of collapse. Sean McCormack, the State Department spokesman, said that the United States made the decision after North Korea agreed to resume disabling a plutonium plant and to allow some inspections to verify that it had halted its nuclear program as promised months earlier.

Taliban leader killed by SAS was Pakistan officer



From The Sunday Times

October 12, 2008

Christina Lamb in Kabul

British officials covered up evidence that a Taliban commander killed by special forces in Helmand last year was in fact a Pakistani military officer, according to highly placed Afghan officials.

The commander, targeted in a compound in the Sangin valley, was one of six killed in the past year by SAS and SBS forces. When the British soldiers entered the compound they discovered a Pakistani military ID on the body.

It was the first physical evidence of covert Pakistani military operations against British forces in Afghanistan even though Islamabad insists it is a close ally in the war against terror.

Latin America

U.S. influence wanes in Latin America

As Washington’s focus shifted to Middle East, other countries moved in

Associated Press  

QUITO, Ecuador – In a matter of weeks, a Russian naval squadron will arrive in the waters off Latin America for the first time since the Cold War. It is already getting a warm welcome from some in a region where the influence of the United States is in decline.

“The U.S. Fourth Fleet can come to Latin America but a Russian fleet can’t?” said Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa. “If you ask me, any country and any fleet that wants can visit us. We’re a country of open doors.”