Docudharma Times Tuesday October 14

Sarah Palin A Political Disaster Area

Where’s Brownie?  

U.S. Investing $250 Billion in Banks

 

By MARK LANDLER

Published: October 13, 2008  

WASHINGTON – The Treasury Department, in its boldest move yet, is expected to announce a plan on Tuesday to invest up to $250 billion in banks, according to officials. The United States is also expected to guarantee new debt issued by banks for three years – a measure meant to encourage the banks to resume lending to one another and to customers, officials said.

And the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation will offer an unlimited guarantee on bank deposits in accounts that do not bear interest – typically those of businesses – bringing the United States in line with several European countries, which have adopted such blanket guarantees.

London and Asian markets continue world-wide rally of shares after bailouts

 

From Times Online

October 14, 2008

Leo Lewis in Tokyo, Suzy Jagger in New York, Francis Elliott and Gráinne Gilmore

London and Asian markets continued the world-wide rally of shares today after governments committed trillions of dollars to stop collapse of the financial system – with America set to unveil its bailout plan in a few hours.

The FTSE 100 share index posted a 4 per cent rise in early trading today after Japanese dealing floors led the way in Asia, unleashing an unprecedented frenzy of buying to post the Nikkei’s biggest one-day gain.

France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, Finland, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, India, South Korea, Japan and Qatar all took measures to guarantee deposits or improve bank liquidity.

USA

At least 1 dead, more than 10,000 acres burned in two San Fernando Valley fires

Governor declares a state of emergency. A fire in Porter Ranch has scorched more than 5,000 acres and 19 homes. The Marek fire near Lake View Terrace has burned 5,300 acres.

  By Julie Cart,, Ari B. Bloomekatz and Mitchell Landsberg, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

October 14, 2008  

With treacherous Santa Ana winds as their bellows, twin wildfires raced through populated canyons, forests and brushlands on the northern fringes of the San Fernando Valley, claiming at least one life and 49 structures, and prompting authorities to suggest a hair-raising, worst-case scenario — that one of the blazes, which began near Porter Ranch, could burn all the way to the Pacific Ocean about 15 miles away.

“This fire has the potential to move from where it is now . . . perhaps as far as Pacific Coast Highway,” Los Angeles County Fire Chief Michael Freeman said Monday afternoon as he assessed what he called “a design for disaster.” Freeman said winds of up to 60 mph were expected to push the fire down through canyons at least through this morning.

At Indian call centers, another view of U.S.

?As economy falters, debt collectors hear stories from the land of plenty

By Emily Wax

updated 12:02 a.m. ET Oct. 14, 2008  

GURGAON, India – With her flowing, hot-pink Indian suit, jangly silver bangles and perky voice, Bhumika Chaturvedi, 24, doesn’t fit the stereotype of a thuggish, heard-it-all-before debt collector. But lately, she has had no problem making American debtors cry.

For the past three years, Chaturvedi has been a top collection agent at her call center, phoning hundreds of Americans a day and politely asking them to pay up. As the U.S. financial crisis plunges Americans into debt, her business is one of the fastest-growing sectors in Indian outsourcing. It is also one of the few sectors of outsourcing in India that is still aggressively hiring.

Asia

China plans string of dams in south Tibet

• Hydropower seen as way to boost local economy

• Environment groups fear wider impact downstream

 Tania Branigan in Lhasa

The Guardian, Tuesday October 14 2008

China is planning to build a string of new dams in southern Tibet to boost its electricity supply, the region’s chief of water resources told the Guardian.

Hundreds of millions of people across Asia depend on rivers that originate in Tibet, and previous hydroelectric proposals have proved controversial because of their impact on the environment, local people and communities downstream.

But officials in Lhasa argue the dams are the least damaging way of providing power and raising living standards in the region. “Tibet is rich in water resources and has good potential for setting up more hydropower stations and dams,” said Baima Wangdui, director of the region’s water resources department.

World Focus: Game, set and match to North Korea



By Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor

Tuesday, 14 October 2008

If you were keeping a scorecard of the nuclear brinkmanship between North Korea and the United States, today it would show game, set and match for Pyongyang over the world’s only remaining superpower.

The totalitarian state secured a major strategic victory at the weekend over the US, which finally removed North Korea from its terrorism blacklist, consigning to history President George Bush’s description of Pyongyang as a member of the “Axis of Evil”.

The decision goes far beyond the realm of symbolism, however.

Africa

Rwanda to switch from French to English in schools  

 • Move seen as further snub to former colonial power

• Business needs a factor in dropping old influences

Chris McGreal, Africa correspondent

The Guardian, Tuesday October 14 2008

The Rwandan government is to switch the country’s entire education system from French to English in one of the most dramatic steps to date in its move away from Francophone influence.

Officially the change is to reposition Rwanda as a member of the East African Community, an organisation made up mostly of English-speaking countries such as neighbours Uganda and Tanzania.

However, the shift to education solely in English is part of a wholesale realignment away from French influence that includes applying to join the Commonwealth – if accepted Rwanda would be only the second member, after Mozambique, that has not been a British colony – and establishing a cricket board.

The Herald is associated with the Zanu-PF. The Party of Robert Mugabe

Zimbabwe: Msika, Mujuru Sworn in



The Herald (Harare)

14 October 2008

Posted to the web 14 October 2008

VICE Presidents Cdes Joseph Msika and Joice Mujuru were yesterday sworn-in at State House in Harare as the process towards a new Government gathers momentum.

To add impetus to the process, former South African president Cde Thabo Mbeki – the Sadc-appointed facilitator to the inter-party dialogue – arrived in Harare late last night to set Zanu-PF, MDC-T and the MDC on the home stretch to the inclusive Governmen

Cde Mbeki, who is accompanied by former local government minister Cde Sydney Mufamadi, director-general in the Presidency Reverend Frank Chikane and legal advisor Advocate Mojankunyane Gumbi, was met at Harare International Airport by Foreign Affairs Minister Cde Simbarashe Mumbengegwi, Zanu-PF negotiator Cde Nicholas Goche, Higher and Tertiary Education Minister Cde Stan Mudenge and Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to South Africa, Cde Simon Khaya Moyo.

Europe

Ireland braced for tough times ahead

 

By David McKittrick, Ireland correspondent

Tuesday, 14 October 2008

The Republic of Ireland is braced for a budget which is predicted to be the harshest for more than a decade as its government struggles to increase the stability of its economic system.

Finance minister Brian Lenihan is expected to announce in the Irish parliament today both increased taxes and spending cuts in a budget which will mark the ending of the “Celtic Tiger” period.

The new mood of parsimony has led to the leader of the opposition voluntarily taking a cut in his official salary, leading to speculation that ministers may follow suit.

Jacqui Smith creates ’emergency bill’ after 42-day detention defeat >

 Jacqui Smith has created a new “emergency bill” to extend detention without trial to 42 days, after the House of Lords voted overwhelmingly against making the measure law

By Rosa Prince, Political Correspondent

Last Updated: 7:58AM BST 14 Oct 2008

The Home Secretary said the one-line bill could be rushed through Parliament in a matter of hours in the event of a terrorist attack.

She told MPs: “This House has voted in favour of a reserve power which could only be used when there is a grave and exceptional terrorist threat and which would be accompanied by high level of judicial and Parliamentary safeguards.

“My priority remains the protection of the British people.

“I don’t believe that it is enough to simply cross our fingers and hope for the best. When it comes to national security, there are certain risks I am not prepared to take.

“I am not prepared to leave British people without the protections they need.

“I have prepared a new Bill to enable the police and prosecutors to do their work should the worst happen, should a terrorist plot take us and threaten our current investigatory capabilities

Middle East

Riots fracture rare Jewish-Arab ties in mixed Israeli town

Israeli President Shimon Peres led a reconciliation effort Monday after four days of ethnic violence

 By Joshua Mitnick | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the October 14, 2008 edition

ACRE, ISRAEL – After four days of ethnic rioting that has torn apart one of the few Israeli cities where Arabs and Jews live and socialize together, Israeli President Shimon Peres brought together political and religious leaders of both communities in an effort to restore a sense of calm and coexistence.

Community activists and Israeli analysts say the worst domestic clashes since 2000 were a local symptom of the troubled relations between the Jewish state and its one-fifth Arab minority.

Since last Wednesday, dozens have been injured on both sides, Arab houses torched, and Jewish businesses vandalized. Now Acre (pronounced AH’-koh), a city of 50,000, is patrolled by paramilitary policemen with M-16s and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told them to show “zero tolerance” toward rioters. Streets remained calm since Sunday.

Mideast anti-Americanism doesn’t apply to Harley-Davidsons

The motorcycles have become increasingly popular in the Middle East, and more than 100 fanatics from the Arab world recently converged in Lebanon for a rally.

By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

October 14, 2008

BEIRUT — He’d had a rotten day at the office — the boss had barked at him, ordering him to get some mammoth project done within an impossible deadline. So he got aboard his pearl-white Harley-Davidson Street Glide, turned the ignition, gripped the throttle and revved the engine.

He rode through streets crowded with apartments, past well-lighted skyscrapers. The city faded behind him and he breathed in the cool nighttime air, his motorbike roaring through the desert.

For a few minutes, he felt free of his job, his family, of pressures and demands on his time — just heading out on the highway atop nearly 800 pounds of pure American thunder.

On a Middle Eastern highway.

“My mind just clears,” says Rakan Talal, a 26-year-old from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital, who was among a small but fervent crew of hog fanatics converging on Lebanon the first weekend of October for the country’s first Harley-Davidson tour. “I don’t think about anything. Just the road and feeling the wind. Riding on two wheels is something else. Riding a bike makes it all feel better.”