Docudharma Times Monday November 24

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To Citi Bank    

U.S. Approves Plan to Help Citigroup Weather Losses



By ERIC DASH

Published: November 23, 2008

Federal regulators approved a radical plan to stabilize Citigroup in an arrangement in which the government could soak up billions of dollars in losses at the struggling bank, the government announced late Sunday night.The complex plan calls for the government to back about $306 billion in loans and securities and directly invest about $20 billion in the company. The plan, emerging after a harrowing week in the financial markets, is the government’s third effort in three months to contain the deepening economic crisis and may set the precedent for other multibillion-dollar financial rescues.

Orange County Vietnamese American returns to her homeland

Her family had fled the country, but Tiffany Nguyen saw opportunity there for professional advancement — and an adventure.

By My-Thuan Tran

November 24, 2008

Reporting from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam — Tiffany Nguyen sauntered down Dong Khoi street, swatting mosquitoes in the sticky heat. Wearing 3-inch black heels, she plunged through a crush of motorbikes spewing smoke and blasting horns, dashing toward a nearby restaurant to meet a friend.

Nguyen, 28, grew up 7,800 miles from here in an Orange County suburb. But for the last year, she has worked along this boulevard known as the Fifth Avenue of Vietnam, where boutiques crowd against old Parisian hotels.For years entrepreneurs stayed away from Vietnam, a poor country with scant business prospects, where visas were hard to get.

USA

Clinton’s potential pitfalls seen in FDR’s secretary of State

Like Cordell Hull, she could find herself marginalized because she hasn’t been close to the president she would serve. Her future ambitions could also complicate her job.

By Paul Richter

November 24, 2008

Reporting from Washington — Cordell Hull was a veteran lawmaker with a worldwide reputation when Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him secretary of State in 1933, in part to win needed support from Hull’s army of Democratic admirers.

But the dignified Tennessean was never close to FDR. As time passed, he was “muscled out by others in the administration,” said Michael Hunt, a diplomatic historian at the University of North Carolina.

Barack Obama’s election as president has drawn other comparisons with Roosevelt’s, especially for the economic crisis he inherits. But the example of Hull, a marginal figure despite the fact that he served into the 1940s and later won the Nobel Peace Prize, may point to potential pitfalls for Hillary Rodham Clinton if she takes the top diplomatic post, as seems increasingly likely.

Clinton would come to the role with global star power, a first-name relationship with world leaders, and a long familiarity with foreign policy.

Immigrant tide may be turning

Illegal aliens seem fewer as jobs dry up, law cracks down

KRISTIN COLLINS AND LORENZO PEREZ, Staff Writers

North Carolina’s decade-long influx of illegal immigrants may be waning as the economy falters and law officers crack down.

Fewer migrants are crossing the nation’s southern border, U.S. and Mexican officials say. And some of those who had made homes in North Carolina are returning to their home countries — pushed by unemployment, the loss of driver’s licenses or the deportation of family members.

“There is no work here,” said Jose Ramirez, 40, who visited the Mexican consulate in Raleigh this week to make sure his passport was in order. He said he hasn’t found a job in two months and, after four years working in construction and restaurants, most recently in Wilmington, he was planning to return to his home in Veracruz. “When I was working in restaurants, I was sometimes able to send home $800 a month,” he said. “But there is no work left.”

Middle East

Father murdered, wife and daughter jailed: killers call the shots in Iraq’s justice system

• Gunmen join Sons of Iraq force in security handover

• Ordinary citizens despair of seeing law and order

Martin Chulov in Baghdad

guardian.co.uk, Monday November 24 2008 00.01 GMT

Nour al-Houda al-Maliki woke one night in March to the cracks of the bullets that killed her father as he lay sleeping, six feet from her. She saw four masked men. One she knew as a member of the Mahdi army, the feared clan that ruthlessly calls the shots throughout her south Baghdad neighbourhood.

Overcome by fear, the 21-year-old still managed to take her mother to the nearby Rashid police station the next day to report her father’s murder and identify at least one killer.

“They said to me, ‘You mention the Mahdi army one more time and we will beat you, then jail you’,” Nour, 21, recalled at the weekend. They were true to their word. She left prison 15 days ago and has been on the run since. “I’m scared,” she said. “So scared, but who can I turn to?”

Israeli neo-Nazi gang jailed

Eight teenagers have been jailed in Israel for carrying out a series of neo-Nazi attacks that shocked the nation.

24 Nov 2008

The eight young men, aged from 16 to 19, were found guilty of attacking religious Jews, homosexuals and drug addicts, and the desecration of a synagogue.

The group, immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union, were sentenced to between one and seven years in jail.

One of those convicted was the grandson of a Holocaust survivor.

The court found that several members of the gang, based in the Tel Aviv satellite town of Petah Tikva, had even planned to celebrate the birthday of wartime German Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in a country set up as a refuge for Jews after the Holocaust.

Europe

Impressionist villagers protest at industry plan



Lizzy Davies in Paris

guardian.co.uk, Monday November 24 2008 00.01 GMT

It was where Pissarro found inspiration, Cezanne discovered the nuances of light and Van Gogh spent his final days painting rain-sodden haystacks and rolling fields of wheat.

But residents of Auvers-sur-Oise fear its cultural heritage is at risk from proposals to build an industrial site in the middle of the landscape favoured by painters.

Locals are convinced some of the most famous views in the Impressionist canon would be ruined by the Paris port authority’s plans to build on the section of Oise riverbank overlooking the village.

Hundreds of people from a combined group of associations signed a petition yesterday and protested at what they described as a threat to “the architectural and cultural heritage [of the region] and the quality of life of its residents”.

Dutch plan to weed out criminals

Plans for giant cannabis farm to cut out ‘back-door’ supply to coffee shops

By Vanessa Mock

Monday, 24 November 2008

The Dutch city of Eindhoven has caused a stir with a plan to set up a cannabis plantation to supply marijuana to its coffee shops. The move was announced at a “weed summit”, when dozens of Dutch mayors urged the government to back the pilot project in an effort to clamp down on the criminals who supply the drug.

The Netherlands, famed for having one of Europe’s most tolerant policies on soft drugs, allows for the possession of less than 5g of marijuana and its sale in coffee shops, but bans the cultivation and supply of the drug to these shops. The majority of Dutch mayors say this legal “back door” has spawned an illicit industry worth €2bn (£1.7bn) a year.

Africa

The general who holds Congo’s fate in his hands

Rebel leader Nkunda has presidency in his sights and vows to make his country ‘big’ again

By Daniel Howden in Rutshuru, Eastern Congo

Monday, 24 November 2008

Sitting in the shade of a tree in a Rutshuru schoolyard, Laurent Nkunda is in the final act of his “Man for All Seasons” performance. He has danced with small children, acted the fiery demagogue before a crowd of thousands, displayed his military strength and even cracked a few jokes in Swahili. Now he considers the idea of becoming president of the Democratic Republic of Congo: “President I can be. It is my right as a Congolese. My dream is not to be president; but if that is the way, then I will be,” he says.

The renegade general whose sweeping advance last month triggered mass panic in Eastern Congo and threatened total humiliation for the UN’s biggest peacekeeping force, is now casting himself as the peacemaker.

Send the troops into Zimbabwe, says Kenya’s Raila Odinga>

 

From The Times

November 24, 2008

Foreign Staff

Raila Odinga, the Kenyan Prime Minister, broke ranks with African leaders yesterday and called for international peacekeepers to be sent to Zimbabwe.

“Because there is no legitimate government in Zimbabwe, the AU [African Union] should consider sending a peacekeeping force,” Mr Odinga said. “This is what is going to send a strong signal to one Mr Robert Mugabe.”

Mr Odinga was himself a victim of election-rigging, when President Kibaki was declared the winner of disputed polls in Kenya last year. He has been critical of the Mugabe regime, but also of other African leaders who turn a blind eye to Zimbabwe’s suffering. “To many African leaders the situation in Zimbabwe has returned to normal,” Mr Odinga said. “This is because these leaders carry the same baggage like Mugabe.”

Asia

Huang Guangyu, China’s richest man, disappears amid corruption investigation



From Times Online

November 24, 2008

Jane Macartney in Beijing

China’s richest man has disappeared. Chinese media say Huang Guangyu is under police investigation for alleged share trading violations. His company says they have not heard from the tycoon in days.

Trading in shares Mr Huang’s Gome Electrical Appliances Holdings was halted in Monday on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The company issued a statement saying it was making “necessary enquiries” to try to find out what had happened to its founder and controlling shareholder.

It said business was continuing as normal and the company had received no legal notice from the Chinese authorities about the whereabouts of Mr Huang.

Tibetans back Dalai Lama’s ‘middle way,’ despite impatience

But they may yet abandon his moderate stance on China if it doesn’t bring progress soon, they warned.

By Mark Sappenfield | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the November 24, 2008 edition

NEW DELHI – At the end of a conference called to consider the future of the Tibetan movement, the Dalai Lama and his delegates spoke of continuity – maintaining his “middle way” policy of negotiations with China.

Yet the legacy of these six days in the Indian hill town of Dharamsala could well be one of change. For the first time, Tibetan leaders said there was a limit to their support of the nonconfrontational “middle way.” Without progress soon, they said, they would abandon it.

This robust debate clearly demonstrated that even the most moderate Tibetans are growing impatient at China’s apparent unwillingness to grant Tibet a greater degree of autonomy. The result is that the Dalai Lama now has a clear mandate to take a harder line on China, should he choose.

“His stances [toward China] have been very soft,” says Vijay Kranti, editor of Tibbat Desh, a newspaper for the Tibetan community in India. “Now he may take a stronger stand.”

Latin America

Chavez opponents make poll gains

Venezuela’s opposition has made gains in regional polls, but President Hugo Chavez’s allies have held on to 17 of the country’s 22 governorships.

The BBC

The opposition took at least three including the two most populous states, and won mayoral elections in Caracas.

The polls were regarded as a critical test for Mr Chavez, whose allies until now controlled 21 states.

The president said the outcome of the vote was an endorsement of Venezuela’s “socialist project”.

‘Exemplary conduct’

With more than 95% of votes counted overall, the opposition won the key states of Miranda and Zulia, the biggest in terms of electorate.