Who’s In Charge In Washington?
Must Be Beavis And Butt-head
Clinton Is Said to Accept Offer of Secretary of State Position
By PETER BAKER and HELENE COOPER
Published: November 21, 2008
WASHINGTON – Hillary Rodham Clinton has decided to give up her Senate seat to become secretary of state in the Obama administration, making her the public face to the world for the man who dashed her own hopes for the presidency, confidants of Mrs. Clinton said Friday.
The accord between the two leading figures of the Democratic Party was the culmination of a weeklong drama that riveted the nation’s capital. President-elect Barack Obama and Mrs. Clinton fought perhaps the most polarizing nomination battle in decades, but in recruiting her for his cabinet, Mr. Obama chose to turn a rival into a partner, and she concluded she could have a greater impact by saying yes than byremaining in the Senate.
Wanted: Entertainers for War Zone. Helmets Provided.
Army Seeks Stars to Visit Bases in Afghanistan
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 22, 2008; Page A01
The war in Afghanistan is heating up, so it must be time for the wrestling divas.And what better way to boost the spirits of troops dining on MREs and dodging IEDs than some abbreviations with more pleasing associations — such as NASCAR and NFL?
Over the next five months, the U.S. Army is preparing to reinforce troop morale with “Entertainment from the Home Front,” a string of touring entertainers and athletes that will include World Wrestling Entertainment Divas, National Football League cheerleaders and players, NASCAR drivers, and professional rodeo participants.
USA
Seeking $25 Billion, Big Three to Get a Second Chance on the Hill
By Kendra Marr
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 22, 2008; Page D01In just 10 days, Detroit’s Big Three automakers hope to re-plead their case for a $25 billion emergency loan. But this time they will be expected to produce clearer business plans.
Yesterday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) sent the automakers a letter calling on them to submit “a credible restructuring plan” by Dec. 2.The letter came a day after congressional leaders delayed a vote on providing the auto industry as much as $25 billion in emergency aid.
Regulators fired, disciplined for taking gifts from oil firms
By Greg Gordon | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON – Two employees of the Interior Department have been fired and eight others disciplined in a scandal over the acceptance of meals, junkets, gifts and, in some cases, illicit sex and drugs from the oil companies that they regulated, a knowledgeable person said Friday.Randall Luthi, the director of the department’s Minerals Management Service, announced Friday that he’d meted out discipline ranging from a letter of reprimand to dismissal, but gave no details. All those disciplined worked in the controversial Royalties-in-Kind program, in which the government forgoes royalties on federal leases and instead takes a percentage of the pumped oil and gas for resale
Asia
Chinese Governor, Demonstrators Hold High-Profile Meeting
Participants, State Media Reports Differ
By Lauren Keane
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, November 22, 2008; Page A12
BEIJING, Nov. 21 — A senior Chinese official met with participants in a recent riot, according to the protesters and media reports Friday, as the government sought to highlight how much it was doing in the face of a shaky economy and an increasingly restive population.The meeting Thursday between the governor of the northwestern province of Gansu and more than a dozen people was billed in the official state media as an example of a high-level politician reaching out to hear the concerns of ordinary Chinese.
Acid attacks and rape: growing threat to women who oppose traditional order
Female MPs speak out as conditions worsen and Islamists gain respectability
Clancy Chassay in Kabul
guardian.co.uk, Saturday November 22 2008 00.01 GMT
They were walking to school in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, a group of teenage girls discussing a test they had coming up, when two men on a motorcycle sprayed them with a strange liquid. Within seconds a painful tingling began, and there was an unusual smell as the skin of 16-year-old Atifa Biba began to burn.Her friend rushed over to help her, struggling to wipe the liquid away, when she too was showered with acid. She covered her face, crying out for help as they sprayed her again, trying to aim the acid into her face.
Africa
Obama clan in Kenya enjoys reflected glory
Barack Obama’s extended family gains celebrity status in Kenya. But some of the attention, especially commentary on their economic situation, is a little unwelcome and is causing familial tensions.
By Edmund Sanders
November 22, 2008
Reporting from Nyangoma-Kogelo, Kenya — For about 400 people in western Kenya who can call the next U.S. president “part of the family,” the business of being an Obama has a whole new meaning.The modest family compound here has been inundated by hordes of visitors, varying from reporters and local politicians to ordinary Kenyans looking for help in getting U.S. visas, scholarships, jobs or cash. Family matriarch Sarah Onyango, step-grandmother of President-elect Barack Obama, is treated like a rock star wherever she goes.
The Kenyan government, which once ostracized Obama’s father, is falling over itself to attend to the family. There’s a new road, 24-hour police security and an electricity line — the first in the village. It was installed hours after the U.S. election results were announced, bypassing neighbors who have been waiting years for a connection
Islamists raid port in hunt for pirates
Somali rebels condemn gang that hijacked ship of ‘fellow Muslim country’
By Abdi Sheikh in Mogadishu
Saturday, 22 November 2008
Somali Islamist insurgents have stormed a port to hunt for pirates who seized a Saudi tanker, it was reported yesterday. The Sirius Star, which has a $100m (£68m) oil cargo and a 25-man crew that includes two Britons, is believed to be anchored off Haradheere, half-way along the Somali coastline.A tribal elder, who declined to be named, said the Islamists arrived at the port seeking information about the ship, which was captured on Saturday 450 nautical miles off Kenya. “I saw four cars full of Islamists driving in the town from corner to corner,” he said. “The Islamists say they will attack the pirates for hijacking a Muslim ship.”
Middle East
Shias stage protests against Iraq-US pact
• Tensions rise over 2011 exit date for US troops
• Foreign workers to lose immunity from Iraqi law
Martin Chulov in Baghdad
guardian.co.uk, Saturday November 22 2008 00.01 GMT
Iraqi Shia protesters yesterday defaced and burned an effigy of President George Bush in a show of contempt for a deal struck between the departing US administration and the Iraqi government which will keep US troops in Iraq for another three years.The protest, organised by supporters of the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, drew thousands of people to the central Baghdad square where a statue of the former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was torn down and destroyed five years ago by US marines and bystanders.
The demonstration followed a week of tension in the national parliament, stemming from a cabinet decision to approve the deal, which for the first time commits US forces to a departure date in 2011 and gives the central government a more dominant role in Iraqi affairs in the interim. A spate of apparent insults during debates this week led to several bodyguards bringing weapons in to the parliamentary chamber for the first time.
World Focus: Shah’s exiled son bids to unite fractured Iran>
By Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor
The scene is a London townhouse near Victoria. The heir to the throne of Iran, the eldest son of the late Shah, is holding court before a small audience of Iranian exiles and Middle East analysts crowded into the living room. It is a far cry from the sumptuous palaces of his father in Tehran, now transformed into museums by the Islamic Republic. But Reza Pahlavi (who answers to both “Your Majesty” and Mr Pahlavi), is plotting his return to the land he was forced to leave as a teenager when the 1979 revolution brought militant Shiism to power.His strategy: to use the internet to link Iranians inside and outside the country and – with the help of international pressure – secure regime change.
Europe
Aubry wins French Socialist battle by tiny margin
By Laure Bretton, Reuters
Saturday, 22 November 2008
Martine Aubry, the architect of France’s 35-hour work week, has won a ballot for the leadership of the opposition Socialists by the tiny margin of 42 votes, the party said in a statement early this morning.Supporters of her arch rival Segolene Royal immediately contested the result and demanded a re-run, raising the prospect of prolonged feuding within France’s main opposition party.
The Socialists said Aubry won 50.02 percent support in Friday’s ballot against 49.98 percent for Royal. Valid votes were cast by only 134,784 of the party’s 233,000 members.
Royal’s lawyer Jean Pierre Mignard said they result was “contested and questionable”, while another senior supporter, Manuel Valls, said the vote should be held again next Thursday.
Litvinenko murder suspect Andrei Lugovoy makes peace offer over tea
From The Times
November 22, 2008
Tony Halpin in Moscow
Two years after Alexander Litvinenko died in agony at a London hospital, the man accused of murdering him with radioactive poison is prepared to come to Britain to be questioned by Scotland Yard.Andrei Lugovoy, looking fit and relaxed, made the extraordinary offer to The Times in Moscow with his childhood friend Dmitri Kovtun, the main witness in the case.
Mr Lugovoy wore a jacket he had bought in London on his last visit, the trip that brought him global infamy as the alleged assassin of the dissident Russian agent, who died a slow death in University College Hospital.
Ahead of the second anniversary tomorrow of Mr Litvinenko’s death, Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun decided to meet The Times at Aristocrat, a restaurant they own in an 18th-century Moscow mansion.
Latin America
In Venezuela, learning as Dudamel did
Many regard El Sistema, or the System, as a model for music instruction and for helping the young develop into productive citizens.
By Reed Johnson
November 23, 2008
Reporting from Caracas, Venezuela — The Don Bosco Communal Center looks much like any other social services agency building in any hardscrabble barrio anywhere in Latin America.But step inside and you may hear the opening notes of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 spilling from a second-floor rehearsal room filled with 15- and 16-year-old string players. Or youthful fingers plucking a traditional Venezuelan folk tune on a harp, accompanied by a soft percussive rattle.
In the poor hillside neighborhood of Chapellín and at nearly 250 other locales throughout this nation, tens of thousands of young Venezuelans are learning to play classical music and to make art a permanent cornerstone of their lives. They’re the latest recruits of El Sistema, or the System, a 34-year-old program that many regard as a model not only for music instruction but for helping children develop into productive, responsible citizens