Docudharma Times Thursday December 18

The Bush Lying Tour Continues

Maybe Your City Is Next?

35 Iraq Officials Held in Raids on Key Ministry



By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON and TARIQ MAHER

Published: December 17, 2008

BAGHDAD – Up to 35 officials in the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior ranking as high as general have been arrested over the past three days with some of them accused of quietly working to reconstitute Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party, according to senior security officials in Baghdad.

The arrests, confirmed by officials from the Ministries of the Interior and National Security as well as the prime minister’s office, included four generals, one of whom, Gen. Ahmed Abu Raqeef, is the ministry’s director of internal affairs. The officials also said that the arrests had come at the hand of an elite counterterrorism force that reports directly to the office of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

The involvement of the counterterrorism unit speaks to the seriousness of the accusations, and several officials from the Ministries of the Interior and National Security said that some of those arrested were in the early stages of planning a coup.

Spinning Quirky Yarns

Film Industry in Small Indian Textile Town Makes Low-Budget Parodies Of Bollywood Smash Hits With a Lot of Heart, Local Flavor and Ingenuity

By Rama Lakshmi

Washington Post Foreign Service

Thursday, December 18, 2008; Page A19

MALEGAON, India — Past a narrow alleyway filled with sleeping goats, water tanks and women washing clothes, Shaikh Nasir’s modest home is a landmark. This is where he thinks up new ways to make the people of this grim textile town laugh.

Nasir is the father of a homegrown film industry that is famous for its parodies of blockbuster movies from Bollywood, India’s Hindi film capital.

USA

Dollar’s Slump Erases Months Of Solid Gains



By Anthony Faiola

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, December 18, 2008; Page A01

The dollar yesterday staged one of its biggest one-day drops against the euro and fell to a 13-year low against the Japanese yen as near-zero interest rates and the Federal Reserve’s plan to print vast sums of cash dilute the value of the greenback.

The drops dramatically accelerated the dollar’s reversal of fortune over the past three weeks after months of solid gains. The slide underscores the risks the Federal Reserve is taking to jump-start the U.S. economy through aggressive monetary policy.

On Monday, the Fed cut its target for the federal funds rate, at which banks lend to each other, from 1 percent to a target range of 0 percent to 0.25 percent, and effectively vowed to print as much money as it needs to try to pull the United States from a worsening recession.

Chrysler to close all manufacturing plants for a month

The firm is trying to stay afloat financially and reduce its unsold inventory of vehicles.

By Martin Zimmerman

December 18, 2008

Chrysler said Wednesday that it would close all of its manufacturing operations for at least a month as it tried to whittle down a mountain of unsold vehicles.

The shutdown, which will idle 46,000 workers at 30 plants in the U.S. and Canada beginning Friday, is the latest — and most dramatic — move by an automaker to deal with the steepest plunge in auto sales since the early 1980s.

Workers will be paid during the shutdown with a combination of wages and government unemployment benefits.

Separately, merger talks between Chrysler and General Motors Corp. were renewed after Chrysler owner Cerberus Capital signaled willingness to give up part of its stake, according to a Wall Street Journal report late Wednesday.

Africa

Don’t neglect Aids crisis, warn health workers

• Widespread shortages of food and clean water

• Weak population more susceptible to diseases

Chris McGreal, Africa correspondent

The Guardian, Thursday 18 December 2008

Health workers in Zimbabwe are warning that international alarm over the spreading cholera emergency, which has claimed nearly a thousand lives, is overshadowing the Aids crisis, which is killing as many people every three days.

The rising death toll from cholera, brought on by collapsed sewerage systems infecting drinking water, has become the most visible sign of Zimbabwe’s extraordinary implosion and the indifference of its leaders. As the disease spread across the border into South Africa, alarmed foreign governments promised to pour in aid to contain the outbreak.

But cholera and the failure of the sewerage system are symptoms of the wider collapse of the state and its devastating consequences.

 ‘Assassination attempt’ on Mugabe henchman

Head of Zimbabwe’s air force recovering in hospital after ambush near his home, state media reports

By Daniel Howden, Africa Correspondent

Wednesday, 17 December 2008

President Robert Mugabe is planning to declare a state of emergency in Zimbabwe, the opposition said yesterday, after what the government claims was an assassination attempt on the head of the air force.

Perence Shiri, one of Mr Mugabe’s inner circle, was shot in the arm on Saturday, claim state media reports that surfaced yesterday. Attacks of this kind are almost unheard of in Zimbabwe, where the opposition Movement for Democratic Change has insisted on using peaceful means. There has been no independent verification of the shooting.

Asia

30-year journey from Mao to the market

Exactly three decades ago, reformers began transforming a poor, isolated country into a powerhouse. But the slowdown and wealth divide are putting its stability under threat

Tania Branigan in Zhuanshanzi

The Guardian, Thursday 18 December 2008

Zheng Shiqing lives and works in a small room with an earth floor, in the tiny village of Zhuanshanzi, high up a twisting mountain road. The padded curtain in place of a door does little to keep the winter at bay, and his breath curls white through the air. He has heart problems and should retire but cannot – medical treatment has eaten away his meagre savings. His sons are unemployed and his family of five largely depends on his 10,000 yuan (£950) annual earnings.

But Zheng, 53, is one of China’s winners, one of hundreds of millions lifted out of poverty since the launch of economic reforms three decades ago. “Life is so much better, you can’t even compare it – 100 times better than before,” said the dentist, who works with a basic drill and little other equipment. “We lived in really crappy houses and had no property. We worked for the big commune and only got 400g (14oz) of food a day – we were hungry. We had maize flour and sweet potatoes; there was meat once a year at spring festival and even vegetable oil was rare. Pigs these days won’t eat what we had back then

Pakistan groups banned but not bowed



By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI – Pakistan submitted to the will of the international community and cracked down on the Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army of the Pure – LET), already banned as a terror outfit and linked to the Mumbai attacks last month, and the Jamaatut Dawa, last week labeled by the United Nations Security Council as a front for the LET.

One of the more sensational arrests was that of Zakiur Rahman Lakhvi, the LET’s operations chief who had been characterized as a villain in dozens of Indian Bollywood movies; his picture was released for the first time ever to the media.

The Pakistani electronic media, though, were unimpressed by the international pressure, and hit back. They showed footage of the massacre of Muslims in the Indian state of Gujarat in 2002; of atrocities committed by Indian forces against Muslims in Indian-administered Kashmir and called the Mumbai attack a reaction from within Indian society.

Europe

Mafia boss kills himself after arrest

Lo Presti feared revenge attacks after his indiscretions led police to swoop on Mob

By Peter Popham in Rome

Thursday, 18 December 2008

A suspected mafia leader whose indiscretions on the telephone prompted Italian police to launch one of its biggest operations against organised crime in Sicily hanged himself in his prison cell on Tuesday night, hours after being arrested.

Gaetano Lo Presti, 52, is alleged to have been one of two people believed to be the new leaders of the Sicilian Mafia – or Cosa Nostra. He had been running cells in the Porta Nuova area of Palermo since last year and had become one of the most powerful gangsters on the island. He was deeply involved in the organisation’s decision to try to forge a new power structure after the arrest of the head mobster, Bernardo Provenzano, in 2006.

EU gives in to pressure and relaxes rules on state aid for businesses>

From The Times

December 18, 2008

Rory Watson in Brussels

The European Commission has been forced to relax its tough rules on state aid so that over the next two years it will be easier for cash-strapped companies to arrange finance during the credit crunch.

The changes, which took effect yesterday, are designed to ensure sufficient bank lending to companies, to allow businesses with liquidity problems to receive limited grants, and to encourage investment in environmentally friendly products. Neelie Kroes, the European Competition Commissioner, said that the measures would give every government “the freedom to create made-to-measure solutions for their economy in this crisis”.

The concessions will allow state aid, subject to certain conditions, to be given to companies without initial clearance from Brussels being necessary.

Middle East

OPEC announces historic cuts to buoy oil prices

The petroleum cartel said it will slash production by 2.2 million barrels per day in hopes prices will climb back toward $75 per barrel.

By Liam Stack | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the December 18, 2008 edition

CAIRO – In a bid to confront rapidly sliding oil prices, which have dropped 40 percent from July highs amid collapsing demand, OPEC members announced historic cuts at their meeting in Algeria on Wednesday.

Oil ministers attending the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries meeting will slash production by 2.2 million barrels per day (b.p.d), the largest single reduction in the group’s history and more than expected ahead of the gathering. It follows a November production cut of 1.5 million b.p.d.

Oil prices have plunged since July, when crude traded at $147 a barrel. By midafternoon Wednesday, it was trading at $43.24 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

“Supply is still somewhat in excess of demand,” Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi told reporters in Oran, Algeria, according to the Associated Press. “To bring things in balance, there will be a cut to the tune of about 2 million barrels.”

Israel’s ruling party holds national primary



By ARON HELLER, Associated Press Writer  

JERUSALEM – A new poll shows Israel’s ruling Kadima party narrowing the gap with rival Likud as it held a primary election to choose its slate of candidates for Feb. 10 elections.

Results released Thursday had the centrist Kadima splitting its slots between hardline and moderate candidates, with a slight advantage for its hawkish wing.

Leading the list is Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, a pro-peace candidate who will face off against hardline former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the February vote.

In recent weeks, Netanyahu has surged ahead in the polls. However, a Maagar Mohot survey published Wednesday showed a Livni-led Kadima garnering 25 seats in the 120-seat parliament compared to 29 for Likud, which had been getting 35 seats or more in previous polls. Kadima currently has 29 seats in the Knesset, or parliament.