Docudharma Times Thursday January 22

Republicans Bipartisanship Lasts?

Never Mind It Never Started

Obama Starts Reversing Bush Policies

Guantanamo Order Readied; Lobbying Rules Tightened

By Michael D. Shear

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, January 22, 2009; Page A0

President Obama moved swiftly yesterday to begin rolling back eight years of his predecessor’s policies, ordering tough new ethics rules and preparing to issue an order closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which has been at the center of the debate over the treatment of U.S. prisoners in the battle against terrorism.

Acting to address several promises he made during his campaign, Obama met with top generals about speeding the withdrawal from Iraq and gathered his senior economic advisers as he continued to push for a massive spending bill to create jobs.

Under the border with Egypt, Gaza’s smugglers return to work

• Flow of goods begins after owners make repairs

• Key Israeli war aim had been to destroy network

Rory McCarthy in Rafah

Dozens of Gazan smugglers were back on the border with Egypt today openly repairing and restarting tunnels between the two territories after three weeks of intense Israeli air strikes.

There were deep impact craters in the soil just a few hundred yards from the border, but many of the tunnels appeared to be at least partly intact. Several tents covering tunnel entrances were still standing, though most were pockmarked by shrapnel. Bulldozers were clearing away sand as men dug for the wood-reinforced wells that descend around 15 metres from the surface into the tunnels.

Israel set as one of its war aims in Gaza the destruction hundreds of tunnels that have brought goods in from Egypt for several years. Most of what arrived was food, cigarettes, fuel, even farm animals – all intended to break Israel’s tough economic blockade – but some of the tunnels were used to bring in cash and weaponry for armed groups, including the Islamist movement Hamas, which runs Gaza.

USA

Senate Republicans delay Holder vote over torture views



By David Lightman and Marisa Taylor | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON – Key Republicans delayed a vote on Wednesday on the confirmation of attorney general nominee Eric Holder in part over concerns that he views Bush administration interrogation practices as torture.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he wanted to know more after Holder sidestepped questions about whether he intends to prosecute officials who condoned or carried out the interrogations.

“He’s been very ambiguous,” Cornyn told reporters. “We need more clarification.”

Salmonella peanut product recall grows

More than 125 products have been pulled back. The outbreak has sickened hundreds and may have killed six.

By Mary MacVean

10:15 PM PST, January 21, 2009

More than 125 products have been recalled in an investigation into a deadly salmonella outbreak linked to peanut butter used in processed foods and in institutions, with dog biscuits and diet granola bars among the latest on a list that is growing.

And growing.

“I don’t think we can determine how many more” products will be recalled, Stephen Sundlof, director of the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition at the Food and Drug Administration, said Wednesday. The outbreak has sickened hundreds and may have killed six people.

The FDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state officials have traced sources of Salmonella typhimurium contamination to a plant in Blakely, Ga., owned by Peanut Corp. of America, which makes peanut butter and peanut paste made of ground, roasted peanuts.

Europe

Iceland’s coalition struggles to survive protests

• PM’s car pelted with eggs as debt-hit economy sinks

• Demonstration estimated to be biggest since 1949

Valur Gunnarsson in Reykjavik

The Guardian, Thursday 22 January 2009

Iceland’s government was last night scrambling to avoid becoming the first administration to be ousted by the global financial crisis, as ministers huddled to try and hold together a coalition in the face of some of the biggest protests the country has seen for 60 years.

Protesters who have mounted vocal demonstrations in recent weeks against the collapse of the economy squared up to police, spattered parliament with eggs and paint, and at one point surrounded the prime minister’s car as he tried to leave his office.

They pelted Geir Haarde’s car with eggs and banged on the windows, shouting “resign”, in a sign of mounting exasperation at the government’s failure to prevent the economy from imploding under a mountain of billions of dollars of debt

Dutch MP to be tried for views on Islam

Party leader who made film linking Koran to Nazism accused of inciting race hate

By Vanessa Mock

Thursday, 22 January 2009

The Far-right Dutch politician who gained global notoriety with a film claiming links between the Koran and terrorism is to be put on trial for his public statements against Islam.

Geert Wilders, the leader of the extremist Freedom Party (PVV), said he was surprised that the Amsterdam Appeals Court is to allow his criminal prosecution for inciting hatred and of discriminating against Muslims by comparing their religion to Nazism.

“Mr Wilders’ views constitute a criminal offence. [He] has insulted Islamic worshippers by attacking the symbols of the Islamic faith,” the court stated, referring to his comparison of the Koran to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

Middle East

Robert Fisk: So far, Obama’s missed the point on Gaza…



Thursday, 22 January 2009

It would have helped if Obama had the courage to talk about what everyone in the Middle East was talking about. No, it wasn’t the US withdrawal from Iraq. They knew about that. They expected the beginning of the end of Guantanamo and the probable appointment of George Mitchell as a Middle East envoy was the least that was expected. Of course, Obama did refer to “slaughtered innocents”, but these were not quite the “slaughtered innocents” the Arabs had in mind.

There was the phone call yesterday to Mahmoud Abbas. Maybe Obama thinks he’s the leader of the Palestinians, but as every Arab knows, except perhaps Mr Abbas, he is the leader of a ghost government, a near-corpse only kept alive with the blood transfusion of international support and the “full partnership” Obama has apparently offered him, whatever “full” means. And it was no surprise to anyone that Obama also made the obligatory call to the Israelis.

Names of commanders to be kept secret as Gaza weapons inquiry begins

From The Times

January 22, 2009

James Hider in Jerusalem

The Israeli army has started an investigation into the use of white phosphorus shells in densely populated areas of the Gaza Strip during its offensive against Hamas militants.

After initially denying reports – first published in The Times on January 5 – that the weapon had been deployed in the Gaza campaign, the military has now all but admitted its use.

White phosphorus is legal if fired as a battlefield smokescreen but it is banned in civilian areas, where its use could constitute a war crime.

The inquiry came as the army decided not to divulge the names of the battalion commanders who oversaw the battle in the overcrowded slums and cities of Gaza for fear that they could face arrest and prosecution for war crimes if they travelled abroad.

Asia

Life sentence for boss of tainted milk company

From Times Online

January 22, 2009

Jane Macartney in Beijing

A Chinese court handed down the maximum sentence, of life imprisonment, on the dairy company chairwoman whose cover-up of tainted baby formula resulted in the deaths of six infants and sickened more than 300,000.

A man who sold 600 tonnes of the industrial chemical melamine, which was mixed with milk to increase falsely its protein content, was sentenced to death while an accomplice received a life sentence on charges of endangering public safety.

Fighting threatens Sri Lankan civilians>

Humanitarian concerns are mounting as government forces bear down on rebel areas.

By Simon Montlake | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the January 22, 2009 edition

BANGKOK, THAILAND – Government forces in Sri Lanka say they are closing in on the last redoubt of the Tamil Tigers, which appear on the verge of defeat after 26 years of war. In recent weeks, troops have captured towns and strategic roads in the disputed north and blockaded sea lanes, boxing the insurgents into a shrinking area.

But as the military advances rapidly, human rights groups and humanitarian agencies have raised the alarm over the fate of some 230,000 civilians trapped by ground fighting and aerial attacks. Many have been forced to flee by the retreating Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, making it hard to deliver aid and evacuate the injured.

In an echo of the Gaza conflict, the government has blocked access for almost all news media and relief agencies. It has also withheld casualty figures, while President Mahinda Rajapaksa has rallied public support behind an all-out push to defeat the rebels.

Since September, the International Committee of the Red Cross has been the only relief organization allowed into the Vanni region where the fighting is under way. Last week, the ICRC expressed “serious concerns” over the “physical safety and living conditions” of displaced civilians.

Africa

Will Rwandan troops help in Congo?

More than 2,000 Rwandan troops entered Congo Tuesday to help hunt down Hutu rebels who are blamed for the 1994 genocide of about 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis.

By Scott Baldauf | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the January 22, 2009 edition

NAIROBI, KENYA – Just weeks after inviting Ugandan forces onto its soil to finish off the Ugandan rebel group called the Lord’s Resistance Army, the Democratic Republic of Congo has now invited Rwanda’s army – its longtime rival – to come into Congo to hunt down Rwandan Hutu rebels blamed for the 1994 genocide.

By Tuesday evening, more than 2,000 Rwandan troops had entered Congo’s North Kivu Province for a joint operation against the Hutu-led FDLR rebel group.

Officially, Congolese authorities proclaimed that the operation would last for 10 to 15 days – and would rely heavily on a Congolese Tutsi militia to spearhead the attacks – but given the FDLR’s habit of integrating with local communities in dense jungles, such an operation is likely to take much longer and create high numbers of civilian casualties.

Competing Interests



Thursday, January 22, 2009; Page A10

The Somali transitional parliament is slated in coming weeks to elect a new president. The new government will have to contend with an array of characters and interests in a country that maintains a strong system of clan organization but has failed to establish a central government since 1991. The players:

Islamic Courts Union: An Islamist coalition that in June 2006 seized Mogadishu from U.S.-backed warlords and extended its control to parts of the south. Fled the capital in December of that year when Ethiopian and Somali government forces took the city.

· Al-Shabab: Originally the military wing of the Islamic Courts Union, the radical group broke away and began a campaign to establish its control over parts of southern Somalia. Last year, the U.S. State Department designated the group a terrorist organization.

Latin America

In Ecuador, gang members trade guns for scissors and nail polish

How a former nun gets rival gangs to run their own legit businesses.

By Vanessa Johnston | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor

from the January 22, 2009 edition

GUAYAQUIL, ECUADOR – In the most dangerous neighborhood of Guayaquil – Ecuador’s largest and most crime-ridden city – a dozen youths are busy working in the Paz Urbana Print Shop.

By the entrance, a young man designs a T-shirt logo with graffiti paint. In the back, amid the hip-hop music and paint fumes, tattooed young men with baggy pants and baseball caps compile an order of worksheets for schools.

The print shop is part of an organization of small businesses, including a bakery, a beauty parlor, and a dance school, with a surprising business model – they are entirely run by Ecuadorean street gang members, many of whom were once rivals.

At the heart of this operation that has helped produce a dramatic drop in neighborhood crime, is a former nun and school teacher, Nelsa Curbelo, from Uruguay.

Upon first glance, the gentle, grandmotherly Nelsa – as everyone calls her – looks out of place among the gangster paraphernalia. But later, watching her comfortable interactions with the tough-looking youths, the affection and respect she commands is evident.