Docudharma Times Thursday April 9

Republicans Are So Delusional

One Might Think They Were Using

Illegal Substances  

Extremist Web Sites Are Using U.S. Hosts

Ease and Anonymity Draw Taliban, al-Qaeda

By Joby Warrick and Candace Rondeaux

Washington Post Staff Writers

Thursday, April 9, 2009; Page A01

On March 25, a Taliban Web site claiming to be the voice of the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” boasted of a deadly new attack on coalition forces in that country. Four soldiers were killed in an ambush, the site claimed, and the “mujahideen took the weapons and ammunition as booty.”

Most remarkable about the message was how it was delivered. The words were the Taliban’s, but they were flashed around the globe by an American-owned firm located in a leafy corner of downtown Houston.

The Texas company, a Web-hosting outfit called ThePlanet, says it simply rented cyberspace to the group and had no clue about its Taliban connections. For more than a year, the militant group used the site to rally its followers and keep a running tally of suicide bombings, rocket attacks and raids against U.S. and allied troops. The cost of the service: roughly $70 a month, payable by credit card.

What will global warming look like? Scientists point to Australia

Drought, fires, killer heat waves, wildlife extinction and mosquito-borne illness — the things that climate change models are predicting have already arrived there, they say.

 By Julie Cart

April 9, 2009

Reporting from The Murray-Darling Basin, Australia — Frank Eddy pulled off his dusty boots and slid into a chair, taking his place at the dining room table where most of the critical family issues are hashed out. Spreading hands as dry and cracked as the orchards he tends, the stout man his mates call Tank explained what damage a decade of drought has done .

“Suicide is high. Depression is huge. Families are breaking up. It’s devastation,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ve got a neighbor in terrible trouble. Found him in the paddock, sitting in his [truck], crying his eyes out. Grown men — big, strong grown men. We’re holding on by the skin of our teeth. It’s desperate times.”

A result of climate change?

“You’d have to have your head in the bloody sand to think otherwise,” Eddy said.

They call Australia the Lucky Country, with good reason. Generations of hardy castoffs tamed the world’s driest inhabited continent, created a robust economy and cultivated an image of irresistibly resilient people who can’t be held down. Australia exports itself as a place of captivating landscapes, brilliant sunshine, glittering beaches and an enviable lifestyle.

USA

U.S. citizens caught up in immigration sweeps

The detentions, which in some cases have nearly led to the deportation of citizens or legal residents, are drawing increased attention.

By Andrew Becker and Patrick J. McDonnell

April 9, 2009

Reporting from Tacoma, Wash., and Los Angeles — Rennison Vern Castillo thought his legal troubles were nearly over at the end of a jail stay for harassing his ex-girlfriend. But then a U.S. immigration hold order blocked his release.

“They think you’re here illegally,” a jailhouse guard said to him.

Castillo, mystified, insisted it was all a mistake. Though born in Belize, he had come of age in South Los Angeles, spoke fluent English, served a stint in the Army and had become an American citizen about seven years earlier.

He had some legal problems, but being in the country unlawfully was not one of them. Castillo said he wasn’t worried — not until he was shackled and transferred to a federal detention center. He spent months in custody before an appeals panel blocked his deportation and an immigration judge finally ordered Castillo set free.

GM says Volt isn’t dead yet, despite panel’s bleak report



By Renee Schoof | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON – The White House may have sounded a bit bleak on the Chevrolet Volt last week, but both the company and the Obama administration say don’t read that as early news of the much-advertised electric car’s demise.

President Barack Obama’s auto task force last week said in an assessment of General Motors’ viability that it was a full generation behind Toyota in “green powertrain development” and that “while the Volt holds promise, it is currently projected to be much more expensive than its gasoline-fueled peers and will likely need substantial reductions in manufacturing cost in order to become commercially viable.”

Asia

Sri Lankan hospital shelled in Tamil no-fire zone

• Doctor says 20 people killed and 300 injured

• Sri Lankan military denies attacking civilians

Gethin Chamberlain in Colombo

The Guardian, Thursday 9 April 2009

At least 20 people were killed and nearly 300 injured yesterday when a hospital in the last area of Sri Lanka held by the Tamil Tigers was shelled in what one doctor described as the worst day of bloodshed since the start of the military campaign.

The doctor, Thangamutha Sathiyamorthy, blamed the Sri Lankan army for firing shells that landed next to two health facilities in Putumattalan, on the northern end of the tiny strip of the Sri Lankan coastline where tens of thousands of civilians are trapped by the fighting. The military strenuously denied the allegation.

Sathiyamorthy said 22 people, including an 18-month-old child and a medical worker, were killed and 283 injured in the attack, which started soon after dawn yesterday.

China plans to bring basic healthcare to all

 From The Times

April 9, 2009

Jane Macartney in Beijing

The Chinese Government has announced a ten-year plan to introduce basic universal healthcare throughout the country.

The Government said that it would initially invest 850 billion yuan (£85 billion) between 2009 and 2011 to bring equitable and universal healthcare to 90 per cent of China’s 1.3 billion people. The aim is to offer access to this national health service to everyone.

The plan has been several years in the drafting and full details have yet to be made public but it comes amid rising public anger about the state of medical services in China.

“By 2020 China will have a basic healthcare system that can provide safe, effective, convenient and affordable health services to urban and rural residents,” a government document said. “The core principle of the reform is to provide basic healthcare as a ‘public service’ to the people, which requires much more government funding and supervision.”

Europe

Aftershocks disrupt rescue efforts in Italy as search for survivors continues

• Magnitude 5.2 tremor hits central Italy

• Silvio Berlusconi plays down Italy earthquake shock

• Quip comes as death toll in L’Aquila rises to 272

John Hooper in Bazzano and agencies

The Guardian, Thursday 9 April 2009

Aftershocks hampered the efforts of rescue workers in central Italy today as they continue to search for survivors amid the rubble of the earthquake that struck on Monday.

One tremor – measured by the US Geological Survey at magnitude 5.2 – hit the region at 2.53am and was felt as far away as Rome. There were no reports of any additional victims.

Meanwhile, the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, created fresh controversy yesterday after declaring that people made homeless by Monday’s earthquake should think of themselves as being on a “camping weekend”.

Russia furious with EU over Twitter revolution

Moscow backs Moldovan President after he accuses Romania of supporting coup

By Shaun Walker in Moscow

Thursday, 9 April 2009

The crisis in Moldova, dubbed the “Twitter Revolution”, was last night threatening to turn into another showdown between Russia and the West. Just weeks after Barack Obama’s government spoke of “pressing the reset button” with Russia, the conflict risks derailing the fragile diplomatic truce.

Russia gave its backing yesterday to Moldova’s President, Vladimir Voronin, when he accused EU and Nato member Romania of backing a coup attempt, and expelled the Romanian ambassador. Mr Voronin promised “harsh punishment” would be meted out to the organisers of protests which rocked the capital Chisinau on Tuesday after the ruling Communists claimed victory in weekend parliamentary elections.

Africa

Warship nears Somali pirates holding US captain

By Daniel Wallis and JoAnne Allen, Reuters

Thursday, 9 April 2009

A US navy destroyer reached waters off Somalia today to help free an American ship captain taken hostage by pirates in the first seizure of US citizens by the increasingly bold sea gangs.

Gunmen briefly hijacked the 17,000-tonne Maersk Alabama freighter on Wednesday, but the 20 American crew retook control after a confrontation far out in the Indian Ocean where the pirates have captured another five vessels in a week.

Second mate Ken Quinn told CNN the pirates were holding the captain on the ship’s lifeboat, and that the crew were trying to negotiate his release.

Ex-combatants find their way back to a changed Rwanda

A former ‘big man’ deserts his Congo-based militia after learning more about the country he left

By Jina Moore | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

Kigali, Rwanda – On a cool February afternoon, Jean Damasceau Mwambutsya and a few friends – one in a UN peacekeeping baseball hat – lounged in the grass at Mutobo.  They’d returned to Rwanda in November and were in the middle of ingando – reeducation camp. “We’re learning how to conduct ourselves once we get out of here,” he says.  “We’re learning how to live with other people and relate to them.”  He and his friends are less interested in lessons than in finally seeing their families.  They left Rwanda in 1994, the year of the genocide, and haven’t seen their parents or siblings – sometimes their wives – since.

Usually, ex-combatants leave the ingando and return to the villages they once called home. But many find they’re unable to earn a living and head to Kigali, the capital, where work is more plentiful, and more lucrative.  When they get there, they spend a night or two, or several weeks, on Faustin “Kunde” Gasugi’s couch.

Middle East

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Iran is ready to talk to ‘honest’ Barack Obama

From The Times

April 9, 2009

Tim Reid in Washington

Iran’s hardline President said yesterday that his country would welcome talks with America should Barack Obama prove “honest”, a clear sign that the US leader’s recent videotaped message to the Iranian people had increased pressure on Tehran to respond.

The conciliatory comments by President Ahmadinejad show that he does not want to appear extremist towards the new US Administration before elections in June. There is an enormous desire among most Iranian voters for an end to its international isolation.

Six years on, huge protest marks Baghdad’s fall

Thu Apr 9, 2009 4:52am EDT

BAGHDAD (Reuters)

Tens of thousands of followers of anti-American Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr thronged Baghdad on Thursday to mark the sixth anniversary of the city’s fall to U.S. troops, and to demand they leave immediately.

“Down, down USA,” the demonstrators chanted as a Ali al-Marwani, a Sadrist official, denounced the U.S. occupation of Iraq that began with the fall of Baghdad on April 9, 2003, and the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue in Firdos Square.

The crowds of Sadr supporters stretched from the giant Sadr City slum in northeast Baghdad to the square around 5 km (3 miles) away, where protesters burned an effigy featuring the face of former U.S. President George W. Bush, who ordered the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, and also the face of Saddam.

Shi’ites were brutally persecuted under Saddam’s rule.

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