Docudharma Times Saturday May 2

With No Nominee’s

Name Forwarded

The Republicans Are

Already Complaining    

In Pakistan, U.S. Courts Leader of Opposition



By HELENE COOPER and MARK MAZZETTI

Published: May 1, 2009

WASHINGTON – As American confidence in the Pakistani government wanes, the Obama administration is reaching out more directly than before to Nawaz Sharif, the chief rival of Asif Ali Zardari, the Pakistani president, administration officials said Friday.

American officials have long held Mr. Sharif at arm’s length because of his close ties to Islamists in Pakistan, but some Obama administration officials now say those ties could be useful in helping Mr. Zardari’s government to confront the stiffening challenge by Taliban insurgents.

The move reflects the heightened concern in the Obama administration about the survivability of the Zardari government.

‘Abu Ghraib US prison guards were scapegoats for Bush’ lawyers claim

From The Times

May 2, 2009

Tim Reid in Washington

Prison guards jailed for abusing inmates at the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq are planning to appeal against their convictions on the ground that recently released CIA torture memos prove that they were scapegoats for the Bush Administration.

The photographs of prisoner abuse at the Baghdad jail in 2004 sparked worldwide outrage but the previous administration, from President Bush down, blamed the incident on a few low-ranking “bad apples” who were acting on their own.

The decision by President Obama to release the memos showed that the harsh interrogation tactics were approved and authorised at the highest levels of the White House.

USA

Obama calls ’empathy’ key to Supreme Court pick

Interest groups are already lobbying for a woman, minority or solid liberal to succeed Justice David Souter. Obama says he puts empathy, intelligence and independence before ideology.

By Janet Hook and Christi Parsons

May 2, 2009

Reporting from Washington — A debate among Democrats over who should replace Justice David H. Souter on the Supreme Court began emerging Friday between those eager to return the court to its liberal era of 40 years ago and those who are wary of tacking too far to the left.

But President Obama, who will choose the nominee, focused not on volatile ideological questions but on personal character, saying he wanted someone with “empathy” for “people’s hopes and struggles.”

Making a surprise appearance in the White House press briefing room, Obama told reporters that he had just talked with Souter by phone about his retirement, which is to take effect at the end of this court term, probably in June. It was the first official confirmation of the justice’s departure.

Obama said that in considering a successor for Souter, he was looking for a “sharp and independent mind” and a sense of compassion.

On This Chrysler, Tenacity Comes Standard



By Dana Hedgpeth

Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, May 2, 2009

CHESTERTOWN, Md. — Past Todd’s Body Shop and a crab shack, across from a field of wheat on Route 291, hangs a modest sign for Frank B. Rhodes Jr., furniture maker since 1983.

Enter the metal warehouse he uses for his office, showroom and woodworking shop, and there’s nothing to let visitors know that the Eastern Shore 50-year-old is one of the few remaining heirs of Walter P. Chrysler, the founder of the auto company that is now struggling to survive.

But around the corner from the showroom’s racks of flowered and paisley fabric swatches, one finds what essentially amounts to a mini museum to Chrysler. For the past 20-plus years, Rhodes — who is the great-grandson of Walter P. Chrysler — has kept the family’s archives and added to the collection.

Middle East

Hunger strike goes on, says journalist’s father

• Alleged spy vows to get out of jail ‘dead or alive’

• Tehran says protest is for ‘propaganda purposes’

Robert Tait

guardian.co.uk, Friday 1 May 2009 22.36 BST

A journalist imprisoned in Iran for allegedly spying for the US is on hunger strike because she is determined to get out of jail “dead or alive”, her father has told the Guardian.

Roxana Saberi, a joint US-Iranian citizen, is said to have refused food and to be surviving only on sweetened water in protest at an eight-year sentence handed down by an Iranian court last month.

Iranian officials said this week that the hunger strike was an attempt to exploit her incarceration for “propaganda purposes”. They said Saberi had “no physical problems” despite her father’s description of her as “weak and frail” after visiting her in Tehran’s Evin prison.

Robert Fisk’s World: Right to the very end in Iraq, our masters denied us the truth

 The sentence ‘millions of Iraqis now live free of oppression’ is pure public relations

Saturday, 2 May 2009

‘We acknowledge,” the letter says, “that violence has claimed the lives of many thousands of Iraqi civilians over the last five years, either through terrorism or sectarian violence. Any loss of innocent lives is tragic and the Government is committed to ensuring that civilian casualties are avoided. Insurgents and terrorists are not, I regret to say, so scrupulous.”

This quotation comes from the Ministry of Defence’s “Iraq Operations Team, Directorate of Operations” and is signed by someone whose initials may be “SM” or “SW” or even “SWe”. Unusually (but understandably), it does not carry a typed version of the author’s name. Its obvious anonymity – given the fact that not a single reference is made to the civilians slaughtered by the Anglo-American invasion and occupation of Iraq – is no surprise. I, too, would not want to be personally associated with such Blair-like mendacity. What is astonishing, however, is that this outrageous letter should have been written this year.

Asia

Burmese junta still shuns survivors of the cyclone

By Andrew Buncombe, Asia correspondent

Saturday, 2 May 2009

On the anniversary of the Burmese cyclone, more than a hundred thousand survivors are still living in makeshift shelters hopelessly inadequate to the monsoon rains that will soon engulf the country.

But despite the population’s desperate need, the ruling junta has now tightened regulations to make it harder for aid workers to get visas.

A year after the devastating Cyclone Nargis tore through the Burmese Delta leaving up to 140,000 people dead and further exposing the disregard and inefficiency of the country’s military rulers, half a million of those who are still alive continue to depend on hand-outs just to survive.

Chinese billions in Sri Lanka fund battle against Tamil Tigers

From The Times

May 2, 2009

Jeremy Page, South Asia Correspondent  

On the southern coast of Sri Lanka, ten miles from one of the world’s busiest shipping routes, a vast construction site is engulfing the once sleepy fishing town of Hambantota.

This poor community of 21,000 people is about as far as one can get on the island from the fighting between the army and the Tamil Tiger rebels on the northeastern coast. The sudden spurt of construction helps, however, to explain why the army is poised to defeat the Tigers and why Western governments are so powerless to negotiate a ceasefire to help civilians trapped on the front line.

This is where China is building a $1 billion port that it plans to use as a refuelling and docking station for its navy, as it patrols the Indian Ocean and protects China’s supplies of Saudi oil. Ever since Sri Lanka agreed to the plan, in March 2007, China has given it all the aid, arms and diplomatic support it needs to defeat the Tigers, without worrying about the West.

Europe

Robert Capa photographs from Spanish Civil War found in ‘Mexican Suitcase’

From The Times

May 2, 2009

James Bone in New York

A mysterious “Mexican suitcase” has been unpacked to reveal a treasure trove of classic photo-journalism taken in the 1930s by Robert Capa and two other pioneers.

The three cardboard boxes contain 126 rolls of 35mm film with about 4,300 images of the Spanish Civil War, most never seen before.

They were saved from wartime Europe and appeared in Mexico City half a century later among the effects of a former Mexican diplomat, before finding their way to New York.

Estonians brainstorm their way out of the economic crisis

Governments around the world have been struggling to find solutions to the current economic crisis, but the Baltic country of Estonia thinks it’s come up with a winner: let the people decide.

EASTERN EUROPE | 02.05.2009

In many European countries on Friday’s May Day public holiday, people from all sides of the political spectrum took to the streets to protest government handling of the economic crisis, and to place the blame squarely at the feet of the banking industry. Protestors in some cities turned violent, and several hundred were arrested.

Estonians approached the day a little differently.

On Friday, Estonians from all works of life joined together in a one day brainstorming extravaganza called “My Estonia”. The idea? That normal citizens should contribute to the problem-solving process.

Organisers set up 410 sites across Estonia for citizens to share ideas. Another 17 sites were set up in 11 other countries, such as Germany or the United States, for Estonians abroad. An online “virtual think tank” allowed those unable to attend physically to join in the process as well.

Africa

Out of Africa: Massive Study of African Genetics Reveals Migration and Ancestry

Research traces most African American ancestors to Western Africa



Anthropologists, historians and linguists now have at their disposal a completely new volume of research with which to test theories of human migration, cultural evolution and population history in Africa. A massive genetics study published yesterday cataloged more than 4 million DNA variations collected over a 10-year period to give the clearest picture yet of the most genetically diverse group of people on Earth. The study also sheds some light on the ancestry of African Americans-decedents of slaves brought to the Americas-whose genealogy has been difficult to trace.

“Our goal has been to do research that will benefit Africans, both by learning more about their population history and by setting the stage for future genetic studies, including studies of genetic and environmental risk factors for disease and drug response,” said study leader Sarah Tiskhoff, a geneticist at the University of Pennsylvania.

Latin America

Brazil clears Indian reservation

Brazilian police and soldiers have begun an operation to remove non-indigenous residents from an Indian reservation in northern Brazil.

By Gary Duffy

BBC News, Sao Paulo

The operation follows a landmark ruling by the country’s Supreme Court that the Raposa Serra do Sol reservation should be solely for indigenous people.

The non-indigenous rice farmers and farm workers say they are victims of “legalised robbery”.

But the authorities say they will be properly compensated.

In March, Brazil’s Supreme Court ruled that the area in the northern border state of Roraima should be maintained as a single continuous territory exclusively for use by the indigenous population.

The decision was hailed as a major victory for indigenous rights, and was also regarded as setting an important precedent for future court cases.However, the ruling was also a defeat for the non-indigenous rice producers and farm workers who lived and worked in the area, and who said their removal would undermine the economy of Roraima.

Ignoring Asia A Blog