Docudharma Times Tuesday June 2

Perhaps The Right

Should Take A Hard

Look At Its Self

When It Comes To

Promoting Hate, Fear And Violence  

Confidence in U.S. Economy Builds Even as Recovery Still Seems Distant



By Neil Irwin

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Economists, senior government officials and ordinary consumers are all showing greater confidence in the outlook for the economy.

But three months after signs of hope emerged, the evidence of improvement still exists only in the form of glimmers. A slew of recent economic data and other news, including yesterday’s bankruptcy filing by General Motors, make clear that the nation is still muddling through a deep recession.

“A few months ago, the U.S. was in the throes of the most severe recession since the 1930s,” said Paul Ashworth, a senior economist at Capital Economics. “We’ve had some improvement, but . . . we’re still nowhere near a meaningful recovery or even a slight recovery.”

Kim Jong Il formally names youngest son as successor

From Times Online

June 2, 2009

Richard Lloyd Parry, Yeonpyeong Island

Kim Jong Un, the 25-year old youngest son of the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong Il, has been formally declared as his successor, the South Korean media reported yesterday, in the latest sign of dramatic change in the isolated totalitarian state.

North Korea’s Worker’s Party, the country’s token parliament and cabinet were notified of the succession soon after the country’s second nuclear test, according to sources quoted by the Yonhap news agency and two Seoul newspapers. There were conflicting reports over whether foreign embassies had also been notified.

The news seems to confirm what has become increasingly clear for the past few months – that, after a serious illness last summer, 67-year old Kim Jong Il is preparing for his family’s continued rule of North Korea’s 25 million people, after he is gone.

USA

Now a G.M. Owner, U.A.W. Faces Delicate Balancing Act



By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

Published: June 1, 2009

For decades, the United Automobile Workers had a simple strategy for getting what it wanted from the carmakers – it would go on strike. The tactic proved so successful that the mere threat of a walkout often won better wages, benefits and job security.

Now, with General Motors and Chrysler in bankruptcy and the union a major shareholder in both through its retiree health fund, life has become a lot more complicated for the U.A.W.

The union, which was born of labor strife, has pledged not to go on strike against the two companies before 2015, as part of the rescue plan hammered out by the Obama administration. Whether this brokered peace helps end the antagonistic relationship between union and management could determine the future not only of G.M. and Chrysler, but also of the U.A.W. itself.

A match made in the old ways

Rahila Muhibi, a native of Afghanistan and a recent college graduate in North Carolina, has no intentions of marrying her cousin, betrothed to her when she was 7. But to do so means defying her father

By David Zucchino

June 2, 2009

Reporting from Fayetteville, N.C. — When she was 7 years old, Rahila Muhibi was engaged to her 8-year-old first cousin. The betrothal was arranged, in the Afghan custom, by her father.

When Muhibi was ready for high school, her father fended off relatives who demanded that the marriage take place. He thought she was too young, and instead helped her win a scholarship to attend school in Canada.

Last month, Muhibi, 24, graduated from tiny Methodist University here. Her father now says the time has come for Muhibi to return to Afghanistan and marry her cousin.

She has refused, setting up a test of wills with her father and a challenge to the societal customs that require women to be obedient daughters and wives.

Muhibi wants to go to graduate school in the West and continue running a small nonprofit literacy program she founded for Afghan women. But for the program to flourish — and for Muhibi to reconnect with a family she misses terribly — she must return home.

Asia

The great Tiananmen taboo

It is 20 years since students and lecturers filled Tiananmen Square, demanding democracy, only to be crushed by tanks and fired on by the Chinese army. Banned novelist Ma Jian, who was there at the protests, returned to Beijing to find a country desperate to erase all memories of the thousands of innocent lives lost

Ma Jian

The Guardian, Tuesday 2 June 2009

Two thousand years ago, contemplating the relentless flow of time, Confucius gazed down at a river and sighed, “What passes is just like this, never ceasing day or night …” In China, time can feel both frozen and unstoppable at the same time. The Tiananmen massacre that 20 years ago ravaged Beijing, killed thousands of unarmed citizens, and altered the lives of millions, seems now to be locked in the 20th century, forgotten or ignored, as China continues to hurtle blindly towards its future.

The amnesia to which China has succumbed is not the result of natural memory-loss but of state-enforced erasure. China’s Communist regime tolerates no mention of the massacre. But Tiananmen Square, and other sites connected with the events of 1989, still remain charged with memory. When the written and spoken word is censored, the urban landscape becomes a nation’s only physical link to the past.

The Big Question: Do Pakistan’s gains in the Swat valley mean it is overcoming the Taliban?

By Andrew Buncombe

Tuesday, 2 June 2009

Why are we asking this now?

Over the weekend, the Pakistani army announced that it had taken control of Mingora, the main town in the country’s Swat Valley, which has been the location of a major operation to counter and kill Taliban fighters. Capture of the town was both a considerable strategic gain and a major morale-booster. Such was the sense of excitement that a defence official, Syed Athar Ali, predicted that the entire valley could be cleared of militants in just two or three days.

Most experts believe he may have been a little too optimistic, but having secured Mingora the army is now pushing further into the valley. Some of the Taliban are apparently trying to escape through the mountains to the neighbouring Kalam valley. Officials admit it will take some time to restore essential services in Mingora, but they are hopeful that some of the town’s 300,000 residents forced from their homes will start to return if they have confidence in the security situation.

Europe

Spreading scandal at Europe’s expense

Using the controversy over MPs’ expenses to point the finger at the conduct of MEPs is opportunistic and unfair



Dermot Scott

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 2 June 2009 08.00 BST

Following the controversy over Westminster MPs’ expenses, and with European elections in view, a flank attack was soon opened on the expenses regime of the European parliament. Mats Persson’s article The real expenses scandal is in Brussels (27 May), on Comment is Free is a case in point. Yet, while the European parliament may still not be perfect, it is only fair to point out that long-awaited reform is at hand, and that much media comment is inaccurate or tendentious.The pay of UK MEPs will rise in sterling terms in July because the exchange rate between the pound and the euro has changed. When MEPs voted for the common salary it was at about the same level as an MP’s salary and, if in future the pound strengthens against the euro, the value in pounds will decline. Moreover, the salary is taxed first at EU level and then for UK MEPs it will be taxed by the UK authorities to bring the total tax paid up to UK levels.

Why truth is a casualty of war in the battle of ‘Obama Beach’

The D-Day anniversary has become a battleground with politicians accused of plotting to exclude the Queen. Nonsense, says John Lichfield: this so-called scandal has been a cock-up rather than a conspiracy

Tuesday, 2 June 2009

In the history of British bloody-mindedness, “Obama Beach” is one of the greatest calamities. Rarely have so many people been sent all verbal guns blazing into an all-out assault on a scandal whose basic facts have been so wilfully misrepresented.

False fact one: The French have “snubbed” the Queen by failing to invite her to celebrate the 65th anniversary of D-Day on Saturday. President Barack Obama and President Nicolas Sarkozy will attend an “international ceremony” but not the British/Canadian head of state.

False fact two: The British government, and diplomatic service, have behaved despicably because they failed to ensure that the Queen was sent an invitation by the French.

Middle East

President Ahmadinejad to face election rivals in live TV debates

From The Times

June 2, 2009

Martin Fletcher

Iran will emulate the “Great Satan” this week with six live, US-style debates between its presidential candidates for the first time in the 30-year history of the Islamic Republic.

The 90-minute encounters, which start tonight, come as independent observers say that Mir Hossein Mousavi, President Ahmadinejad’s strongest rival, is gaining momentum with 11 days left before polling day.

There are no reliable opinion polls in Iran but Mr Mousavi, a former Prime Minister, is urging his predominantly young and urban supporters to display green in their clothing or on their cars. Large numbers of people are doing so.

“The tide has begun to turn against Ahmadinejad in favour of the reformist camps,” said Zhand Shakibi, a lecturer in comparative government at the London School of Economics, who is in Tehran.

Israeli proposal: Make Jordan the official Palestinian homeland

The controversial idea – though not new – could still undermine Netanyahu and erode Israel’s relations with moderate Arab countries.

By Tom A. Peter | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

and Ilene R. Prusher | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

AMMAN, JORDAN; AND JERUSALEM – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior members of his cabinet have pushed back hard against a renewed US demand to end settlement activity in the occupied Palestinian territories. Interior Minister Eli Yishai said Sunday that it amounted to “expulsion.”

But 53 Israeli parliamentarians have moved to explore another kind of expulsion: Under a proposal to be reviewed this week, Jordan would become the official homeland for Palestinians now living in the West Bank.

Among the challenges facing the proposal is this: nobody asked Jordan if it would support such a plan.

Not surprisingly, it doesn’t.

Nearly half of the Knesset’s 120 members moved last Wednesday to pass the “two states for two peoples on the two banks of the River Jordan” proposal on to the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee for further discussion.

Israeli officials say the Knesset’s vote does not represent the government’s position and is unlikely to become official policy, while analysts dismiss it as a bid from the far right to undermine Mr. Netanyahu. But for many in Jordan, the bill personifies concerns about Israel’s new, conservative government and its lack of commitment to the peace process.

Africa

Somalia crisis ‘Africa’s worst’

The “very dire” humanitarian crisis in Somalia is the worst in Africa for many years, the aid agency Oxfam has warned.

The BBC  Tuesday, 2 June 2009

Many of its hundreds of thousands of internally-displaced people, the world’s largest such concentration, have no food or shelter, said Oxfam.

Civilians have been fleeing an intense see-sawing battle between hardline Islamist guerrillas and forces loyal to the UN-backed government in Mogadishu.

The exodus continued from the capital on Tuesday amid the crackle of gunfire.

It is estimated at least one million people have been internally displaced by almost perpetual civil conflict in the failed Horn of Africa nation since the collapse of its central government in 1991.

Hassan Noor, Oxfam’s humanitarian co-ordinator for Somalia, told the BBC’s Network Africa programme that circumstances in Mogadishu were “very dire”.

Latin America

El Salvador installs its first leftist president, TV host Mauricio Funes

‘Change starts now,’ says Funes, an FMLN party member who cast himself in the mold of President Obama and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil.

By Alex Renderos and Ken Ellingwood

June 2, 2009

Reporting from Mexico City and San Salvador — Mauricio Funes, a television journalist whose party once fought a bloody guerrilla war in El Salvador, on Monday became the country’s first leftist president amid emotional symbols of landmark change.

Funes, a 49-year-old moderate elected under the banner of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, cast himself as a motor of change for El Salvador, in the mold of President Obama and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil.

“The Salvadoran people asked for a change,” Funes said in his inaugural speech, wearing the blue-and-white presidential sash. “Change starts now.”

He said it was time to “reinvent” the country to overcome poverty, social inequities and technological backwardness.

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