Race Issue Deflected, Now as in Campaign
Obama Maintains Criticism Is About Policy Differences
By Anne E. Kornblut and Krissah Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 17, 2009
A debate over the role of race in the current criticism of President Obama is forcing the White House to confront a volatile issue it would rather avoid.On Tuesday, former president Jimmy Carter declared racism to be the subtext of many of the attacks being lobbed at the president, and members of the Congressional Black Caucus are pointing to race as a driving force behind the current level of animosity.
But at the White House, the official line is: Race issue? What race issue?
Japan’s New Leader Seeks Revision of Relations With U.S.
But Major Shift in Alliance Is Unlikely
By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, September 17, 2009
TOKYO, Sept. 16 — Hours after he became prime minister Wednesday, Yukio Hatoyama said he wants to change Japan’s “somewhat passive” relationship with the United States and review the large American military presence here.Since his Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) won in a historic landslide Aug. 30, Hatoyama has tried to reassure the United States that the nation remains the cornerstone of Japan’s foreign policy while following through on his party’s campaign vow to make the two nations’ relationship more equal.
USA
For Democrats, 60 Senators Is Magic Number for Health Bill
By CARL HULSE
Published: September 16, 2009
WASHINGTON – The unveiling of a compromise health care proposal has Senate Democrats pondering a daunting mathematical challenge: how to keep all 59 Democrats united and attract at least one Republican to pass an overhaul measure.
As many lawmakers on Wednesday got their first detailed look at a Finance Committee plan that was months in the making, senators immediately began exploring whether the plan – when combined with elements of another, more liberal one – could win enough senators to reach that magic procedural number of 60.
“We have to meld a couple of things together and see where we are,” said Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut. “I wouldn’t say today with absolute certainty that you could get to 60, but it would be just as foolish to say you can’t get there either. This is the Senate.”
Investors are thrilled yet anxious about stock market rally
People still smarting from last year’s devastation in their mutual funds and 401(k) accounts worry that the almost relentless advance could give way to another free fall.
By Walter Hamilton and Tom Petruno and Tiffany Hsu
September 17, 2009
Reporting from Los Angeles and New York – Dania Leon’s portfolio has surged 55% during the stock market’s booming rally over the six last months — and she couldn’t be more nervous.After suffering deep losses last year, the 41-year-old Pasadena resident is grateful to recoup some of her money. But she fears that stock prices have shot up far more than is warranted given the country’s still-weak economy and nearly double-digit unemployment rate.
“I’m scared, I’m scared, I’m scared,” Leon said. “Why are we up, especially with unemployment as high as it is?
Asia
Wish you were here? Asian war zones battle for tourists
Golf in Cambodia? Relaxation in Kashmir? Andrew Buncombe reports on the rebranding of a continent
Thursday, 17 September 2009
In Cambodia it’s golf, in Sri Lanka it’s whale-watching, and on the Indonesian island of Bali officials are promoting the benefits of yoga and meditation. In each place, the intention is the same.
Across a swath of south and south-east Asia previously wracked by war or strife, officials are carrying out a rebranding exercise to lure back tourists who have long been scared of visiting. In places such as Nepal, it is more like fine-tuning. In others, such as Kashmir, it means a complete overhaul.In Sri Lanka, where the long civil war involving Tamil rebels was ended earlier this year, officials have already reported a bounce in the number of arrivals. In May, after the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were defeated and their leader Velupillai Prabhakaran killed, officials announced the launch of a new tourism campaign based on the slogan “Sri Lanka – Small Miracle”. “The objective was to create a single core idea that can change people’s perception of the country,” said Dileep Mudadeniya, managing director of the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau.
India’s damned generation: young go hungry despite economic boom
From The Times
September 17, 2009
Jeremy Page in Delhi
India is condemning another generation to brain damage, poor education and early death by failing to meet its targets for tackling the malnutrition that affects almost half of its children, a study backed by the British Government concluded yesterday.The country is an “economic powerhouse but a nutritional weakling”, said the report by the British-based Institute of Development Studies (IDS), which incorporated papers by more than 20 India analysts. It said that despite India’s recent economic boom, at least 46 per cent of children up to the age of 3 still suffer from malnutrition, making the country home to a third of the world’s malnourished children. The UN defines malnutrition as a state in which an individual can no longer maintain natural bodily capacities such as growth, pregnancy, lactation, learning abilities, physical work and resisting and recovering from disease.
Europe
How the Cold War was won… by the French
When a KGB colonel decided to pass on secrets that would devastate the Soviet Union he turned to Paris, a new film revealsBy John Lichfield
Thursday, 17 September 2009
James Bond and George Smiley can eat their hearts out. Who really won the Cold War for the democratic world? The French, naturellement. This rather startling claim is made by the publicity for a brooding, brilliant, French spy movie which reaches cinemas next week. Although somewhat far-fetched, the boast that French intelligence “changed the world” does have some basis in fact.The story of L’Affaire Farewell, how a French mole in the KGB leaked information so devastating that it hastened the implosion of the Soviet Union, is comparatively little known in Britain or even in France.
Mafia ‘was paid to sink ships carrying radioactive cargo’
From The Times
September 17, 2009
Richard Owen in Rome
About 30 ships containing radioactive and other poisonous refuse may have been scuttled off the Italian coast in an illegal Mafia operation to dispose of dangerous substances at sea.Italy’s political opposition yesterday demanded an investigation after the wreck of a cargo vessel containing 120 barrels of potentially radioactive waste was found in waters off the southern province of Calabria. Environmental campaigners said that many more ships containing toxic and radioactive rubbish were believed to lie near by.
The discovery of the Cunsky, sunk in 1992, came after her location was revealed to anti-Mafia investigators by Francesco Fonti, a former member of the ‘Ndrangheta, or Calabrian Mafia, who has become an informant. Mr Fonti claimed that the Cunsky contained radioactive material.
Middle East
Israel, Hamas called to account
By Thalif Deen
NEW YORK – A four-member United Nations fact-finding mission, which has just concluded an investigation into last year’s brutal conflict in Gaza, makes a strong case for war crimes charges against Israel for its unrelenting 22-day military attacks on Palestinians, largely civilians, including women and children.The charges stem mostly from serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law.
The UN team, led by Justice Richard Goldstone, says there is also evidence that Palestinian armed groups, specifically Hamas, committed war crimes in their repeated mortar attacks on civilians in southern Israel. But its strongest indictment is against the state of Israel, which is accused of imposing a blockade on Gaza “amounting to collective punishment” carried out as part of a “systematic policy of progressive isolation and deprivation of the Gaza Strip”.
Arabs tackle free speech taboo
Across the Middle East, what would never happen in polite company now appears on broadcasts of The Doha Debates – discussion of controversy.
By Caryle Murphy | Correspondent
DOHA, QATAR; AND RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA – As soon as the cameramen called it a wrap, the audience swarmed onto the TV studio set. Almost giddy with delight, several university students from Saudi Arabia went straight for chairs vacated by the performers and pretended to be stars of the show.The program that thrills these students isn’t a reality show, a religious forum, or a sexy soap opera. It’s something far more ordinary – but also mightier. As the show’s producers like to say, it’s about “the power to change minds” – through words.
That is the theme of The Doha Debates, the five-year-old hit show on BBC World News. Produced eight times a year in Doha, capital of the tiny Gulf emirate of Qatar, the program features speakers debating such controversial questions as “Does political Islam threaten the West?” “Does the face veil hinder Muslim integration?” “Do Gulf Arabs value profit over people?” “Are Muslims failing to combat extremism?” “Is Arab unity dead and buried?” and “Should Muslim women be free to marry anyone they choose?”
Africa
How UK oil company Trafigura tried to cover up African pollution disaster
• Trafigura offers payout to 31,000 victims of toxic dumping
• Secret email trail exposes truth behind £100m legal battle
• Read the emails here
David Leigh
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 16 September 2009 22.08 BST
The Guardian can reveal evidence today of a massive cover-up by the British oil trader Trafigura, in one of the worst pollution disasters in recent history.Internal emails show that Trafigura, which yesterday suddenly announced an offer to pay compensation to 31,000 west African victims, was fully aware that its waste dumped in Ivory Coast was so toxic that it was banned in Europe.
Thousands of west Africans besieged local hospitals in 2006, and a number died, after the dumping of hundreds of tonnes of highly toxic oil waste around the country’s capital, Abidjan.
Kenya corruption fighter rejected
Kenyan MPs have thrown out a proposal by the president to reappoint a much-criticised anti-corruption chief.
The BBC
President Mwai Kibaki had intended to give retired judge Aaron Ringera a second five-year-term as head of the Kenyan Anti-Corruption Commission.
However, MPs said the proposal was illegal as they had not approved it.
The BBC’s Wairimu Gitahi in Nairobi says Mr Ringera has come under fire from Kenyans for not doing enough to tackle corruption.
Mr Kibaki promised to stop corruption when he was elected, but no senior officials have been convicted since he first took office in 2002.
Latin America
Cartel rivalry blamed in latest Mexico drug clinic slayings
Two doctors and eight clients are killed in an attack by gunmen at a rehab facility in Ciudad Juarez. Officials close down others like it in the violent border city.
By Tracy Wilkinson
September 17, 2009
Reporting from Mexico City – In the second mass slaying at a Mexican rehab clinic in less than two weeks, gunmen burst into the Life Annex addiction treatment center in the volatile border city of Ciudad Juarez and killed at least 10 people — patients and therapists alike.The gunmen escaped, and authorities on Wednesday blamed the Tuesday night shooting on a “war of extermination” among drug traffickers. Rehabilitation clinics are often targeted as Mexican drug gangs hunt rivals or attempt to settle old scores.