Docudharma Times Friday October 30

Iran Rejects Deal to Ship Out Uranium, Officials Report



By DAVID E. SANGER, STEVEN ERLANGER and ROBERT F. WORTH

Published: October 29, 2009

WASHINGTON – Iran told the United Nations nuclear watchdog on Thursday that it would not accept a plan its negotiators agreed to last week to send its stockpile of uranium out of the country, according to diplomats in Europe and American officials briefed on Iran’s response.

The apparent rejection of the deal could unwind President Obama’s effort to buy time to resolve the nuclear standoff.

In public, neither the Iranians nor the watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, revealed the details of Iran’s objections, which came only hours after Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, insisted that “we are ready to cooperate” with the West.

In Russia, an intensifying insurgency

Under crackdown, Chechen separatism turns into a regional Islamist revolt

By Philip P. Pan

Washington Post Foreign Service

Friday, October 30, 2009

SUNZHENSKY, RUSSIA — Her face wet with tears and framed by a black shawl, Madina Albakova sat in her ransacked living room and described how she had become another teenage widow here in Ingushetia, the most volatile of Russia’s Muslim republics.

The details emerged between sobs: the arrival of the security forces earlier in the day, her husband’s panicked attempt to flee, the gunfire that erupted without warning. He was a law student, barely 20 and “so beautiful,” she said, but the soldiers planted a rifle next to his body and called him an Islamist rebel. Then they took everything of value — the family’s savings, a set of dishes, even baby clothes, she said.

USA

Dozens in Congress under ethics inquiry

AN ACCIDENTAL DISCLOSURE

Document was found on file-sharing network

By Ellen Nakashima and Paul Kane

Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, October 30, 2009

House ethics investigators have been scrutinizing the activities of more than 30 lawmakers and several aides in inquiries about issues including defense lobbying and corporate influence peddling, according to a confidential House ethics committee report prepared in July.

The report appears to have been inadvertently placed on a publicly accessible computer network, and it was provided to The Washington Post by a source not connected to the congressional investigations. The committee said Thursday night that the document was released by a low-level staffer.

The ethics committee is one of the most secretive panels in Congress, and its members and staff members sign oaths not to disclose any activities related to its past or present investigations.

Energy-savings project leaves Army in the cold

It projects millions of dollars in losses from a private-contract job to upgrade a steam power plant in Alaska. The case highlights flaws in the government’s energy contracts program.

By Ralph Vartabedian

October 30, 2009

Reporting from Ft. Richardson, Alaska – Under a federal program to transform government facilities into models of energy efficiency, Honeywell International Inc. came calling on Army commanders here with a deal to replace the base’s decades-old steam power plant.

The company proposed installing millions of dollars in new heating equipment and hooking the base to the local power grid — all free in exchange for the company getting the bulk of future energy savings.

It was precisely the kind of deal that politicians and bureaucrats in Washington were pushing at facilities across the country — modernizing aging machinery without the government spending any money of its own.

Europe

East-west tussle erupts over bill for combating climate change

 

an Traynor in Brussels

The Guardian, Friday 30 October 2009

European leaders were locked in an east-west tussle over how to foot the bill for combating climate change, a key issue seen as a test of European credibility on global warming in the run-up to the Copenhagen conference in December.

Poland and other more recent and poorer EU members threatened to block agreement on a financial package for funding global warming action in the developing world, a central plank of the international pact needed if the Copenhagen talks are to succeed. At the end of yesterday’s talks, no deal had been agreed on funding for tackling climate change in developing countries. Talks are to continue today.

Camorra assassin escapes as Naples looks the other way

Police release CCTV tape in unprecedented step to find brazen killer

By Michael Day in Rome

Friday, 30 October 2009

Even by the mafia’s brutal standards, the killing of a man smoking a cigarette outside a central Naples bar in broad daylight was shocking in its ruthlessness.

But perhaps more disturbing is the reaction of witnesses, who can be seen in a video that has been released by Naples prosecutors in an unprecedented step to try and to find the killer. As the Camorra hitman dispatches his victim with clinical efficiency, a bystander casually checks her lottery scratch card and walks away. Others peer at the body and continue about their business as if the shooting was a normal part of daily life.

Asia

Pakistan strikes deep into al-Qa’ida territory

In the mountains of Waziristan, the army claims to have recovered passports of extremists with links to the September 11 and Madrid attackers. Does this mean they are finally closing in on Osama bin Laden himself?

By Omar Waraich in Sherwangai

Friday, 30 October 2009

After a sweep of a militant stronghold in the lawless tribal region of South Waziristan, the Pakistani army has recovered passports purportedly belonging to two leading al-Qa’ida figures, including a member of the notorious Hamburg cell that orchestrated September 11.

Among a pile of documents, photographs, weapons and computers seen by The Independent yesterday in Waziristan, is a German passport belonging to Said Bahaji, the logistical expert of the notorious German terror cell that orchestrated the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

UN fears for second Afghan vote after commission refuses to tackle fraud

From The Times

October 30, 2009

Jerome Starkey in Kabul

United Nations election staff have threatened to end support for a second round of presidential elections in Afghanistan because local officials are refusing to tackle voter fraud.

The international community has been urging authorities in Kabul to close hundreds of polling stations where there were irregularities in the first round. The local Independent Election Commission, which ran the first round, said yesterday that it will increase that number instead.

“There’s been absolutely no effort by the commission to crack down on fraud in the run-off,” said a European official. “In fact they are gearing up to do the whole thing over again.”

Middle East

Iraq Government bans alcohol sale or transport in Baghdad’s green zone

From The Times

October 30, 2009

Oliver August in Baghdad  

The Iraqi Government has banned alcohol in Baghdad’s heavily fortified green zone, home to foreign embassies and some legendary drunken parties in recent years.

Sales of drink are to be banned from Sunday, The Times has learnt, and Iraqi military patrols are already confiscating booze wherever they find it. “It is a new rule from the Prime Minister,” said an Iraqi army officer at a green zone checkpoint. “Alcohol cannot be sold or transported. If you want to bring a gift for someone, get a Pepsi.”

Hopes of restarting Middle East peace process look like a mirage

The US is desperate to stop relations between Israel and the Palestinians worsening, writes Con Coughlin  

By Con Coughlin

Published: 6:30AM GMT 30 Oct 2009

When thousands of Israelis this weekend attend the annual ceremony to mark the assassination in 1995 of Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister who died attempting to make peace with the Palestinians, they will be shown a pre-recorded message from Barack Obama, urging them to re-engage with the peace process. At the same time, they will be reminded of just how far relations between Israelis and Palestinians have deteriorated since those heady days in 1993 when Mr Rabin signed the Oslo Accords with Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn, in front of a beaming Bill Clinton.

The collapse of the Oslo initiative, which was precipitated by Mr Rabin’s untimely murder by a Jewish extremist, has led to a dramatic polarisation, with Israel now run by arguably the most Right-wing government in its 61-year history and the Palestinians turning in increasing numbers to the Islamist militancy espoused by Hamas.

Latin America

As Honduran elections near, US diplomats seek end to leadership crisis

 A US delegation held talks with Honduran leaders Zelaya and Micheletti Wednesday. With the Nov. 29 presidential elections end the crisis?

By Sara Miller Llana | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the October 29, 2009 edition

TEGUCIGALPA, HONDURAS – US envoys are in Honduras trying to broker a last-minute deal between ousted President Manuel Zelaya and interim President Roberto Micheletti ahead of presidential elections Nov. 29.

Many nations have threatened not to recognize the results of the Nov. 29 race if constitutional order is not first restored. On Tuesday, 16 members of the US Congress sent a letter to President Obama urging him to do the same – which could indefinitely prolong Central America’s worst political crisis in decades.

Behind the world stage, however, Honduran electoral officials are on a whirlwind mission – trying to educate electoral observers and boost turnout for what might be the most controversial race its officials have ever witnessed. “We must continue on anyway,” says Juan Garcia, a spokesman for the Honduran Supreme Electoral Court (TSE).

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