Docudharma Times Monday October 19

Energy Firms Deeply Split on Bill to Battle Climate Change



By JOHN BRODER and JAD MOUAWAD

Published: October 18, 2009

WASHINGTON – As the Senate prepares to tackle global warming, the nation’s energy producers, once united, are battling one another over policy decisions worth hundreds of billions of dollars in coming decades.Producers of natural gas are battling their erstwhile allies, the oil companies. Electrical utilities are fighting among themselves over the use of coal versus wind power or other renewable energy. Coal companies are battling natural gas firms over which should be used to produce electricity. And the renewable power industry is elbowing for advantage against all of them.

India’s carbon fighters must wait

As world reassesses emissions policy, young green industries appear in limbo

By Rama Lakshmi

Monday, October 19, 2009

NEW DELHI — Giant mountains of smelly kitchen waste, bottles, coconuts, plastic and paper in the heart of New Delhi’s industrial district are being transformed into rich, black organic fertilizer for farming.The treatment is good for the environment in more ways that one: It creates both fertilizer and carbon emission credits for a German company that is paying the Indian firm for treating the trash. It has been going on for only a year, but now there is fear that it may not last.

In a sign of how widespread the global impact of carbon emissions is and how far-reaching the efforts are to reduce them, dozens of similar projects in India, China and Brazil face uncertainty after 2012 because of a failure so far to renew provisions of the historic Kyoto Protocol meant to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

USA

Top aides to Obama upbraid Wall St.

Bonuses after the bailout ‘A year ago . . . these institutions were teetering’

By Michael A. Fletcher and Zachary A. Goldfarb

Monday, October 19, 2009

Top Obama administration officials sharply criticized Wall Street firms planning to pay big bonuses, pointedly contrasting the soaring profits some financial companies have recorded in recent days with continuing high jobless rates across the country.

The firms are benefiting from government efforts, some initiated by the Obama administration, to stabilize and restore confidence to the capital markets after a global financial crisis that began last year. With their fortunes rebounding, the Wall Street firms plan to pay tens of billions of dollars to executives.

Inside the Islamic Emirate



By DAVID ROHDE

Published: October 18, 2009

A YOUNG Taliban driver with shoulder-length hair got behind the wheel of the car. Glancing at me suspiciously in the rearview mirror, he started the engine and began driving down the left-hand side of the road.

It was some sort of prank, I hoped, some jihadi version of chicken – the game where two drivers speed toward each other in the same lane until one loses his nerve.

Which lane he drove down showed what country we were in. If he continued driving on the left, we had crossed into Pakistan. If he drove on the right, we were still in Afghanistan.

A mile down the road, traffic signs appeared in Urdu.

We’re in Pakistan, I thought to myself. We’re dead.

Europe

Copenhagen climate talks are last chance, says Gordon Brown



Patrick Wintour

guardian.co.uk, Monday 19 October 2009

Gordon Brown will warn today that the world is on the brink of a “catastrophic” future of killer heatwaves, floods and droughts unless governments speed up negotiations on climate change before vital talks in Copenhagen in December.

This applies to the US as much as anyone, he will say, adding that “there is no plan B”, and that agreement cannot be deferred beyond the UN-sponsored Copenhagen conference.

There are fears that Barack Obama does not have the political capital to reach a deal in Copenhagen and will instead use a visit to China next month to reach a bilateral deal that circumvents the UN.

Berlusconi’s TV channel stalks anti-bribes judge

Hidden TV crew spies on Milan magistrate whose ruling infuriated Italian PM

By Michael Day in Milan

Monday, 19 October 2009

A television channel owned by the media empire of Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, has been accused of an extraordinary attempt to harass the judge who earlier this month ruled against his business empire in a bribery case.

Within days of magistrate Raimondo Mesiano ordering Berlusconi’s Fininvest group, his financial holding company, to pay €750m (£680m) in compensation to a rival company, the prime minister’s flagship Canale 5 channel began secretly filming the magistrate in the streets of Milan as he went about his business.

The results were beamed to millions on the Mattino 5 programme, accompanied by a voiceover that ridiculed Mesiano for his “extravagant” and “eccentric behaviour”, his “impatience”, and, most bizarrely, the fact that he wore turquoise socks.

Asia

India offers Sri Lanka funding to speed Tamils’ return home

Gesture seen as attempt to maintain influence

By Andrew Buncombe in Delhi

Monday, 19 October 2009

India has offered Sri Lanka $100m (£61m) in aid to help refugees caught up in the endgame of the civil war to return home and rebuild their devastated communities.

In a move that may also allow India to maintain a measure of influence over its island neighbour, the Home Affairs Minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram said his government was ready to provide the aid package if Sri Lanka submitted a “plan of action” on the rehabilitation of Tamil civilians.

Speaking in India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu, which has a large Tamil population, he said: “Our concern is that the displaced Tamils should be resettled in their homes as early as possible.”

Taleban militants put up stern resistance to South Waziristan offensive

From The Times

October 19, 2009

Zahid Hussain in Islamabad and Jeremy Page, South Asia Correspondent

The Pakistani Army faced resistance from the Taleban on the second day of an assault on the mountainous tribal region of South Waziristan yesterday, raising fears of a drawn-out battle.

The army said that it had made significant advances and killed at least 60 militants in the first 24 hours of the long-awaited ground offensive on a region considered to be the main Taleban and al-Qaeda stronghold in Pakistan.

Residents and local officials from the area on the Afghan border said that the insurgents were attacking military convoys as they advanced from three directions on the area controlled by Hakimullah Mehsud, the Taleban leader. “They have sophisticated weapons and are trying to block the troops’ advance,” a local reporter in Wana, the regional headquarters, said.

Middle East

Rumours of Western support for Iranian dissident militia groups have broad backing

From The Times

October 19, 2009

Catherine Philp and Sheera Frenkel  

Iranian accusations of Western backing for Jundallah, the Sunni rebel group, may not be as fanciful as they seem.

Tehran often blames the United States and Britain for any internal unrest, including the uproar after President Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election. But rumours of support for dissident militia groups such as Jundallah have far broader backing.

The group, which also calls itself the Iranian People’s Resistance Movement, was founded in 2002 and started its armed campaign in 2005. Its main cause is defending Shia Iran’s Sunni minority, concentrated in its poorest province, Sistan-Baluchistan.

Failed Iraqi asylum seekers ‘fear for lives’ in Baghdad

Iraqi aslyum seekers who were deported from Britain and sent back to Baghdad have told of how they fear for their lives on a daily basis and have had no help from UK officials since being sent home.

Published: 7:00AM BST 19 Oct 2009

The group of 40 Iraqis were thrown out of the UK after the Home Office decided that their homeland was a safe place to live.

It was the first time that a return to Baghdad had been attempted since the start of the Iraq war in 2003, the Independent reports.

However, 30 of the deportees were refused entry by the Iraqi officials. The remaining 10 claim they were given $100 each and told to fend for themselves.

Abu Yousif, 39, was returned to Baghdad, where his brother was murdered and where, he believes, the same fate awaits him in the hands of the vengeful killers.

“They have not gone away from here. I am afraid of what could happen.

Africa

Mandelas, not Mobutus

Visionary leadership is key to Africa’s progress, and there are effective ways of encouraging it

Mo Ibrahim

The Guardian, Monday 19 October 2009

Once when flying over Kenya I looked out of my window. The country was so lush, so green, I wondered how the people there could ever be hungry. Looking at the spaces, huge, endless spaces, animals, water; everything was there. I came to the conclusion that unless you are ruled properly, you cannot move forward. Everything else is second. Everything.

This was when I was still the chairman of Celtel International, the telecommunications company I founded less than 10 years ago. Celtel established a mobile phone network in Africa at a time when investors told me that there was no market for mobile phones there. The continent now boasts the fastest rate of mobile telephone growth in the world.

After the sale of Celtel, I really wanted to give the money back, and I had a number of choices – to go and buy masses of blankets and baby milk or to go into Darfur or Congo.

Latin America

Brazil vows Olympic security after Rio violence

At least 14 people were killed in Rio de Janeiro this weekend, including two policemen who died when their helicopter was brought down by warring drug gangs.

By Andrew Downie | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the October 18, 2009 edition

SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – When Rio de Janeiro was named the host of the 2016 Olympics earlier this month it seemed like a fresh start for one of the world’s most vibrant, but violent cities.

But a weekend of gang battles that spilled out of favelas, or shantytowns, and onto streets just a few miles from where many of the Olympic events will be held is highlighting concerns over security during the Games.

At least 12 people were killed on Saturday, including two policemen who died when their helicopter was brought down by warring drug gangs after police tried to halt shootouts between the rivals. And the violence extended into Sunday when two men were killed by police exchanging fire with alleged gang members.

Rio authorities are acutely aware they need to improve their record on policing, especially now that the Olympic torch is shining on them, and they struck a defensive note on Saturday.

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