Docudharma Times Sunday October 4

Report Says Iran Has Data to Make a Nuclear Bomb



By WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER

Published: October 3, 2009

Senior staff members of the United Nations nuclear agency have concluded in a confidential analysis that Iran has acquired “sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable” atom bomb.

The report by experts in the International Atomic Energy Agency stresses in its introduction that its conclusions are tentative and subject to further confirmation of the evidence, which it says came from intelligence agencies and its own investigations.

But the report’s conclusions, described by senior European officials, go well beyond the public positions taken by several governments, including the United States.

Will California become America’s first failed state?

Los Angeles, 2009: California may be the eighth largest economy in the world, but its state staff are being paid in IOUs, unemployment is at its highest in 70 years, and teachers are on hunger strike. So what has gone so catastrophically wrong?



Paul Harris

The Observer, Sunday 4 October 2009

California has a special place in the American psyche. It is the Golden State: a playground of the rich and famous with perfect weather. It symbolises a lifestyle of sunshine, swimming pools and the Hollywood dream factory.

But the state that was once held up as the epitome of the boundless opportunities of America has collapsed. From its politics to its economy to its environment and way of life, California is like a patient on life support. At the start of summer the state government was so deeply in debt that it began to issue IOUs instead of wages. Its unemployment rate has soared to more than 12%, the highest figure in 70 years. Desperate to pay off a crippling budget deficit, California is slashing spending in education and healthcare, laying off vast numbers of workers and forcing others to take unpaid leave.

USA

‘Almost a Lost Cause’

One of the deadliest attacks of the Afghan war is a symbol of the U.S. military’s missteps.

 By Greg Jaffe

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, October 4, 2009

The rocket-propelled grenade and rifle fire was so intense that most of the soldiers spent the opening minutes of the battle lying on their stomachs, praying that the enemy would run out of ammunition.

They had been in the tiny Afghan village of Wanat, near the Pakistani border, for four days. The command post of their remote base was still just a muddy hole surrounded by sandbags.

Heavy US losses in Afghan battle

Eight American soldiers and two Afghan troops have been killed in the deadliest attack on coalition troops for more than a year, officials say.

The BBC Sunday, 4 October 2009

The battle happened in Nuristan province in the remote east of the country when military outposts were attacked, a Nato statement said.

The Taliban said it carried out the attack, and had captured local police.

Violence has escalated in eastern Afghanistan as insurgents have relocated from the south.

In a statement, Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said that tribal militia launched attacks on foreign and Afghan military outposts from a mosque and a nearby village.

Europe

Irish vote sends Tony Blair racing to EU presidency

Germany and France aim to be kingmakers as revitalised European Union prepares to give former PM Blair the top job

Toby Helm

The Observer, Sunday 4 October 2009

European leaders led by Angela Merkel of Germany and Nicolas Sarkozy of France will act swiftly to make the EU’s reform charter a reality after Ireland’s Yes vote, despite the lone resistance of Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic.

The strong endorsement of the Lisbon treaty by the Irish after eight years of divisive attempts to rewrite the EU’s rule book, has sparked the jockeying for position over the plum jobs that it creates, with Tony Blair now a clear favourite to become the first permanent EU president.

The posts of president of the council and that of a new foreign policy chief with enhanced powers are among the biggest changes under the treaty. But the appointments will not be made in isolation. Who gets what will be intricately linked to the share-out of portfolios in the new European Commission, which will be strongly debated in the coming weeks.

Murder sparks demands for ‘chemical castration’

France calls for hormone treatment for sexual criminals

By John Lichfield in Paris

Sunday, 4 October 2009

France is considering the compulsory “chemical castration” of sexual criminals after a woman jogger was murdered in a forest south of Paris by a convicted rapist.

The “voluntary” use of drugs to destroy or limit the libido is already available to male sex offenders in France. The Prime Minister, François Fillon, has now announced that he will consider ways of making the law “more obligatory”.

An anguished debate about chemical castration has been raging since the murder of Marie-Christine Hodeau, 42, who was kidnapped while jogging near the forest of Fontainebleau, 30 miles south of Paris, last week.

Asia

Two million slum children die every year as India booms

Save the Children says state-run health system is failing to give skilled care to poor

Gethin Chamberlain in Delhi

The Observer, Sunday 4 October 2009

India’s growing status as an economic superpower is masking a failure to stem a shocking rate of infant deaths among its poorest people.

Nearly two million children under five die every year in India – one every 15 seconds – the highest number anywhere in the world. More than half die in the month after birth and 400,000 in their first 24 hours.

A devastating report by Save the Children, due out on Monday, reveals that the poor are disproportionately affected and the charity accuses the country of failing to provide adequate healthcare for the impoverished majority of its one billion people. While the World Bank predicts that India’s economy will be the fastest-growing by next year and the country is an influential force within the G20, World Health Organisation figures show it ranks 171st out of 175 countries for public health spending.

Indonesian earthquake: ‘They were sucked deep into the earth’

Aid workers reach remote areas beyond Padang to find entire villages levelled by last week’s disaster

By Kathy Marks

Sunday, 4 October 2009

In rural areas of Indonesia, weddings are communal, open-air affairs. Some 400 people attended the nuptials of a couple in Pulau Aiya, a village outside Padang, last Wednesday. Then the ground shook and swallowed everyone up.

“They were sucked 30m deep into the earth,” Rustam Pakaya, head of the Indonesian Health Ministry’s crisis centre, said yesterday. “Even the mosque’s minaret, more than 20m tall, disappeared.”

Three days after a 7.6-magnitude earthquake devastated Padang and surrounding areas on the west coast of Sumatra, the full impact of the tragedy is starting to become clear.

Middle East

Israel names Russians helping Iran build nuclear bomb

From The Sunday Times

October 4, 2009

Uzi Mahanimi in Tel Aviv, Mark Franchetti and Jon Swain

Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has handed the Kremlin a list of Russian scientists believed by the Israelis to be helping Iran to develop a nuclear warhead. He is said to have delivered the list during a mysterious visit to Moscow.

Netanyahu flew to the Russian capital with Uzi Arad, his national security adviser, last month in a private jet.

Africa

More Nigeria oil militants disarm

A senior militant leader in Nigeria’s oil-rich Delta region is to instruct followers to lay down their weapons, a day after two more commanders disarmed.

The BBC  Sunday, 4 October 2009

Government Tompolo, who heads the main rebel faction in the western Delta, is due to make the move before an amnesty expires at midnight local time.

On Saturday, militant commanders Akete Tom and Farah Dagogo led their fighters in handing over weapons.

The government has offered an amnesty in return for pledges of cash and jobs.

Militants took up arms in 2006, saying proceeds from the region’s oil wealth had not benefited local people.