Docudharma Times Thursday November 12

In Leaning on Karzai, U.S. Has Limited Leverage

NEWS ANALYSIS

By HELENE COOPER

Published: November 11, 2009

WASHINGTON – When President Obama delivered a rare and public call last week for President Hamid Karzai to crack down on corruption in Afghanistan, there was one glaring omission from his remarks – an “or else.”

Mr. Obama’s exclusion of the obvious threat – that he will pull American troops out of Afghanistan if Mr. Karzai does not comply – reflects a stark conundrum: How much leverage does the United States really have over the Afghan leader?

“You know that scene in the movie ‘Blazing Saddles,’ when Cleavon Little holds the gun to his own head and threatens to shoot himself?” asked Ronald E. Neumann, a former ambassador to Afghanistan.

Push to Build Mosques Is Met With Resistance

COPENHAGEN JOURNAL

By JOHN TAGLIABUE

Published: November 11, 2009

COPENHAGEN – Paris has its grand mosque, along the Seine. So does Rome, the city of the pope. Yet despite a sizable Muslim population, this Danish city has nothing but the occasional tiny storefront Muslim place of worship.

The city, Denmark’s capital, is now inching toward construction of not one, but two grand mosques. In August, the city council approved the construction of a Shiite Muslim mosque, replete with two 104-foot-tall minarets, in an industrial quarter on the site of a former factory. Plans are also afoot for a Sunni mosque. But it has been a long and complicated process, tangled up in local politics and the publication four years ago of cartoons mocking Islam.

USA

Fed’s role makes its next move key

LAWMAKERS STAND READY Political pressure on central bank grows

By Neil Irwin

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, November 12, 2009

The Federal Reserve has over the decades viewed its independence from political influence as crucial for its ability to guide the U.S. economy.

But the central bank’s activist response to the financial crisis has exposed the Fed to immense political fallout. That will make it more difficult for the Fed to carry out its responsibilities of guiding the national economy out of a recession and withdrawing its emergency support for the economy at just the right time, say former Fed officials and others who closely follow the central bank.

Fort Hood suspect’s contact with cleric spelled trouble, experts say

Yemeni American Anwar al Awlaki’s radical take on Islam has been connected to homegrown terrorist plots. Experts say their e-mails should have prompted a full investigation.  

By Sebastian Rotella and Josh Meyer

November 12, 2009

Reporting from Washington – The radical cleric contacted by accused Ft. Hood gunman Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan has such unmistakable connections to past terrorist plots that his e-mail exchanges with the American should have triggered an all-out investigation, a number of officials and experts now believe.

Anwar al Awlaki is an extremist whose sermons have helped radicalize terrorists from Atlanta to New Jersey to London, including cases in which the U.S. military was targeted.

Asia

Chinese petitioners held in illicit ‘black jails’, report claims

Human Rights Watch says people seeking redress in Beijing for local injustices have been abducted, detained and abused

Tania Branigan in Beijing

The Guardian, Thursday 12 November 2009

Large numbers of Chinese citizens – including children – have been held for days or months in unofficial “black jails” that appear to have emerged when a controversial detention system was abolished, according to a report published today by a human rights group.

Dozens of citizens who had travelled or tried to travel to Beijing to seek redress for local injustices told Human Rights Watch they were instead abducted, detained and in many cases abused in the illicit prisons.

The prison issue received unusual coverage in the domestic media this year when a guard was accused of raping a young detainee – although the carefully worded articles, which did not include the term “black jails”, were soon deleted from Chinese websites.

Hiroshima hails Barack, but he’s too busy to visit

By David McNeill in Tokyo

Thursday, 12 November 2009

It was a speech Tsutomu Yamaguchi had waited 64 years to hear. Watching television at home in Hiroshima in April, one of Japan’s most famous A-bomb survivors heard an American president call for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

“As… the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon,” Barack Obama said that day in Prague, “the United States has a moral responsibility to act.” Mr Yamaguchi was elated. “I feel he is the only one we can now rely on the end these terrible weapons,” he said.

Europe

Secret struggle with depression of goalkeeper driven to take his own life

International footballer was worried about losing adopted child, wife reveals

By Tony Paterson in Berlin

Thursday, 12 November 2009

He was the captain of his club, the rock at the heart of the German national team’s defence, and expected to be first pick in goal for his country at the 2010 World Cup. But Robert Enke committed suicide by throwing himself under a train. Yesterday, his widow revealed that his professional excellence masked a devastating depression he had been battling for years.

Teresa Enke was close to tears as she told a press conference how her husband had desperately tried to keep his depression a secret from the media to safeguard his private life and his career as a professional footballer.

“We thought we could cope with everything. We thought that with love there would always be a way,” Mrs Enke told a press conference at her husband’s soccer club Hanover 96. “But sometimes you just can’t cope with everything. I tried to be there for him.”

Terror suspects excluded from plans to wipe DNA off national database‘

From The Times

November 12, 2009

Richard Ford, Home Correspondent

Terror suspects are to be excluded from plans to delete DNA profiles from the national database after six years, under government proposals published yesterday.

Those arrested on suspicion of terror offences but released without charge could have their DNA profile kept on the national database indefinitely.

Under the plans the samples of under-18s arrested on suspicion of involvement in terrorism could be on the database for the rest of their lives.

A senior police officer would review the cases of terror suspects every two years and make recommendations on whether the samples should be removed.

Middle East

Iran issues tacit warning to Saudi Arabia over attacks on rebels

From The Times

November 12, 2009

James Hider, Middle East Correspondent

Iran warned Saudi Arabia yesterday not to become further entangled in supporting the Yemen Government’s drive to put down Shia Muslim rebels.

After a week of Saudi air raids and the imposition of a naval blockade by Riyadh to prevent weapons from reaching the insurgents, Iran issued comments that are certain to escalate tensions between the regional powers.

“Those who pour oil on the fire must know that they will not be spared from the smoke that billows,” said Manouchehr Mottaki, the Iranian Foreign Minister, in a clear warning to Saudi Arabia – which attacked Huthi rebels after they took control of a Saudi border town last week.

The ‘myth’ of a counter-revolution in Iran  



By Mahan Abedin  

The counter-demonstrations on November 4 (officially dubbed as the national day against global arrogance) showed that Iran’s political crisis – sparked by allegations of vote-rigging in June’s presidential elections – is far from over. The political developments of the past five months have been unprecedented and a close examination of the strategic forces at play will go a long way in understanding this crisis.

While the Iranian establishment has a strong vested interest in resolving the conflict as quickly as possible, there are no signs yet that key players are willing to make the compromises necessary for conflict resolution. Without resolution, the crisis will continue to produce significant street-level disturbances that will slowly chip away at the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic.

Africa

Tunisia’s single-president politics

Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has won a fifth term, but he can’t go on forever, and nor can the current constitution

Bassam Bounenni

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 12 November 2009 08.00 GMT

To nobody’s surprise, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia won a fifth term in last month’s elections, with a massive 89.62% share of the vote. His party, the Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD) also kept its stranglehold over parliament with 161 out of 214 seats.

Though human rights groups and others have questioned the fairness of the elections, the main issue for opposition parties now is what will happen when Ben Ali eventually goes. He is 73 and cannot seek a sixth term unless he amends the Election Act for a third time. So some kind of political change seems likely five years from now, if not before. The ruling party has maintained a low profile on the succession issue, which is still regarded as a taboo subject, and local media have refrained from mentioning that Ben Ali cannot stand for elections in 2014.

The uncertainty that many Tunisians feel, right now, seems to be part of the succession issue.

Charles Taylor war crimes trial gets mixed reviews in Liberia

During four months of testimony, Charles Taylor, the former leader of Liberia, denied committing war crimes. He said he was the victim of a US and British conspiracy. The prosecution now begins its cross-examination in The Hague.

By Jina Moore | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the November 11, 2009 edition

MONROVIA, LIBERIA – The local ataye center is a small, leisurely oasis on an otherwise bustling commercial street in Liberia’s capital of Monrovia. Here, men sip bitter green tea, play checkers and Scrabble, and debate the day’s politics.

At first, the name of Charles Taylor, an ex-president and notorious warlord, hushes the crowd. But by the time the afternoon’s heat peaks, blustery opinions drown out the latest Akon music video as some 70 men gathered here on a lunch break argue over Mr. Taylor’s ongoing war crimes trial.

The trial resumed this week in The Hague, where Taylor has been held since his arrest in 2006. He faces 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

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