In Beijing, Obama Pushes Need for ‘Strong Dialogue’
By EDWARD WONG and HELENE COOPER
Published: November 16, 2009
BEIJING – President Obama and President Hu Jintao of China met in private off Tiananmen Square here on a frigid Tuesday morning to discuss issues like trade, climate change and the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea, in a session that signaled the central role of China on the world stage.
The leaders told reporters afterward that the United States and China were in agreement on a range of issues, but they spoke only in general terms.At a news conference where both presidents appeared, neither took questions from reporters, staying in line with the minutely stage-managed atmosphere of Mr. Obama’s first visit to China.
Online Maps: Everyman Offers New Directions
By MIGUEL HELFT
Published: November 16, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO – They don’t know it, but people who use Google’s online maps may be getting directions from Richard Hintz.
Mr. Hintz, a 62-year-old engineer who lives in Berkeley, Calif., has tweaked the locations of more than 200 business listings and points of interest in cities across the state, sliding an on-screen place marker down the block here, moving another one across the street there. Farther afield, he has mapped parts of Cambodia and Laos, where he likes to go on motorcycle trips.Mr. Hintz said these acts of geo-volunteerism were motivated in part by self-interest: he wants to know where he’s going. But “it has this added attraction that it helps others,” he said.
USA
Deep divisions linger on health care
But poll finds support for key provisions of reform effort
By Dan Balz and Jon Cohen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
As the Senate prepares to take up legislation aimed at overhauling the nation’s health-care system, President Obama and the Democrats are still struggling to win the battle for public opinion. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows Americans deeply divided over the proposals under consideration and majorities predicting higher costs ahead.But Republican opponents have done little better in rallying the public opposition to kill the reform effort. Americans continue to support key elements of the legislation, including a mandate that employers provide health insurance to their workers and access to a government-sponsored insurance plan for those people without insurance.
National intelligence director to evaluate CIA missions
Dennis Blair moves to assert greater authority over clandestine operations amid mounting tension between the intelligence agencies.
By Greg Miller
November 17, 2009
Reporting from Washington – Sensitive CIA operations overseas will face new scrutiny from the nation’s intelligence director under a plan approved by the White House and outlined in a memo to the espionage workforce last week.The move marks an attempt by Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair to assert greater authority over clandestine operations at a time of mounting bureaucratic frictions between the CIA and Blair’s office.
Among the activities that could be evaluated are the CIA’s campaign of Predator missile strikes against militant targets in Pakistan, as well as secret paramilitary and spying operations in other countries.
Europe
‘Iron Lady of the North’ in late bid for EU’s top job
Former Latvian leader enters the fray to change ‘undemocratic’ gender gap
By Vanessa Mock in Brussels Tuesday, 17 November 2009
Flame-haired Latvian Vaira Vike-Freiberga, known as the “Iron Lady of the North”, is leading a pack of late contenders who have dashed into the closing round of the race to become the EU’s first president.With so much still to play for, diplomats have warned of a long night on Thursday, when EU leaders meet to decide names over dinner. Some suspect the talks will spill over into Friday; others that a decision may be postponed even beyond that, but the Swedish presidency is determined not to let that happen.
Kosovo’s prime minister claims election victory
Kosovo’s Prime Minister Hashim Thaci claimed victory Monday in the first local elections since the territory seceded from Serbia in 2008. He also hailed the poll as a success despite the boycott of many minority Serbs.
ELECTIONS | 16.11.2009
Preliminary Election Commission results showed that the Kosovo prime minister’s party fared best in local elections held on Sunday. Outright victories were announced on Monday evening in 16 of the 36 municipalities, and run-offs will be held in one month’s time between the top two contenders in the remaining 20 towns.Prime Minister Hashim Thaci’s Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) won five municipalities, while former Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj’s Alliance for the Future of Kosovo won four towns.
President Fatmir Sejdiu’s Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) won three towns. Three municipalities will be run by Serb mayors and one municipality by a Turkish Kosovar.
Middle East
Donald Macintyre: Palestinians throw down challenge to Obama and UN
Tuesday, 17 November 2009
As so often in the Middle East, we have been here before. The latest suggestion – that a frustrated Palestinian leadership would unilaterally declare a state and invite international recognition for it – is not new. It was made a decade ago by Yasser Arafat when Benjamin Netanyahu, then as now, was Prime Minister. It was made again after the collapse of the Camp David talks a year later, when then Prime Minister Ehud Barak, like some of Mr Netanyahu’s more hawkish ministers now, threatened to annex the most populous settlements in the West Bank in retaliation. And as the second intifada – and Israel’s determined military response to it – gathered momentum, nothing came of it.The conventional wisdom is that nothing will come of it this time either. Nevertheless it is worth looking at what has changed since then. First, Palestinian state-building in the occupied West Bank has greatly advanced since then, thanks in large part to the determined efforts of an able Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, efforts praised by Mr Netanyahu himself. Even the Israeli military has acknowledged the strides made on security.
UN nuclear chief in secret talks with Iran over deal to end sanctions ‘
From The Times
November 17, 2009
Richard Beeston, Foreign Editor and Catherine Philp, Diplomatic Correspondent
United Nations and Iranian officials have been secretly negotiating a deal to persuade world powers to lift sanctions and allow Tehran to retain the bulk of its nuclear programme in return for co-operation with UN inspectors.According to a draft document seen by The Times, the 13-point agreement was drawn up in September by Mohamed ElBaradei, the directorgeneral of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in an effort to break the stalemate over Iran’s nuclear programme before he stands down at the end of this month.
Asia
Indus Valley’s Bronze Age civilisation ‘had first sophisticated financial exchange system’
The Indus Valley’s Bronze Age civilisation may have developed the world’s first sophisticated system of wage labour, financial exchange and measurement, a Canadian mathematician has discovered.
By Dean Nelson in New Delhi
Published: 6:00AM GMT 17 Nov 2009
According to a new study of clay pots and ceramic tablets discovered almost 70 years ago in Harappa, now in Pakistan, the people of the Indus Valley had a detailed system of commodity value, weights and measures.
Dr Bryan Wells, a researcher based at India’s Institute of Mathematical Sciences, told The Daily Telegraph he had begun work on his thesis ten years ago when he first saw photographs of the clay pots with markings which appeared to be in proportion to their relative size.
But he was not able to test his thesis until he visited New Delhi earlier this month where the original pots are stored in one of the city’s Mughal era forts. The three pots each had different markings, the smallest with a ‘V’ to indicate ‘measure’ and three long strokes. The medium vessel had six strokes and the largest had seven.
A Bonapartist in the Indian Ocean
By M K Bhadrakumar
When a tea sapling was brought into Ceylon – present-day Sri Lanka – in 1824 from China and planted in the Royal Botanical Gardens, the British had no commercial interests in mind. It took another 40 years before a plucky Scotsman planted the first seedling, which blossomed into the famous Ceylon Tea and became today’s unshakeable pillar of Sri Lanka’s economy.The “Emerald Island” has obscure tales to tell. That is why when a swashbuckling army chief by the improbable name of Gardihewa Sarath Chandralal Fonseka abruptly discards his uniform and plunges into the country’s steamy politics, it becomes no simple matter. Sri Lankan democracy may never be the same again.
Africa
Roy Bennett pleads not guilty as Mugabe murder plot trial begins
From The Times
November 17, 2009
Jan Raath in Harare
A top aide to Morgan Tsvangirai, the Zimbabwean Prime Minister, pleaded not guilty yesterday to terror charges at the start of a trial that has strained the country’s unity Government to breaking point.Roy Bennett, a former white farmer who is treasurer to Mr Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), is accused of plotting to overthrow the Mugabe regime by force.
Lawyers and rights activists say that the charges have been trumped up to prevent him from joining the unity Government agreed last year at the behest of international mediators.
Congo gold ‘still funding’ rebels
Sanction busters are smuggling 40 tonnes of gold annually out of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a United Nations official has told the BBC.
Tuesday, 17 November 2009
Dino Mahtani said most of the gold was controlled by rebel groups who use the proceeds to buy arms.
Mr Mahtani, who is due to report to a meeting of the UN Security Council this week, said: “This money helps sustain them [the armed groups] in the field.
“Most gold is shipped to Dubai via Uganda,” he added.
Mr Mahtani, who co-ordinates UN arms embargo experts, told BBC File on 4: “Recently there was a a Congolese Senate report which talked of roughly $1.24bn (£739m) worth of gold or 40 tonnes of material smuggled out on a yearly basis without any customs declaration.”
Rebel gold
He said the profits of this trade run into several millions of US dollars, which goes back to the armed groups in charge of the illicit trade.