Pakistan worried U.S. buildup in Afghanistan will send militants across border
By Karin Brulliard
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN — As 30,000 U.S. troops begin to deploy to Afghanistan, fears are rising in Pakistan that a stepped-up war just over the border could worsen the increasingly bloody struggle with militancy here.Residents in border areas such as the violence-plagued city of Peshawar worry that a tide of militants could flee Afghanistan to seek targets in Pakistan. Doubts linger among Pakistani security officials about the Americans’ ability to intensify the campaign against the Taliban without further destabilizing Pakistan’s vast southwestern border or the already volatile tribal areas in the northwest.
Interest in ancient books could restore Timbuktu
By Karin Brulliard
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
From a dented metal trunk, Abdoul Wahim Abdarahim Tahar pulled out something sure to make a preservationist’s heart race — or break: a leather-bound book written by hand in the 14th century, containing key verses of the prophet Muhammad, and crumbling at the edge of each yellowed page.“Every time I touch it, it falls apart,” he said, paging through the book. “Little by little.”
But Tahar saw promise in the brittle volume — for himself, his family and this legendary but now tumbledown town. He is not the only one. A sort of ancient-book fever has gripped Timbuktu in recent years, and residents hope to lure the world to a place known as the end of the Earth by establishing libraries for visitors to see their centuries-old collections of manuscripts.
USA
How Visa, Using Card Fees, Dominates a Market
THE CARD GAME
By ANDREW MARTIN
Published: January 4, 2010
Every day, millions of Americans stand at store checkout counters and make a seemingly random decision: after swiping their debit card, they choose whether to punch in a code, or to sign their name.
It is a pointless distinction to most consumers, since the price is the same either way. But behind the scenes, billions of dollars are at stake.When you sign a debit card receipt at a large retailer, the store pays your bank an average of 75 cents for every $100 spent, more than twice as much as when you punch in a four-digit code.
The difference is so large that Costco will not allow you to sign for your debit purchase in its checkout lines. Wal-Mart and Home Depot steer customers to use a PIN, the debit card norm outside the United States.
Half of depressed Americans get no treatment
Mexican Americans, African Americans least likely to get care, study says
Live Science
About half of Americans with major depression do not receive treatment for the condition, and in many cases the therapies are not consistent with the standard of care, according to a new study.The study also showed that ethnicity and race were important factors in determining who received treatment, with Mexican Americans and African Americans the least likely to have depression care.
While many people can feel sad from time to time, a depressive disorder occurs when these feelings start to interfere with everyday life, preventing someone from functioning normally, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Asia
Bomber who killed CIA operatives in Afghanistan was triple agent
Ex-Jordanian militant had agreed to help CIA find al-Qaida chief before turning against US spy agency
Daniel Nasaw in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Monday 4 January 2010 23.34 GMT
The suicide bomber who killed eight people at a US base in eastern Afghanistan last week was a triple agent brought to the outpost after offering information to catch a leading al-Qaida aide.The attack at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost province killed seven CIA employees and a Jordanian intelligence officer said to have brought the bomber, a Jordanian doctor, to the spy agency outpost.
US news agencies, citing intelligence sources, identified the attacker as Humam Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi, a 36-year-old doctor from the town of Zarqa, Jordan.
Andal Ampatuan ‘not guilty’ of Philippines massacre
From Times Online
January 5, 2010
Times Online
The prime suspect in a devastating political massacre in the Philippines pleaded not guilty when he appeared in a special police court today on multiple counts of murder.Andal Ampatuan, the son of a powerful clan leader on the island of Minanao is accused of killing 57 people including 30 journalists as they travelled in convoy to register a rival of Mr Ampatuan’s father for local elections.
More than 30 heavily armed police escorts took Mr Ampatuan to the special court inside the national police headquarters for his arraignment and a bail hearing, the first steps in judicial proceedings that many fear could drag on for years.
Europe
Why Sarkozy won’t let Camus rest in peace
France’s right-wing leader stands accused of political bodysnatching with a plan to move the author’s remains to the Panthéon – burial place of the country’s establishment
By John Lichfield Tuesday, 5 January 2010
Albert Camus had the anguished good looks of a doomed film star, not a writer or philosopher. He died a doomed film star’s death, aged 47, when his powerful car skidded on an icy road 100 miles south of Paris and struck a tree on 4 January 1960. Fifty years on, Camus – writer, resistance hero, philanderer and goalkeeper – remains one of the most popular of non-populist writers in the world, and one of the hardest to define. Leftist or libertarian? Novelist or existentialist philosopher? Courageous humanist or heartless womaniser?Like the protagonist of one of his best-known books (L’Etranger), Albert Camus remains an outsider, and any attempt to interpret or categorise him can still cause trouble.
Poland punishes former communist leaders by cutting pensions
Poland’s last communist leader and thousands of former secret service agents have had their pensions cut as part of a campaign to punish those who imposed the authoritarian regime upon the country.
By Matthew Day in Warsaw
Published: 6:00AM GMT 05 Jan 2010
From the start of the year, General Wojciech Jaruzelski will see his pension slashed following widespread anger in Poland that he and others involved in the suppression of dissidents and the democratic movement enjoyed lavish pensions.
The general, along with colleagues from the National Salvation Council, the body that crushed the Solidarity movement in 1981 through the imposition of martial law, have until now enjoyed pensions worth £1,833 a month.
But from January they will receive only £900, although some have said this, too, is excessive, given that a retired doctor can take home as little as £434 a month.
Middle East
Freed Guantánamo inmates are heading for Yemen to join al-Qaeda fight
From The Times
January 5, 2010
Tom Coghlan
At least a dozen former Guantánamo Bay inmates have rejoined al-Qaeda to fight in Yemen, The Times has learnt, amid growing concern over the ability of the country’s Government to accept almost 100 more former inmates from the detention centre.The Obama Administration promised to close the Guantánamo facility by January 22, a deadline that it will be unable to meet. The 91 Yemeni prisoners in Guantánamo make up the largest national contingent among the 198 being held.
Six prisoners were returned to Yemen last month. After the Christmas Day bomb plot in Detroit, US officials are increasingly concerned that the country is becoming a hot-bed of terrorism. Eleven of the former inmates known to have rejoined al-Qaeda in Yemen were born in Saudi Arabia. The organisation merged its Saudi and Yemeni offshoots last year.
Egypt archaeologists discover huge tomb near Cairo
Archaeologists in Egypt have said they have discovered the largest known tomb in the ancient necropolis of Sakkara, to the south of Cairo.
By Yolande Knell
BBC News, Cairo
The tomb dates back 2,500 years to the 26th Dynasty and contains important artefacts, including mummified eagles.
It is one of two newly discovered tombs found by an Egyptian team working close to the entrance of Sakkara, the burial ground for Egypt’s ancient capital.
The tomb consists of a big hall hewn out of the limestone rock.
There are a number of small rooms and passageways where ancient coffins, skeletons and well-preserved clay pots were discovered, as well as the mummies of eagles.
Egypt’s chief archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, who announced the discovery, said that early investigations showed that although the tomb dated back to the 26th Dynasty, it had been used several times.
Africa
Pro-Mugabe bishop locks out faithful
Anglicans forced to pray in the street as Zimbabwe cleric refuses to accept sacking
By Alex Duval Smith in Harare Tuesday, 5 January 2010
Thousands of Zimbabwean Anglicans are being locked out of churches and cathedrals, and forced to hold services in the street, amid a worsening row between two Church factions that mirrors the country’s political crisis.The Archbishops of Canterbury and York have condemned Zimbabwean authorities for siding with Nolbert Kunonga, the dismissed former bishop of Harare. Archbishops Rowan Williams and John Sentamu said the “unprovoked intimidation of worshippers” reflected the ongoing oppression of those perceived to be sympathetic to the opposition.
Jacob Zuma weds third wife in traditional Zulu ceremony
Jacob Zuma, the South African president, formalised his marriage to his third wife during a traditional ceremony in his rural village in the province of KwaZulu-Natal on Monday amid reports that he plans to take a fourth bride later this year.
Published: 12:41AM GMT 05 Jan 2010
During the ritual wedding the bride, Madiba, 37, was introduced to the elders as well to the ancestors, two years after Mr Zuma, 67, paid the Ilobolo (dowry).
Miss Madiba, who has two children with Mr Zuma, has attended official functions as one of the country’s first ladies and has been quoted in the media as Thobeka Madiba-Zuma.
Polygamy is legally recognised in South Africa.
Some 2,000 guests thronged the president’s homestead to watch an hour-long traditional Zulu wedding dance. During the ceremony, Mrs Madiba-Zuma performed a solo dance while holding a spear and a shield to symbolise her acceptance of her new husband.
Mr Zuma, wearing a skirt made of animal fur pelts and sporting bright white tennis shoes, then joined the dance. The bride wore matching trainers.
Latin America
Black activists launch rare attack on Cuba about racism
Onetime supporters of the Castro revolution now question the regime’s civil and human rights record.
By Richard Fausset
January 3, 2010
Reporting from Atlanta – President Obama has loosened travel restrictions to Cuba. His critics accuse him of harboring socialist sentiments. And he is, of course, a member of the African American intelligentsia — a group that has tended, for the last half-century, to have a soft spot for the Cuban revolution.It sounds like the perfect atmosphere for the love affair between black American liberals and the regime of the Castros to fully flourish.
Except that it’s not.
A group of 60 African American artists and thinkers have launched a rare — and some say unprecedented — attack on Cuba’s human rights record, with a particular focus on the treatment of black political dissidents.