Docudharma Times Sunday February 7

Think-tanks take oil money and use it to fund climate deniers

ExxonMobil cash supported concerted campaign to undermine case for man-made warming

By Jonathan Owen and Paul Bignell Sunday, 7 February 2010

An orchestrated campaign is being waged against climate change science to undermine public acceptance of man-made global warming, environment experts claimed last night.

The attack against scientists supportive of the idea of man-made climate change has grown in ferocity since the leak of thousands of documents on the subject from the University of East Anglia (UEA) on the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit last December.

Free-market, anti-climate change think-tanks such as the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in the US and the International Policy Network in the UK have received grants totalling hundreds of thousands of pounds from the multinational energy company ExxonMobil.

Jazz legend Johnny Dankworth dies aged 82

Sir John Dankworth, a mainstay of the British jazz scene for over 60 years, has died, his family has confirmed.

The BBC  Sunday, 7 February 2010

Saxophonist Sir John, 82, served as musical director to the likes of Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald.

Sir John, known as Johnny, was knighted in 2006 for services to music. He died at the King Edward VII Hospital in London on Saturday.

His wife, the singer Dame Cleo Laine, announced his death at a concert at their theatre in Buckinghamshire.

The concert was celebrating 40 years of the theatre, which the couple founded in the grounds of their home in Wavendon.

In a statement, his agent said: “The all-star concert, featuring numerous British stars of stage, screen and recordings, became a tribute to John.”

He was hailed by Jazzwise magazine as “one of the totemic figures of British jazz” and the UK’s “first major jazz musician”.

USA

With speech before tea party activists, Palin once again steps on political stage



By Philip Rucker and Ann Gerhart

Washington Post Staff Writers

Sunday, February 7, 2010

NASHVILLE — Sarah Palin chose a gathering of tea party activists on Saturday as the backdrop for her first major political speech since accepting the Republican Party’s nomination for vice president 18 months ago. With her remarks, greeted with wild enthusiasm here and carried live by all three major cable news networks, Palin moved firmly to reestablish herself as a politician capable of national office.

She bounded onstage to cries of “run, Sarah, run” and then delivered a stinging rebuke of President Obama while striking a populist, even folksy tone. Serving up fiery rhetoric with a broad smile, she attacked the administration’s policies on the economy and on national security, assailing in particular the decision to read Miranda rights to the man accused of attempting to bomb a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day.

How did the Super Bowl get to be like this?

Game has become the greatest one-day event in the history of the world

By Mike Celizic

NBCSports.com contributor

There is no better day for sports in the world than Super Bowl Sunday. That includes the World Cup Final.

I’m not talking about how many people watch. By that standard, the World Cup Final beats any three Super Bowls put together. But there’s more to a great day than the event around which it is built. It’s all the goodies that have accumulated around the event that ultimately makes the day.

The Super Bowl has everything you could want in a day built around a game that children can play. No day has more meat on its metaphorical bones.

Europe

Ukraine set for tilt to east as Russia’s ally holds poll lead

Former convict whose conduct in 2004 led to Orange Revolution is expected to emerge as victor in today’s bitter presidential election

Luke Harding in Kiev

The Observer, Sunday 7 February 2010

Ukraine was today on the brink of a new political era, with polls suggesting that the pro-Russian opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych – compared by critics with the gaffe-prone George Bush – will become the new president.

Yanukovych, a former convict, is likely to emerge as the winner in today’s final round of the bitter presidential election. Private surveys indicate that he is between three and six points ahead of his rival, Yulia Tymoshenko, the prime minister. Today’s run-off vote follows a preliminary round last month in which Yanukovych had a 10.3% lead.

Arch-enemy Dominique de Villepin takes aim at ‘the dwarf’ Nicolas Sarkozy

From The Sunday Times

February 7, 2010

Matthew Campbell in Paris

A SMELL of fresh paint pervades what used to be a doctor’s surgery in Paris where Dominique de Villepin, the former French prime minister, has established the headquarters of his campaign to push President Nicolas Sarkozy from power.

Known for his sonorous speeches, de Villepin, 56, believes his role is to rescue his nation and likens his plight to that of a resistance fighter against the Nazis in 1940. Sarkozy is not amused.

In the latest phase of their bitter political rivalry, the rebellion brewing in the freshly decorated premises of the so-called Villepin Club seems certain to spread because of disgruntlement with Sarkozy.

Middle East

The Iranian revolution grinds to a halt on the eve of its anniversary

Thirty-one years ago this week, Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Tehran after 15 years in exile. The anniversary is usually marked by triumphant rallies. Not this time: protesters are planning mass demonstrations against a regime they say has betrayed Islamic ideals.

Robert Tait and Noushin Hoseiny

The Observer, Sunday 7 February 2010

For three decades, the image of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini arriving on Iranian soil to a tumultuous homecoming after 15 years in exile has been a centrepiece of Iran’s revolutionary iconography.

It is an event best captured in a famous picture of the late spiritual leader being gently led down the steps of an Air France jet by a man dressed as a pilot or an air steward. The picture embodies the heady mixture of pride, compassion and religious hero-worship the revolution is supposed to evoke among Iranians.

Khomeini was returning to be hailed as a saviour by his fellow countrymen after a wave of popular uprisings that had toppled the regime of the western-backed shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. His guide was playing a mere walk-on part in the historic drama that engulfed Iran that day in February 1979.

Shirin Ebadi’s interview with The Sunday Telegraph

Shirin Ebadi, 62, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her long career as a human rights lawyer in Iran. She spoke to The Sunday Telegraph during a stay in London.

By Angus McDowall

Published: 6:30PM GMT 06 Feb 2010

Sunday Telegraph: “Have you spent much time in London since fleeing Iran last summer?”

Shirin Ebadi : “Since the election I’ve almost been living at airports. Not because of my safety, but so I can travel to talk about Iran. “I stay in hotels wherever I go because the people who invite me always put me in hotels. I have been living in hotels since I left Iran in June. Obviously I’m tired, but I don’t let it affect my work.”

ST: “Are you in any danger from the regime?” SE: “I’ve never been contacted by the regime directly. But they contacted my family and friends and said ‘wherever she is, we can get rid of her’.

Asia

Special forces assassins infiltrate Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan

From The Sunday Times

February 7, 2010

Marie Colvin in Camp Bastion, Helmand

AMERICAN and British troops poised to assault the Taliban stronghold of Marjah have begun targeting insurgent leaders for assassination.

Military sources said special forces had been infiltrating the town on “kinetic” missions – jargon for armed attacks. “Special forces guys have been going in on assassination missions with the aim of decapitating the Taliban force,” one said.

At the British base of Camp Bastion and the adjoining Camp Leatherneck, the US marine base, troops and munitions have been airlifted in by night to avoid enemy rockets. It is clear that international forces are on the brink of a big battle. All yesterday morning, the thud-thud-thud of heavy machineguns and the crump of mortars filled the air.

Africa

Africa’s illicit money sent to Western banks

Some of the continent’s leaders used the US financial system to protect millions of dollars

By David Randall and Greg Walton Sunday, 7 February 2010

Several African leaders, their relatives and associates used Western banks, including British ones, to move hundreds of millions of dollars out of their countries and into accounts and companies they controlled, according to a US Senate report released late last week.

It says that, in 2007, President Omar Bongo of Gabon brought $1m in shrink-wrapped $100 notes into the US in a suitcase; that Teodoro Obiang, son of Equatorial Guinea’s president, moved “more than $100m in suspect funds through US bank accounts, including $30m to purchase a residence in Malibu”; and that, between 2000 and 2008, Jennifer Douglas, fourth wife of a former Nigerian vice-president, “helped her husband bring more than $40m in suspect funds into the US”.

How a feng shui guru’s bid for Nina Wang’s billions ended in his Hong Kong arrest

A love affair between Tony Chan, a feng shui guru, and the wealthy Nina Wang helped him to a small fortune. Then he claimed she had left him everything, and his luck ran out.

By Malcolm Moore in Hong Kong

Published: 8:00AM GMT 07 Feb 2010

On March 12 1992, Tony Chan, a young chancer with a dazzling smile, met Nina Wang, the Hong Kong property queen who was on her way to becoming the richest woman in Asia.

Less than a month later, according to Mr Chan – a self-proclaimed master of feng shui, the ancient Chinese art of divining “qi”, or life force – the couple had fallen in love.

Aged 32, he began an affair that lasted for more than 15 years with the woman, 23 years his senior, known as Little Sweetie on account of her pigtails and miniskirts. Mrs Wang was so enraptured that she showered him with a staggering HK$2.6 billion (£213 million) in cash, and when she died, aged 69, in 2007 Mr Chan announced that he was the sole heir to her vast estate.

Latin America

Haitians prepare for boat journey to Florida

An orphaned teen is one of two dozen Haitians on a vessel awaiting their time to leave. Some are further enticed by news that Haitians in the U.S. have ‘temporary protected status’ after the quake.

By Scott Kraft

February 7, 2010

Reporting from Cap-Haitien, Haiti – The unfinished wooden boat rocks gently in the backwater of Cap-Haitien Bay, lulling 17-year-old Douna Marcellus and two dozen others to sleep as tight balls of mosquitoes hover overhead. Cicadas serenade them from the reeds on one bank and, on the other, black pigs root through smoldering trash.

Like the others in the boat, Douna is a refugee from Port-au-Prince and the unspeakable horrors of the earthquake and its aftermath. Her parents and sister were crushed in their home, just seconds after Douna walked out the front door to run an errand for her mother. The government offered free bus tickets out of town and Douna took one.

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