Docudharma Times Thursday February 4

Toyota takes $2bn hit from global safety recall

• Japanese carmaker raises annual forecast to £550m profit

• But results do not reflect dent in sales expected to follow recalls

• Carmaker investigating reports of brake problems on Prius

Justin McCurry in Tokyo

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 4 February 2010 08.20 GMT

Toyota will suffer $2bn (£1.26bn) in extra costs as a result of a global safety recall affecting millions of cars, and faces a bruising few months ahead as it attempts to address safety concerns that could result in civil action by authorities in the US.

In the only glimmer of good news at the end of a disastrous week, the world’s biggest carmaker raised its annual forecast to an ¥80bn profit (£550m), a dramatic reversal from its previous estimates of a ¥200bn loss.

Last year the company suffered a ¥436bn loss as it fell victim to a global slump in demand sparked by the recession.

Border fence plagued by glitches, long delays

The $6.7 billion project would use cameras, ground sensors and radar

Associated Press

PHOENIX – An ambitious, $6.7 billion government project to secure nearly the entire Mexican border with a “virtual fence” of cameras, ground sensors and radar is in jeopardy after a string of technical glitches and delays.

Having spent $672 million so far with little to show for it, Washington has ordered a reassessment of the whole idea. The outlook became gloomier this week when President Barack Obama proposed cutting $189 million from the venture.

USA

Criticism of Obama on national security likely to remain big issue



By Scott Wilson and Anne E. Kornblut

Washington Post Staff Writers

Thursday, February 4, 2010

The Obama administration is aggressively pushing back against Republican criticism of its handling of terrorism suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, sharpening a partisan debate about national security policy, which is likely to be a major issue throughout the midterm election year.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs issued a rare point-by-point critique of a statement by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who said Wednesday that “there was no consultation with intelligence officials before the Department of Justice unilaterally decided to treat Abdulmutallab as if he were an ordinary criminal.” Gibbs released a list of senior intelligence officials involved in the decision to charge Abdulmutallab — a Nigerian citizen who allegedly tried to bomb a Northwest Airlines flight on Christmas Day — in civilian court and provide him access to a lawyer.

Soaring cost of healthcare sets a record

Spending was 17.3% of the economy last year. The share paid by the U.S. will soon exceed 50%, a study says.

By Noam N. Levey

February 4, 2010

Reporting from Washington – In a stark reminder of growing costs, the government has released a new estimate that healthcare spending grew to a record 17.3% of the U.S. economy last year, marking the largest one-year jump in its share of the economy since the government started keeping such records half a century ago.

The almost $2.5 trillion spent in 2009 was $134 billion more than the previous year, when healthcare consumed 16.2% of the gross domestic product, according to an annual report by independent actuaries at the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, scheduled for release Thursday.

Middle East

Iraq overturns ban on election candidates ‘linked to Saddam’

Court’s compromise eases sectarian tension by allowing hundreds of Sunnis to run for office

By Patrick Cockburn Thursday, 4 February 2010

The Iraqi appeals court defused a political crisis yesterday by overturning the ban on 450 candidates standing in next month’s election which was imposed because of their alleged links to the Baath party of Saddam Hussein.

Many Sunni Arab leaders were among those disqualified, causing a political uproar because the ban appeared aimed at the Sunni community and was likely to intensify Sunni-Shia hostility. In the last parliamentary election in 2005 the Sunnis boycotted the poll and supported the armed insurgency against the Shia-Kurdish government backed by the US.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad plays game of cat-and-mouse with West over nuclear deal

From The Times

February 4, 2010

James Bone in New York and Catherine Philp, Diplomatic Correspondent  

President Ahmadinejad demonstrated yesterday that he has become a master of playing cat and mouse with the West – and this time the mouse was real.

Once again, the Iranian leader offered a last-minute concession to head off the West’s drive for new sanctions against the Islamic republic. At the same time, Iran thumbed its nose at UN restrictions on its ballistic missiles programme by sending a rocket into space carrying a mouse, two turtles and some worms.

In an interview on state television, Mr Ahmadinejad said that Iran had no problem shipping enriched uranium abroad in a deal that Tehran had resisted for months. The surprise announcement came as the West prepared to ask Russia and China to back UN sanctions on the Iranian energy sector, central bank and Revolutionary Guards – the first UN sanctions since March 2008.

Europe

McItaly burger is home-grown but leaves a nasty taste in some mouths

From The Times

February 4, 2010

Richard Owen in Rome

When Luca Zaia donned an apron at the McDonald’s restaurant near the Spanish Steps in Rome to promote a new McItaly burger he probably thought he was doing his country’s food producers a good turn.

Sold under the slogan “McDonald’s speaks Italian”, the McItaly was made “completely from ingredients sourced in Italy”, Mr Zaia, the Agriculture Minister, said.

Square, with artichoke sauce and Asiago cheese – or olive oil and pancetta – the burger was supposed to “promote the taste of Italy”.

Instead it has cooked up a furious argument. Yesterday Carlo Petrini, the founder of the slow food movement – which he set up in 1989 as a response to the opening of the Spanish Steps McDonald’s – accused the Government of undermining Italian cuisine.

Nazi death camp survivor recognises John Demjanjuk

A Russian survivor of the Nazi death camp Sobibor has said that a man on trial for working at the death camp, John Demjanjuk, was definitely one of the guards.

Published: 7:00AM GMT 04 Feb 2010

John Demjanjuk is accused of being a guard at the Polish camp of Sobibor and aiding the murder of 27,900 Dutch Jews who were gassed during his alleged time there.

“I remember him, I remember them all,” Alexei Vaitsen, 87, told Czech Radio.

“He was a guard. I saw him leading a group of prisoners to work in a forest.”

Mr Vaitsen, a Jewish veteran paratrooper who is seriously ill after several heart attacks, was shown a photograph of John Demjanjuk by a reporter.

Mr Vaitsen is the first living witness to positively identify Demjanjuk, who is on trial in Munich in what is likely to be the last major case dealing with war crimes by the Nazi regime.

Asia

China censors Oscar nominations

China has censored this year’s nominations for the Academy Awards, blocking out the name of a documentary about the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake.

By Malcolm Moore in Shanghai

Published: 6:00AM GMT 04 Feb 2010

China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province, was one of five films nominated for best documentary short.

The movie shows the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake in May 2008, when over 70,000 people died, including 10,000 children, who were killed as their shoddily-built school buildings collapsed around them.

The collapse of the school buildings, killing the only child of many families, continues to be a highly-sensitive issue in Sichuan.

Grieving families have accused government officials of stealing the construction budget of the schools, creating flimsy deathtraps for the children inside. In Dujiangyan, some parents said the concrete of the middle school had been reinforced with bamboo, rather than steel rods.

Pakistani Taliban has its work cut out

Feb 4, 2010

By Syed Saleem Shahzad

ISLAMABAD – Pakistani authorities, having been embarrassed in the past over false claims, have not yet conclusively stated that Hakeemullah Mehsud, the leader of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP – Taliban Movement of Pakistan), was killed in a United States drone attack in the South Waziristan tribal area last week.

A senior Pakistani security official has been quoted as saying that Mehsud had “probably been killed” along with about 12 militants in Shaktoee, a village close to the border with North Waziristan, but that the matter was being investigated.

The intense speculation over the fate of Mehsud, who has a 50 million rupee (US$600,000) bounty on his head, obscures the broader and more important fact that the TTP has in recent

months evolved from being a Pakistani-centric outfit into an important component of al-Qaeda’s regional plans.

Africa

The Big Question: What would a genocide charge mean for Sudan’s leader and his country?

Thursday, 4 February 2010

By Daniel Howden

Why are we asking this now?

The International Criminal Court has decided that Sudan’s president Omar al-Bashir may be charged with genocide after all. Appeal judges in The Hague yesterday reversed an earlier ruling by the ICC’s own pre-trial chamber that there was not enough evidence to charge Mr al-Bashir with genocide. Under the convoluted procedures of the court this means a decision on whether the charge will be added to the counts against him could still be several months away. In effect the appeal judges have lowered the bar slightly on what constitutes evidence of genocide and will now ask the pre-trial chamber to take a second look and see whether the charge now fits.

African countries pledge aid to Haiti, but can they really afford it?

Leaders pledged aid to Haiti this week at an African Union summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, but the reaction among average Africans has been mixed. In Congo, news of the $2.5 million aid pledge sparked demonstrations.

By Scott Baldauf Staff writer / February 3, 2010

Johannesburg, South Africa

To some Western cynics, Africa may seem to be a place where aid dollars go to die. But when the Haitian earthquake struck, African leaders dug deep into public coffers to offer what they could.

The Democratic Republic of Congo – a country that receives billions of dollars in foreign aid after more than a decade of war – offered $2.5 million. Ghana has offered $3 million. Senegal has offered $1 million and land to any Haitian who seeks to immigrate. Oil-rich Equatorial Guinea has offered $2 million, and dirt-poor Sierra Leone has pledged $100,000.

Such offers may play well in the headquarters of the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where leaders closed their annual summit yesterday, but the reaction among average African has been mixed. In Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, news of the $2.5 million aid pledge sparked demonstrations this week.

Latin America

Cocaine trafficking keeps Ecuador anti-drug authorities busy

Seizures set a record last year for the country, which is growing in importance as a hub for shipments to the U.S. and Europe.

By Chris Kraul

February 3, 2010 | 4:48 p.m.

Reporting from Guayaquil, Ecuador – The beat cop quickly discovered why the three men at the entrance to the storage yard had bolted as he pulled up in his patrol car.

Inside the walled enclosure he saw 3 tons of cocaine and a large-scale processing lab, evidence of Ecuador’s growing importance as a trafficking hub for illegal drugs.

The mid-December raid in this port city’s Bastion Popular industrial zone capped a record year for Ecuador’s counter-narcotics police. They seized 63 tons of cocaine, twice as much as in 2008, and destroyed seven drug-processing laboratories, up from two.

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