Docudharma Times Friday April 16

Soldiers, monks clear rubble in quake-hit China



By ANITA CHANG, Associated Press Writer  

JIEGU, China – Rescuers probed the rubble for sounds or movement Friday in a rush to find anyone buried alive more than 48 hours after an earthquake hit western China, killing at least 791 people. Many survivors shivered through a second night outdoors as they waited for tents to arrive in the remote, mountainous Tibetan area.

People with broken arms or legs cried in pain as medical teams could offer little more than injections. A doctor at the Qinghai provincial hospital, where the severely injured were being flown, said she had no idea how many were being treated because there was no time to count them all.

For eco-friendly surfboard shapers, more kelp in the lineup  

Surfboards have a toxic history, but a San Clemente shaper hopes to improve their ‘eco cred’ with greener materials.

By Mike Anton

April 16, 2010

Surfing’s dirty secret is easy to find in the drab enclave of San Clemente known as the surf ghetto, where the ocean breeze is spiked with the sweet smell of chemicals and men wearing flip-flops and coated with white dust search for magic inside blocks of toxic foam.

Joey Santley is looking for something equally elusive: an environmentally friendly surfboard. Or at least one with a carbon footprint that’s less titanic.

“A ‘green surfboard’ is inherently an oxymoron at this point,” said Santley, 44, a frenetic surfboard shaper and entrepreneur. “Hopefully in the future it won’t be.”

USA

C.I.A. Document Details Destruction of Tapes



By MARK MAZZETTI

Published: April 15, 2010

WASHINGTON – Porter J. Goss, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, in 2005 approved of the decision by one of his top aides to destroy dozens of videotapes documenting the brutal interrogation of two detainees, according to an internal C.I.A. document released Thursday.

Shortly after the tapes were destroyed at the order of Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., then the head of the C.I.A.’s clandestine service, Mr. Goss told Mr. Rodriguez that he “agreed” with the decision, according to the document. He even joked after Mr. Rodriguez offered to “take the heat” for destroying the tapes.

Nearly two dozen congressional fundraisers held at D.C. Springsteen shows last year  

ProPublica Reporters

By Marcus Stern and Sebastian Jones

Friday, April 16, 2010

As Bruce Springsteen belted out working-class anthems on the floor of Verizon Center last May, Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.), chairman of the House Highways and Transit Subcommittee, was raising money in the privacy of a luxury suite overlooking the stage.

Ten other members of Congress were also asking for cash that night. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee was there, too, holding a fundraiser featuring Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the Financial Services Committee.  

Europe

Fear of Tory win spooks Europe

The EU has barely figured in the campaign, but it is occupying minds elsewhere

By John Lichfield  Friday, 16 April 2010

A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of Toryism. From the celebrated opening words of the Communist Manifesto in 1848, it may seem a dizzy leap to the Conservative Party Manifesto 2010. All the same, European capitals are surveying the British election campaign with increasing anxiety. There is no recent precedent for a party so virulently Eurosceptic, or europhobic, as David Cameron’s “New Tories” taking office in a large EU member state.

The founding text of Marxism is certainly more radical than the eight paragraphs out of 120 pages that represent the founding wisdom of “Daveism” on Europe.

Radovan Karadzic in heated exchange with Muslim witness in court

From The Times

April 16, 2010

David Charter, Europe Correspondent  

Radovan Karadzic yesterday hectored a witness of ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia who refused to accept the former Bosnian Serb leader’s assertions that he had left his home willingly.

The UN tribunal in The Hague saw Dr Karadzic, who is defending himself, become involved in heated exchanges with the Muslim man, who said that he was forced to sign over his house and quit the former leader’s powerbase of Pale.

Sulejman Crncalo became locked in a battle of wills with the former Bosnian Serb President, who is charged with genocide and other crimes.

Middle East

Have Iran and its allies been passing phony $100 bills in Iraq?

 

By Hannah Allam | McClatchy Newspapers

NASIRIYAH, Iraq – At least $4 million in counterfeit U.S. currency has flooded into Iraq since December, and U.S. and Iraqi officials are trying to determine how much of the counterfeiting is purely criminal and how much might be an Iranian attempt to influence Iraqi politics.

While some of the bills were crudely made and easily detected, U.S. military officials said, much of the money seized so far has been sophisticated fake hundred-dollar notes that require special printing presses, ink and paper. In the Middle East, such capabilities typically belong to Iran and its proxies, notably branches of the Lebanese Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah, the officers said, citing recent briefings from the U.S. Secret Service.

Asia

The secret war – and the hidden lair of the Taliban

Patrick Cockburn investigates the insurgents’ mountain hideaway – and a little-known conflict that has killed thousands

Friday, 16 April 2010  

The Pakistani army has fought successfully to control mountainous frontier areas once ruled by the Pakistani Taliban, but it remains reluctant to attack the cross-border safe havens of the Afghan Taliban despite American pressure.

Pakistani soldiers in Bajaur district on the Afghan frontier are eager to demonstrate what they have already achieved, showing off captured tunnels dug into the hillside by the local Taliban to protect their fighters against air and artillery attack.

Drama in Bangkok as Red Shirt leaders escape police through hotel window

From Times Online

April 16, 2010

Times Online  

The protests crippling Bangkok and threatening the government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva took another twist today when the leader of the anti-government redshirts fled police surrounding his hotel by climbing through a window into a waiting car.

His dramatic escape was followed shortly afterward by his supporters taking two police officers hostage.

Arisman Pongruanrong scaled down the facade of hotel on a rope ladder into a getaway car moments after the government vowed to hunt down redshirt “terrorists”.

Africa

A hunger for justice in Western Sahara

As six hunger-strikers near death protesting at the Moroccan occupation, it’s time for the UN to monitor human rights  

Stefan Simanowitz

guardian.co.uk, Friday 16 April 2010 08.00 BST

Anyone who saw the episode of the BBC documentary Tropic of Cancer last month in which journalist Simon Reeve travelled across Western Sahara would have seen Rachid Sghair. He was the human rights campaigner who bravely appeared before the camera to denounce the 35-year Moroccan occupation of his country and the resulting human rights abuses suffered by Sahrawi people.

Today Sghair is in a critical condition after having spent the last month on hunger strike in a Moroccan prison. Along with five other prominent human rights defenders, he has been refusing food in protest at their detention without trial.

Analysts Say Sudan Elections Have Only Losers



East Africa

As vote counting begins in Sudan’s week-long general elections, analysts are giving the dire assessment that there will

be no winners, and only losers in the process.

Sudan experts at a panel discussion at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace this week in Washington were unanimous in their harsh criticism.

They said what they viewed as a botched election could mark the beginning of the end for all political parties in Sudan, instead of the country’s first successful multi-party vote in 24 years.

Latin America

Haiti relief: Refugees move to higher, drier ground as rainy season begins

A new Haiti relief effort will see a camp set up 12 miles outside Port-au-Prince to provide shelter for some 5,000 quake refugees before the upcoming rainy season. The Corail Cesselesse camp is the first major housing effort since the Jan. 12 earthquake. It’s dry, but far from the city, schools, supplies, and jobs.

By Kathie Klarreich, Correspondent / April 15, 2010

Corail Cesselesse, Haiti

On Wednesday, Patrick Berville was selling soda, sanitary napkins, and papaya from the front of his mud-strewn makeshift tent in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

On Thursday, he woke up ready for the rainy season in a dry, new, hurricane-resistant tent about 12 miles away.

Instead of having to scrounge for breakfast, he dug into his own private supply of MREs – military ready-to-eat meals – that are being provided by the World Food Programme (WFP) to those who volunteer to be part of Corail Cesselesse, the newly constructed transitional settlement site in Haiti.

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