In Kandahar, the Taliban targets and assassinates those who support U.S. efforts
By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, May 22, 2010
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — The Wolesi family was everything the American military cannot afford to lose.The father was a devoted civil servant. The mother taught sewing classes for the United Nations. The eldest son, Jawed Ahmad, worked as an interpreter at the NATO base.
But with a dozen bullets last month, the Taliban won the battle for the Wolesi family. Ahmad’s father was executed in the street. His mother quit her job.
Casey Affleck: Killer instincts
His older brother is famously cast as the romcom heart-throb. But Casey Affleck would rather play the violent psychopath in Michael Winterbottom’s disturbing new film
Emma Brockes
The Guardian, Saturday 22 May 201
On a hot Saturday afternoon, Casey Affleck comes down a New York street bouncing a ball, looking as rangy and innocent as a teenager, and nothing like Lou Ford, the psychotic sheriff who murders two women in Michael Winterbottom’s violent new thriller, The Killer Inside Me. After watching Affleck’s performance, I was a little unnerved to meet him. The 34-year-old plays the role with the kind of fish-eyed creepiness that lingers in the mind for days.“Uh-oh,” Affleck says when I mention the eye thing. “Have I done it at lunch?”
To be Ben Affleck’s more interesting younger brother seems a particularly sorry designation in life, except that Casey has in the last few years played such good roles, with such quiet integrity, that his reputation as the better actor is established.
USA
As financial overhaul takes shape, it’s crunch time for lobbyists
Few differences exist between the Senate and House bills, leaving little time to push for changes. Obama says his administration will keep the rules tough.
By Jim Puzzanghera, Janet Hook and Nathaniel Popper, Los Angeles Times
May 21, 2010
Reporting from Washington and New York Banking and business lobbyists prepared a last-ditch effort Friday to scale back ambitious new regulations governing the financial industry, hoping to sway congressional leaders who are putting the finishing touches on the legislation.Only a handful of key differences exist between the bill passed by the Senate on Thursday and an earlier version approved by the House, leaving opponents little time to push for changes.
“The House and the Senate will have one more opportunity to fix this legislation, and we will be engaged,” said David Hirschmann, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness.
Stand up to BP and say: ‘You know, I’m not taking your s*** any more
From The Times
May 22, 2010
Jacqui Goddard
It is 19 years since Erin Brockovich first went into battle against corporate America. She was a small-town single mum who stood up to an industrial Goliath and won. Now, as she champions a new case with a depressingly similar plot, it is clear that she has lost none of her fighting spirit or trademark candour.“Stand up to BP and say, ‘You know what, I’m not taking your shit any more’ ,” she tells an audience of more than 300 anxious individuals in Pensacola, Florida, who have gathered to hear how they can seek legal redress for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Europe
Cracks appear in EU unity as fears spread for future of the eurozone
By Vanessa Mock in Brussels Saturday, 22 May 2010
Europe’s governments struggled to mask sharp differences yesterday even as they backed new sanctions for indebted countries in the battle to prevent a debt crisis from spiralling into an emergency that threatens the very survival of the euro.Germany’s two houses of parliament rubber-stamped the country’s contribution to the €750bn (£652bn) package of loans and guarantees, the so-called “shock and awe” package hammered out by European leaders this month to prevent a Greek-style debt crisis from afflicting any other nation in the euro area with threatened bankruptcy.
Paris art heist: The alarm that didn’t sound, the dog that didn’t bark
A day after the $123 million Paris art heist, revelations emerged that hinted of an inside job. A malfunctioning alarm was too quiet for guards to hear.
By Robert Marquand, Staff Writer / May 21, 2010
Paris
A day after the stunning $123 million heist of art that Paris authorities now say was not insured, fresh revelations are beginning to echo loudly in efforts to reconstruct how five modernist masterpieces could have been stolen in early dawn hours Thursday.
Apparently, the alarm at the Paris Museum for Modern Art was too quiet for guards to hear.While Paris city authorities, including Mayor Bertrand Delanoe, said Wednesday that the museum’s alarm system was malfunctioning, deputy mayor for culture Christophe Girard elaborated today on the point. He told journalists that the device that shrieks the alarm was essentially not working – a substantial argument for an inside job, since the thief would have had to know the circumstance.
Middle East
Qatar’s offer to help rebuild Gaza is snubbed by Netanyahu
Government fears that conditions of Gulf state’s deal would benefit Hamas
By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem Saturday, 22 May 2010
Israel has turned down an offer from Qatar for a reopening of diplomatic contacts between the two countries in return for the Gulf state being allowed to import supplies to Gaza to carry out a series of badly needed reconstruction projects.Qatar had proposed a major thawing of relations between the two countries in which Israel would have been allowed to reopen its official interests office, shut down on the orders of the emirate during the military onslaught on Gaza in January 2009.
But in return it wanted an easing of the three-year blockade of Gaza to allow a major increase in imports of cement and construction materials to start rebuilding war-ravaged sectors of the besieged territory.
Iran, Sun Tzu and the dominatrix
THE ROVING EYE
By Pepe Escobar May 22, 2010
Let’s face it: Hillary Clinton is one hell of a dominatrix.At first the United States Secretary of State said the Brazil-Turkey mediation to get Iran to accept a nuclear fuel swap was destined to fail. Then the US State Department said it was the “last chance” for an agreement without sanctions. And finally, less than 24 hours after a successful agreement in Tehran, Hillary whips the UN Security Council into submission and triumphantly proclaims to the world a draft resolution for a fourth UN round of sanctions against Iran has been reached.
She framed the drive towards sanctions as “an answer to the efforts undertaken in Tehran over the last few days”. Wait a minute. Immediately after a genuine – and fruitful – mediation on a very sensitive dossier by two emerging powers – and honest brokers – in the multipolar world, Brazil and Turkey, Washington and its two European Union allies at the Security Council, France and Britain, torpedo it.
Asia
Many dead in Indian plane crash
At least 158 people are feared dead after an Air India Express passenger jet crashed while landing in the southern Indian city of Mangalore on a flight from Dubai.Mangalore is a coastal city, around 320km west of Bangalore, the main city of Karnataka state.
Air India said eight people had been rescued from the Boeing 737-800, which was carrying 166 people, including six crew members, when it crashed on Saturday.
“As far as the information available with us is concerned, eight persons were rescued and shifted to local hospitals in Mangalore for their treatment,” Anup Shrivasta, Air India’s personnel director, announced in Mumbai.
Pakistani Army Major Among 2 New Arrests in Bombing
By JANE PERLEZ
Published: May 21, 2010r
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – An army officer and a businessman have been detained as part of a widening inquiry into a circle of Pakistanis who had some knowledge of the activities of the man charged with trying to set off a crude car bomb in Times Square, according to a Western official and an American intelligence official.
The army officer was arrested in Rawalpindi, the garrison city that serves as the headquarters of the Pakistani Army, the American intelligence official said. He appeared to have been disaffected, and his involvement with Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani-American charged with the failed bombing in New York, did not signal the involvement of the Pakistani Army in the attack, the intelligence official said.
Africa
Anti-gay laws in Africa are product of American religious exports, say activists
From The Times
May 22, 2010
Jacqui Goddard in Miami and Jonathan Clayton in Nairobi
When he arrived at Kampala’s Hotel Triangle for a three-day conference, the Rev Kapya Kaoma knew that he would not like what he heard.The clue was in the event’s title – “Exposing the truth behind homosexuality and the homosexual agenda” – and in the line-up of guest speakers arranged by Stephen Langa, head of the Ugandan-based Family Life Network (FLN), and an outspoken advocate for the criminalisation of homosexuality in Uganda.
After half-century absence, Black Rhinos fly home to Serengeti
Five critically endangered Eastern Black Rhinos were flown on cargo planes to Serengeti National Reserve in their native Tanzania, nearly half a century after their forebears were evacuated to save them from poachers.
By Mike Pflanz, Correspondent / May 21, 2010
Serengeti National Reserve, Tanzania
As is often the case at an African VIP function, the honored guests were a little late.
But finally, the huge Hercules cargo airplane, 90 minutes behind schedule, lumbered to a halt in a cloud of dust at the end of the dirt airstrip in Tanzania’s Serengeti National Reserve.On board were five critically endangered Eastern Black Rhinos, being returned to their native Tanzania nearly half a century after their ancestors were evacuated to save them from poachers.
The reason for the delay? One of the six originally slated for Friday’s repatriation was found to have a suspected eye infection, and was left behind in South Africa on vet’s orders.
Latin America
Brazil’s diplomacy on Iran points to larger ambitions
Brazil has long felt it doesn’t get the respect it deserves as a prominent emerging nation and under President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, it has gone all out to garner attention as a global player.
By Andrew Downie, Special to the Los Angeles Times
May 22, 2010
Reporting from Sao Paulo, BrazilAt first glance, it is hard to see why Brazil, a country better known for beaches, soccer, and carnival, would want to get involved in the complex business of brokering deals on Middle Eastern uranium enrichment.
The answer has less to do with Iran or nuclear weapons and more to do with the rise of developing nations and their place in the new global heirarchy.
Brazil feels like it doesn’t get the respect it deserves, even as one of the world’s most prominent emerging countries. And under President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose second and final term ends this year, it has gone all out to garner attention as a serious nation.