Docudharma Times Sunday May 23

U.S. strategy rests on Kandahar offensive

Success far from certain; deadline for results is very short

Washington Post  

The Obama administration’s campaign to drive the Taliban out of Afghanistan’s second-largest city is a go-for-broke move that even its authors are unsure will succeed.

The bet is that the Kandahar operation, backed by thousands of U.S. troops and billions of dollars, will break the mystique and morale of the insurgents, turn the tide of the war and validate the administration’s Afghanistan strategy.

There is no Plan B.

After keeping us waiting for a century, Mark Twain will finally reveal all

The great American writer left instructions not to publish his autobiography until 100 years after his death, which is now

By Guy Adams in Los Angeles Sunday, 23 May 2010

Exactly a century after rumours of his death turned out to be entirely accurate, one of Mark Twain’s dying wishes is at last coming true: an extensive, outspoken and revelatory autobiography which he devoted the last decade of his life to writing is finally going to be published.

The creator of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and some of the most frequently misquoted catchphrases in the English language left behind 5,000 unedited pages of memoirs when he died in 1910, together with handwritten notes saying that he did not want them to hit bookshops for at least a century.

USA

Gulf coast oil slick headed for Grand Isle, Louisiana



By Joel Achenbach

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, May 23, 2010

GRAND ISLE, LA. — It has become an epic contest between water and oil along the Gulf Coast. Government officials have now opened wide the Mississippi River outlets — what they call the diversions — in a desperate attempt to overwhelm the massive oil slick approaching the ragged shoreline of Louisiana. This hydraulic defense employs snowfall from Montana, floodwater from Tennessee. The mighty river drains half the country, and every creek and stream and seep from the Rockies to the Appalachians has been enlisted in the battle.

Battles brew over Fort Hood shooting suspect’s past

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s attorney and a Senate committee demand documents that might suggest the Army should have known he was a risk.

By Richard A. Serrano, Los Angeles Times

May 22, 2010

Reporting from Washington Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan is paralyzed from the chest down. He waits in a small Texas county jail and has not been seen publicly in the six months since he was shot and charged with killing 13 people and wounding nearly three dozen others at the nearby Ft. Hood Army post.

He is about to surface again. Early next month military attorneys will meet for a preliminary hearing on whether the 40-year-old Muslim who became an Army psychiatrist should be court-martialed and perhaps sentenced to die for the Nov. 5 assault.

Europe

After 467 years, Copernicus gets a hero’s burial

Somewhat belated Vatican U-turn sees astronomer taken from unmarked grave to a place of honour

By Vanessa Gera in Frombork, Poland Sunday, 23 May 2010  

Nicolaus Copernicus, the 16th-century astronomer whose work was later condemned by the Catholic Church as heretical, was reburied by Polish priests as a hero yesterday, 467 years after he was laid to rest in an unmarked grave.

His reburial in a tomb in the cathedral where he once served as a church canon and doctor indicates how far the church has come in making peace with the scientist whose revolutionary theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun helped to usher in the modern scientific age.

The European Disunion – will the euro survive?

As the currency crashes and the Continent is swept by protests, even key members such as Germany and France are starting to think the unthinkable about the euro

By Harriet Alexander in Cadiz, Colin Freeman and Bruno Waterfield in Brussels

Published: 8:00AM BST 23 May 2010

Like many of Spain’s 4.5 million unemployed, Cinthia Carvajal is on the verge of despair. The 41-year-old marketing executive has jobhunted non-stop for the last six months, but with the country in the grip of its worst recession in 50 years, there are precious few firms needing anything to be marketed.

She will now take whatever job she can find, but with unemployment running at 20 per cent nationally, the few offers come her way are generally less than tempting.

Middle East

 The tragicomedy of Iran sanctions



By Massoud Parsi

In recent days, the debate surrounding Iran’s nuclear programme has taken a number of unexpected and dramatic turns.

On Monday, a joint declaration by Iran, Turkey and Brazil stated that Iran will ship 1,200kg of low-enriched uranium to Turkey in exchange for higher-enriched nuclear fuel for a medical research reactor.

The declaration was the first concrete step toward implementing a proposal presented by Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the IAEA, approximately a year before and supported by the UN security council just six months ago.

Asia

Mongolia: Nomadic way of life at risk as harsh winter kills 17% of livestock

As nearly eight million animals are wiped out by the paralysing cold, UN predicts influx of up to 20,000 herders into the cities

Andrew Jacobs

The Observer, Sunday 23 May 2010

They call it the zud, a prolonged period of heavy snows and paralysing cold that adds to the challenges of living on a treeless expanse nearly the size of Alaska. Mongolia and its 800,000 herders are reeling from the worst winter that anyone can remember. According to United Nations relief officials, nearly eight million cows, yaks, camels, horses, goats and sheep died, about 17% of the country’s livestock. Even if the spring rains arrive soon, 500,000 more animals are expected to succumb.

“This is not only a catastrophe for the herders but for the entire Mongolian economy,” said Akbar Usmani, of the United Nations Development Programme. “We expect the ripple effects for months and years to come.”

Vengeful redshirts threaten tourism

The Thai protest has spawned an underground militant wing

Michael Sheridan and Nate Thayer in Bangkok  From The Sunday Times

May 23, 2010

THE spectre of a violent underground movement that could wreck Thailand’s tourism industry has risen from the ashes of Bangkok’s city centre.

“Redshirt” protesters vanished into a warren of backstreets as their camp was overrun by the army last week on a day that many Thais have called the worst in their country’s modern history.

An armed wing of the movement vowed to carry on the fight and melted back into communities of workers and farmers, some of whom have openly applauded them for taking up the gun.

Africa

Crisis as East African states battle over control of Nile

Nine countries bordering world’s longest river in struggle for access to waters

Tracy McVeigh

The Observer, Sunday 23 May 2010

East African states are struggling to contain an escalating crisis over control of the waters of the river Nile.

The nine countries through which the world’s longest river flows have long been at loggerheads over access to the vital waters, which the British colonial powers effectively handed wholesale to Egypt in a 1929 agreement.

Egypt has always insisted on jealously guarding its historic rights to the 55.5bn cubic metres of water that it takes from the river each year and has vetoed neighbouring countries’ rights to build dams or irrigation projects downstream which might affect the river’s flow. But last week Kenya became the fifth of the nine nations to sign a new treaty that would give other states greater access.

Ethiopia votes in crunch election

Ethiopians are voting in the first election since a 2005 poll was marred by protests that led to the deaths of 200 people.

The BBC  Sunday, 23 May 2010

Long queues of voters had formed at some polling stations in the capital, Addis Ababa, before polls opened at 0600 (0300 GMT).

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, a Western ally against militants in Somalia, is seeking re-election.

But the opposition has already cried foul.

A spokesman for the main opposition alliance, Medrek, said its observers were being intimidated and arrested in some parts of the country.

“We think we may not accept the results,” Negasso Gidada told the AP news agency.

Latin America

Signs of a Cover-Up After Killings in a Haitian Prison



By DEBORAH SONTAG and WALT BOGDANICH

Published: May 22, 2010  

LES CAYES, Haiti – When the earth shook violently on Jan. 12, the inmates in this southern city’s squalid prison clamored to be released, screaming: “Help! We’re going to die in here.”

Elsewhere in Haiti, inmates were fleeing largely undeterred. But here, where the prison itself sustained little damage, there was no exit. Instead, conditions worsened for the inmates, three-quarters of them pretrial detainees, arrested on charges as petty as loitering and locked up indefinitely alongside convicted felons.

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