Is it time to consider barring BP from federal oil leases?
By Lisa Demer | McClatchy Newspapers
ANCHORAGE, Alaska – The federal government should consider barring oil giant BP from drilling on federal land or holding onto its existing leases, says a recently retired federal attorney who spent years dogging BP’s operations in Alaska.“There comes a point in time where we say enough is enough,” said Jeanne Pascal, who worked for 18 years as a Seattle-based attorney for the Environmental Protection Agency. “Because BP has definitely turned into a major serial environmental criminal.”
How ‘Rolling Stone’ was able to bring down a general
Stanley McChrystal’s minders blundered by underestimating a title with a history of heavyweight journalism.
By Guy Adams Saturday, 26 June 2010
When the four-star general Stanley A McChrystal received an email asking if he might like to spend a month of his extremely busy life being trailed by a Kabul-based freelance journalist called Michael Hastings, he could have been forgiven for issuing a polite but firm reply to the effect that such a project would regrettably not dovetail with his already-packed schedule.The General was, after all, in the middle of prosecuting the longest-running war in American history. “I was expecting actually no access or perhaps, you know, one or two days or a 45-minute interview,” Hastings recalled this week.
USA
Closing Guantánamo Fades as a Priority
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
Published: June 25, 2010
WASHINGTON – Stymied by political opposition and focused on competing priorities, the Obama administration has sidelined efforts to close the Guantánamo prison, making it unlikely that President Obama will fulfill his promise to close it before his term ends in 2013.
When the White House acknowledged last year that it would miss Mr. Obama’s initial January 2010 deadline for shutting the prison, it also declared that the detainees would eventually be moved to one in Illinois. But impediments to that plan have mounted in Congress, and the administration is doing little to overcome them.
Lawmakers guide Dodd-Frank bill for Wall Street reform into homestretch
By David Cho, Jia Lynn Yang and Brady Dennis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Nearly two years after tremors on Wall Street set off a historic economic downturn, congressional leaders greenlighted a bill early Friday that would leave the financial industry largely intact but facing a more powerful network of regulators who could impose limits on risky activities.
The final bill took shape after a 20-hour marathon negotiation between House and Senate leaders seeking to reconcile their separate versions. The legislation puts a lot of faith in the watchful eye of regulators to prevent another financial crisis. New agencies would police consumer lending, the invention of financial products and the trading of exotic securities known as derivatives.
Europe
France’s National Front: Will Marine Le Pen take the reins?
Founder Jean-Marie Le Pen is silent on who will next lead the National Front party: Marine Le Pen, his populist daughter, or Bruno Gollnisch, his ‘purist’ right-hand man.
By Robert Marquand, Staff writer / June 25, 2010
Paris
Jean-Marie Le Pen, who heads France’s National Front party, has long peppered politics with right-wing bons mots. (Nazi occupation was “not especially inhumane,” he once said.) Now his daughter, Marine Le Pen, is showing that she, too, can make headlines.
She called on President Nicolas Sarkozy to step down if implicated in a bribery case dating to 1995. She recently knocked France’s racially diverse World Cup soccer team: “I don’t see myself represented by this France team.”And after police on June 15 banned a provocative “pork sausage and booze” party that was to be held in a heavily Arab-Muslim quarter of Paris, Ms. Le Pen said, “the French state has capitulated once again.”
Middle East
ElBaradei leads anti-torture rally
SATURDAY, JUNE 26, 2010
Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has led a protest against alleged abuses by the police in the Egyptian city of Alexandria.At least 4,000 people greeted ElBaradei, who has become a prominent pro-democracy campaigner, as he arrived to offer condolences to the family of Khaled Mohammed Saeed, an Egyptian youth who human rights groups say was beaten to death by police.
Dark days for Iraq as power crisis bites
By Charles McDermid and Khalid Waleed
BAGHDAD – Sameh Mohammad is pretty much your typical Baghdad housewife. She’s tough, world-weary and consumed by the daily challenge of keeping her four children fed, clothed and alive in the rough Shaab district of the capital’s eastern slums. She eased down on her doorstep amid the searing afternoon heat on June 22, and issued a typical Baghdad complaint:“How can an oil-rich country like Iraq not provide electricity for its people? Our oil is enough to build cities and countries, how is it that government can’t give us more than one or two hours of power each day? It’s been like this for years,” said Mohammad.
Other frustrated Iraqis are taking this question to the streets. Demonstrations and riots over electricity shortages have erupted across the country in recent days with many using the power cuts as a shocking symbol of a corrupt and inefficient government.
Asia
India seeks a symbol for the rupee to underline its economic power
By Andrew Buncombe in Delhi Saturday, 26 June 2010
In a move that underscores India’s increasing global economic ambitions, the authorities are poised to reveal the results of competition to design a symbol for the national currency, the rupee, and in doing so, emulate the pound, the euro, the dollar and the yen.Last year the government invited entries for a contest to come up with a globally recognisable sign for the currency, which is at the moment usually written simply as “R” or “INR”. The finance ministry’s guidelines said that the new symbol should reflect the “historical and cultural ethos” of the country. It received more than 25,000 applications and whittled them down to a shortlist of five. Reports say the cabinet has now selected a winner and will announce the result imminently.
China rewrites history of Korean War
On the 60th anniversary of the Korean War, China has finally rewritten its history of how the conflict began to point the finger of responsibility at North Korea.
By Malcolm Moore in Shanghai
Until now, the Chinese have staunchly supported their North Korean allies, along whose side they fought in the war.
China previously insisted that the war was waged out of American aggression. The official title of the conflict on the mainland is “The War to Resist America and Aid Korea”.
Chinese history textbooks state that the Korean War began when “the United States assembled a United Nations army of 15 countries and defiantly marched across the border and invaded North Korea, spreading the flames of war to our Yalu river.”
The official Chinese media stated for the first time that it was North Korea that dealt the first blow. In a special report, Xinhua’s International Affairs journal said: “On June 25, 1950, the North Korean army marched over 38th Parallel and started the attack. Three days later, Seoul fell.”
Africa
Playing for Africa, Ghana faces US at World Cup
By ROB HARRIS (APRUSTENBURG, South Africa – Either buoyed or burdened by carrying Africa’s hopes at the World Cup, Ghana finds its route to the quarterfinals blocked by a United States team out to avenge a contentious loss four years ago.
The Ghanaians reached the round of 16 at the 2006 World Cup – also as Africa’s last remaining representative – courtesy of a penalty call that still rankles the Americans.
“An injustice,” said defender Oguchi Onyewu, who was ruled to have fouled Razak Pimpong while going for a header. “I still to this day don’t know where the foul came from.”
Ghana midfielder Stephen Appiah converted from the spot to secure a 2-1 win and eliminate the United States.
For African soccer, days of juju men have mostly passed
The traditional healers were once on team payrolls, providing herbal medicine and divination. While there are still believers, their role has become less official.
By Kevin Baxter
June 26, 2010
Reporting from Soweto, South Africa – Soccer players still come to see Kenneth Nephawe. Only not as many and not as often.“About two, three teams,” he says.
Not long ago, it might have been several times that number, a friend says sadly, but times and preferences change.
Nephawe is a sangoma, a practitioner of herbal medicine, divination and counseling. Some would call him a juju man or traditional healer, the term he prefers.
Latin America
Mexico nabs alleged Sinaloa cartel leader
By MARIANA MARTINEZ, Associated Press Writer – Sat Jun 26
TIJUANA, Mexico – Police in the border city of Mexicali have arrested a purported top figure in Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa drug cartel, authorities said Friday.
Baja California state police arrested Manuel Garibay on Thursday while he was driving in Mexicali, across from Calexico, California, the state public security department said in a statement.
Garibay, 52, was the Sinaloa cartel’s link to Colombian cocaine suppliers since last year’s arrest of Vicente “El Vicentillo” Zambada, the department said.
Zambada’s father, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, is one of the leaders of the Sinaloa cartel together with Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, according to authorities.