Docudharma Times Thursday June 17

With Criminal Charges for Oil Spill, Costs to BP Could Soar



By JOHN SCHWARTZ

Published: June 16, 2010

As BP watches its bill rise quickly for the oil spill, including $20 billion it is setting aside for claims, it could find the tally growing much faster in coming months if the United States Department of Justice files criminal charges against the company.

Based on the latest estimates, for example, the daily civil fine for the escaping oil alone could be $280 million. But criminal penalties, if imposed, could cause the costs to balloon still further, said David M. Uhlmann, a law professor at the University of Michigan, who headed the environmental crimes section of the Justice Department from 2000 to 2007.

Arlington National Cemetery headstones found lining stream bed



By Christian Davenport

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Several mud-caked headstones line the banks of a small stream at Arlington National Cemetery, the country’s most venerated burial ground. Farther upstream in a wooded area, a few others lie submerged with the rocks that line the stream bed.

On Wednesday, after The Washington Post alerted the cemetery to their presence, officials there said they were shocked to find the gravestones lying in the muck near a maintenance yard. Already under fire in recent days for more than 200 unmarked or misidentified graves and a chaotic and dysfunctional management system, cemetery officials vowed to investigate the headstones along the stream and take “immediate corrective action,” said Kaitlin Horst, a cemetery spokeswoman.

USA

Obama’s Gulf Coast restoration plan is short on details  



By Juliet Eilperin

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, June 17, 2010  

President Obama made an ambitious promise Tuesday to bring the Gulf Coast’s habitat back to health.

How and when that will happen is another matter.

The White House could offer almost no details Wednesday about the “Gulf Coast Restoration Plan” pledged by the president in his Oval Office address. Experts, meanwhile, said any meaningful plan to restore a region damaged by decades of poor industrial planning, frequent hurricanes and now the oil spill could cost as much as $30 billion over the next 15 to 20 years. Such a sum would dwarf the country’s largest environmental restoration project so far — the $12 billion plan for the Florida Everglades.

Former members of Congress lament current partisanship



By Andrew Seidman | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON – Trent Lott never saw partisanship permeate the very fabric of Congress during his 35-year tenure there the way it divides Capitol Hill today, the former Senate majority leader lamented on Wednesday.

Today’s bitter partisan culture is a long cry from his days serving leaders of the “Greatest Generation,” said Lott, a Mississippi Republican who served in the House of Representatives from 1973 to 1989, and in the Senate from 1989 to 2007.

Europe

Spain: the new crisis in Euroland

By Vanessa Mock in Brussels John Lichfield in Paris and Anita Brooks in Madrid

Thursday, 17 June 2010

European leaders meet in Brussels today amid growing fears that Spain, Europe’s fifth-largest economy, is preparing to ask for a bailout which would dwarf the €110bn (£90bn) rescue plan for Greece.

The Spanish government yesterday dismissed reports that it was already in discussions with the European Commission, International Monetary Fund and the US Treasury for a rescue package worth up to €250bn.

Deadly flash floods hit France



THURSDAY, JUNE 17, 2010  

Flash floods have killed 19 people and left seven others missing near France’s Mediterranean coast, officials say.

Firefighters and helicopters were sent to rescue hundreds of people trapped in their vehicles, houses, or on rooftops in the Draguignan area on Wednesday.

More than 350mm of rain fell on the Var department in southern France in a few hours on Tuesday.

“Draguignan was the worst-hit town, with hundreds of vehicles swept away and several neighbourhoods under water,” Hugues Parant from the Var department, said.

“We haven’t seen anything like this in a decade.”

The death toll climbed during Wednesday as rescuers found the bodies of more victims.

“This is probably not the final toll,” Parant said.

Middle East

Israel says it will ease Gaza land blockade  



June 17, 2010 | 1:57 a.m

Israel agreed on Thursday to ease its land blockade on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, hoping to quell growing international criticism following a deadly sea raid.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office released few details about the changes in its three-year-old blockade, and it was not clear whether any firm decisions had been made.

The only item singled out in its statement was a plan to allow in desperately needed construction materials for civilian projects, but only under international supervision.

US adds individuals and companies to Iran blacklist

President Barack Obama administration has added Iranian individuals and firms to a blacklist, as the United States and Europe tightened the screws on Iran’s nuclear programme a week after UN sanctions.

by Our Foreign Staff

Published: 9:17AM BST 17 Jun 2010

The new US sanctions target insurance companies, oil firms and shipping lines linked to Iran’s atomic or missile programs as well as the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and Iran’s defence minister Ahmad Vahidi.

Under the steps taken, “all transactions involving any of the designees and any US person are prohibited, and any assets the designees may have under US jurisdiction are frozen,” the Treasury Department said.

During a summit in Brussels, European Union leaders are expected to approve fresh curbs on investment as well as transfers of technology, equipment and services in Iran’s oil and gas industry. The EU proposals also target the Islamic republic’s transport, banking and insurance sectors.

Asia

Kyrgyz conflict an ‘immense crisis’



THURSDAY, JUNE 17, 2010  

The International Committee of the Red Cross has described the humanitarian situation in southern Kyrgyzstan as an “immense crisis”.

The warning by Severine Chappaz, deputy head of the ICRC, came as humanitarian agencies began delivering medical aid, food and shelter to people who have fled the ethnic unrest in Kyrgyzstan.

The official figure of 191 killed during the deadly clashes, which broke out on Friday in the Central Asian nation, is expected to be as much as several hundred.

Pakistan seethes at bad-boy image



By Zahid U Kramet  

LAHORE – While Pakistan – and even the Taliban – have reacted angrily to a report that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has “strong” ties to the Taliban in Afghanistan, the sensitive issue highlights Islamabad’s growing concerns over losing what has for many years been its key role in Afghanistan as a United States ally.

The London School of Economics (LSE) this weekend released a report that said its research “strongly suggested” that support for the Taliban was the ISI’s official policy, adding that the intelligence agency “orchestrates, sustains and strongly influences the [Taliban] movement”.

Africa

Seats to spare – but Fifa won’t let South Africans fill them

There’s an obvious way to fill the World Cup’s empty stands, says Daniel Howden

Thursday, 17 June 2010

Broadcasters have been able to mute the wailing of the vuvuzelas but there’s another World Cup controversy that has been far harder for organisers to obscure: the mystery of the empty seats. The opening raft of matches have been as notable for patchy attendance as they have been for low scoring.

Supporters already in South Africa have found themselves unable to get in to supposedly sold-out games, only to see banks of unused seating showing on television pictures.

World football’s organising body, Fifa, continues to insist that ticket sales for the tournament in South Africa are higher than any previous finals except for the USA ’94.

US professor Peter Erlinder seeks bail for Rwanda genocide denial charges

Peter Erlinder was arrested last month as he was preparing a case for Rwanda genocide-denial charges against opposition presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire. The court will decide Thursday afternoon.  

By Scott Baldauf, Staff writer / June 17, 2010  

Johannesburg, South Africa

An American lawyer, Peter Erlinder, arrested on charges of denying and minimizing the Rwandan genocide of 1994, will find out on Thursday whether he will be granted bail in a trial that is expected to signal just how much room there is for political expression and dissent in the country ruled for the past 16 years by President Paul Kagame.

Mr. Erlinder, a law professor at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minn., was arrested in the nation’s capital, Kigali, on May 28, soon after his arrival to prepare a case for genocide-denial charges against opposition presidential candidate, Victoire Ingabire.

Latin America

Venezuelan TV boss flees ‘regime of terror’

Head of last opposition TV station, Globovision, goes into hiding to avoid arrest warrant he says is politically motivated

Rory Carroll in Caracas

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 17 June 2010 08.33 BST

The head of Venezuela’s last opposition television station has fled the country to avoid an arrest warrant and accused President Hugo Chávez of a “reign of terror”.

Guillermo Zuloaga, the majority shareholder and CEO of Globovision, said he was the victim of political persecution and that Venezuela no longer enjoyed democracy or the rule of law.

“The government tries to maintain an external democratic facade but every day it is more difficult. In Venezuela we are living under a regime of terror,” he told the Guardian in an email interview from an undisclosed location.

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