US right claims spirit of Martin Luther King at Lincoln Memorial rally
Tea Party activists gather in Washington to hear Glenn Beck on anniversary of King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech
Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Tens of thousands descended on Washington today for one of the biggest culture clashes in decades – one that pitted an almost exclusively white crowd against one that was predominantly African-American. Both claimed the legacy of Martin Luther King.The biggest crowd was for a rightwing rally supported by the Fox Television host and author Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and Tea Party activists, who gathered at the Lincoln Memorial, where King delivered his “I have a dream” speech 47 years ago to the day.
Beck estimated that the crowd, the biggest show of strength by Tea Party activists this year, numbered in the hundreds of thousands, many of whom had travelled long distances.
Deepwater Horizon fears resurface as rigs probe for oil under Arctic ice
ExxonMobil and Shell compete to drill in wilderness despite Greenpeace’s fears a broken well could gush for years
Robin McKie, Science editor
The Observer, Sunday 29 August 2010
In a few days’ time, officials at the Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum in Greenland will reveal the winners of a new round of licences to drill for oil and gas in its waters. The announcement promises to be explosive.Among those waiting are most of the world’s leading oil companies, including ExxonMobil, Shell and Norway’s StatOil. Watching with equal attention will be the planet’s leading green groups, who they have pledged to block every effort to drill in the Arctic.
USA
Five years later, large New Orleans family ‘still walking through Katrina’
By Wil Haygood
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 28, 2010; 8:04 PM
IN NEW ORLEANS — All her life, Pam Cash dreamed of a house for her family. But she was poor as pennies. She worked two jobs, cleaning buildings. With every swish of the mop on her night shift, she worried about her children. It broke her heart when her son Curtis got sent to prison, but she still had seven mouths to feed in this wicked dreamscape of a city.
For Obama, Steep Learning Curve as Chief in Time of War
By PETER BAKER
Published: August 28, 2010
WASHINGTON – President Obama rushed to the Oval Office when word arrived one night that militants with Al Qaeda in Yemen had been located and that the military wanted to support an attack by Yemeni forces. After a quick discussion, his counterterrorism adviser, John O. Brennan, told him the window to strike was closing.
“I’ve got two minutes here,” Mr. Brennan said.“O.K.,” the president said. “Go with this.”
While Mr. Obama took three sometimes maddening months to decide to send more forces to Afghanistan, other decisions as commander in chief have come with dizzying speed, far less study and little public attention.
Europe
Sublime to the ridiculous: new cases in the extradition courts
The British taxpayer is spending thousands of pounds extraditing a Polish man accused of possessing cannabis worth just 65 pence, it can be revealed.
By David Barrett and Michael Howie
Published: 8:15AM BST 29 Aug 2010
To investigate the burden which extradition places on Britain’s criminal justice system, The Sunday Telegraph spent a week in the country’s sole extradition court.
Of the 100 or so extradition hearings held every week at City of Westminster magistrates’ court, some involve career criminals or accusations of major crimes.
But in many cases defendants appear bemused to find themselves in court over relatively minor matters, offences they did not realise they had been accused of, or issues they thought had been resolved years ago.
Central bank exec triggers fresh storm with views on the “Jewish gene”
Central bank official Thilo Sarrazin, already under fire in Germany for using shock talk about the country’s Muslim immigrants, has sparked a new uproar by saying that “all Jews share a common gene.”
IMMIGRATION | 29.08.2010
German central bank executive Thilo Sarrazin has stirred fresh controversy over the weekend with discriminatory remarks concerning religious minorities.“All Jews share a particular gene,” Sarrazin said in an interview published on Sunday, August 29. “That makes them different from other peoples.”
Sarrazin, who is currently promoting his book “Deutschland schafft sich ab” (“Germany does away with itself”), remained undeterred in expressing his views despite criticism and calls for his resignation from the board of the Bundesbank.
Middle East
A U.S. ‘legacy of waste’ in Iraq
The $53-billion reconstruction effort is not without its successes. But poor planning, violence and a failure to consult Iraqis derailed many projects, which may offer lessons in Afghanistan.
By Liz Sly, Los Angeles Times
August 29, 2010
Reporting from Khan Bani Saad, Iraq – The shell of a prison that will never be used rises from the desert on the edge of this dusty town north of Baghdad, a hulking monument to the wasted promise of America’s massive, $53-billion reconstruction effort in Iraq.Construction began in May 2004 at a time when U.S. money was pouring into the country. It quickly ran into huge cost overruns. Violence erupted in the area, and a manager was shot dead in his office.
Asia
Thousands flee Indonesia volcano on Sumatra
Thousands of Indonesians have been forced to flee after a volcano erupted on the island of Sumatra.
The BBC 29 August 2010
Officials issued a red alert after Mount Sinabung began to spew lava shortly after midnight (1900 GMT).Smoke and ash reportedly shot 1,500m into the air, and witnesses said they could see lava from the volcano from several miles away.
Mount Sinabung, some 60km (40 miles) south-west of Sumatra’s main city Medan, has not erupted for 400 years.
The volcano had been pumping out smoke all day Saturday, but alert levels had not been raised, and local media reported that villagers had been taken by surprise.
New Dissent in Japan Is Loudly Anti-Foreign
By MARTIN FACKLER
Published: August 28, 2010
KYOTO, Japan – The demonstrators appeared one day in December, just as children at an elementary school for ethnic Koreans were cleaning up for lunch. The group of about a dozen Japanese men gathered in front of the school gate, using bullhorns to call the students cockroaches and Korean spies.
Inside, the panicked students and teachers huddled in their classrooms, singing loudly to drown out the insults, as parents and eventually police officers blocked the protesters’ entry.
Africa
South Africa’s unions turn on Jacob Zuma and the ANC
A faltering ruling alliance in South Africa is locked in a power struggle as public sector strikes near crisis point
Alex Duval Smith
The Observer, Sunday 29 August 2010
Deaf, perhaps, and mum, definitely, in response to the cries of his striking populace, President Jacob Zuma led his court and comrades in a solemn reunion at Saint George’s cathedral in Cape Town yesterday for the funeral of anti-apartheid hero Joe Matthews.Two days earlier, a striking teacher marching in a huge public servants’ demonstration to parliament held aloft a placard suggesting: “Zuma: Give 700 rands 2 your wives.”
Two decades after trade unions played a key role in bringing the African National Congress to power, the £61 monthly housing allowance being offered by the government of the polygamous president to 1.3 million strikers is about as welcome as cake from Marie Antoinette.
Latin America
Chile mine rescuers work on ‘Plan B’
Engineers in Chile are working on a plan that they hope will dramatically speed up the rescue of 33 miners trapped in a collapsed shaft.
The BBC 29 August 2010
Workers are due on Monday to start drilling an escape shaft going about 700m (2,300ft) underground, which is likely to take four months to complete.But engineers say widening an existing tunnel may reach the men in two months.
Officials are looking at several plans to rescue the men, who have been stuck below ground since 5 August.
Engineer Walter Herrera told reporters: “We can broaden the hole that is already there with the latest generation machines and using a wider diameter bore.”