Docudharma Times Monday September 13

‘Rampant abuse in Iraq jails’

New Amnesty International report documents wide abuse, torture and detention without trial in Iraqi prisons.

Last Modified: 13 Sep 2010  

Amnesty International has said that tens of thousands of detainees are being held without trial in Iraqi prisons. In a new report, Amnesty said the prisoners face violent and psychological abuse, as well as other forms of mistreatment.

Amnesty said on Monday it believes that around 30,000 people are held in Iraqi jails, noting the case of several who died in custody, while cataloguing physical and psychological abuses against many others.

Last month’s handover of prisoners following the so-called ‘end of US combat operations’ have alarmed the The London-based human rights watchdog.

“Iraq’s security forces have been responsible for systematically violating detainees’ rights and they have been permitted to do so with impunity,” said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty’s director for the Middle East and North Africa.

USA

In Del., GOP comes out swinging against tea party



By Amy Gardner

Monday, September 13, 2010; 3:21 AM  

WILMINGTON, DEL. – It’s the “tea party” vs. the Republican Party in Tuesday’s Senate primary in Delaware, where a popular moderate is suddenly under siege from a little-known conservative who in any other year might have been relegated to the footnotes of 2010’s election records.

That’s not an entirely unfamiliar narrative in a year in which tea party organizations have ousted two incumbent senators. But Christine O’Donnell’s battle with Rep. Mike Castle perhaps embodies the movement’s greatest test, because unlike in other races in which the GOP has offered the tea party an awkward embrace, the Republican Party is fighting back.

States opposed to healthcare overhaul pin hopes on Florida court hearing

The legal attack comes as some polls show a majority of Americans dislike the healthcare measure, and Republicans are campaigning for Congress on the promise they will try to repeal  



Reporting from Washington –

The conservative counterattack on President Obama’s overhaul of health insurance will take center stage in the courts this week when Republican state attorneys general and a leading small-business group urge a federal judge in Florida to strike down the law before it can take effect.

They contend Congress does not have the power under the Constitution to require all Americans to have health insurance. They also say states cannot be pressured to spend more to cover low-income families.

Europe

France mourns Claude Chabrol, giant of cinema’s New Wave



By John Lichfield in Paris Monday, 13 September 2010

The French film director Claude Chabrol, one of the creators of the New Wave movement of the 1950s and 1960s, died yesterday at the age of 80. Like his fellow nouvelle vague pioneer Eric Rohmer, who died in January, Chabrol worked almost to the end. His last movie, Bellamy, starring Gérard Depardieu, appeared last year.

Chabrol, perhaps best known for Le Beau Serge (1957) and Les Biches (1968), started as a cinema theorist and writer.

Papandreou confident as officials arrive for Greek financial checkup

EU, IMF, and ECB officials have arrived in Athens for meetings to determine whether Greece has met the conditions of its economic bailout. Prime Minister George Papandreou has stressed that all targets are being hit.  

GREECE | 13.09.2010  

Officials from the European Union (EU), International Monetary Fund (IMF), and European Central Bank (ECB) arrived in Athens on Monday for a check-up on Greece’s success in meeting the conditions for an ongoing international bailout.

The joint mission is to begin a new audit of Greek finances that will determine the payment of a third, nine-billion-euro installment of the 110-billion-euro ($141 million) bailout loan, planned for December.

Debt restructuring ruled out

Over the weekend, Prime Minister George Papandreou addressed the Greek public to dispel suspicions that the country would have to restructure its immense national debt in order to meet the demands of the international lenders.

Middle East

Iran demands $500,000 to free US hiker Sarah Shourd

State appears willing to release prisoner held on a spying charge, but fate of two fellow American companions unclear

Ian Black, Middle East editor

Iran said today that it would free one of the three American hikers it has held as spies for more than a year on bail of $500,000 (£325,722). But the fate of her friends remains unclear amid controversy in Tehran.

Sarah Shourd, 31, has been in prison with Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, both 28, since they apparently strayed over the border from Iraqi Kurdistan in July 2009. The three are pawns in a tense diplomatic standoff between the US and Iran and have apparently fallen victim to internal political rivalry in the Islamic republic.

Turkish reform vote gets Western backing

The US and European Union have welcomed the result of the Turkish constitutional referendum.

The BBC  13 September 2010

Voters in Turkey gave strong backing to a package of changes to the country’s military-era constitution.

The changes are aimed at bringing Turkey more in line with the EU, which the government wants to join.

This result will help PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who made the reform a test of his leadership, ahead of elections next year, correspondents say.

With nearly all votes in the referendum counted, about 58% had voted “Yes” to amending the constitution.

Mr Erdogan said the result meant the country had “crossed a historic threshold toward advanced democracy and the supremacy of law”.

The European Commission has welcomed the results.

Asia

Vietnam seeks gains as China labor costs rise

With China labor costs rising, Vietnam is hoping that its cheaper labor will attract more foreign investment. But Vietnam’s rickety infrastructure and lack of skilled workers remain obstacles to growth.

By Simon Montlake, Correspondent / September 12, 2010  

Hanoi, Vietnam

A recent spell of walkouts over pay and conditions in China’s southern export zone seems likely to spur low-cost producers to expand operations in countries where wages remain significantly lower than in China.China’s wage inflation is being closely watched in Vietnam, which has expanded aggressively since the 1990s into labor-intensive industries like clothing, footwear, and furniture. The US, its former adversary, is now Vietnam’s biggest export market and last year became the largest investor here. Exports of textiles and garments, an industry that employs around 1.7 million Vietnamese, rose by 17 percent in the first seven months of the year.

Japan offers ‘heartfelt apology’ to U.S. POWs  

Ex-soldier: ‘When you have to watch your own friends get killed … it is awful’

Associated Press

TOKYO – Japan’s foreign minister apologized Monday for the suffering of a group of former World War II prisoners of war visiting from the United States and said they were treated inhumanely.

The six POWs, their relatives and the daughters of two men who died are the first group of U.S. POWs to visit Japan with government sponsorship, though groups from other countries have been invited previously.

Africa

Senegal Court Forbids Forcing Children to Beg

   

By ADAM NOSSITER

Published: September 12, 2010

DAKAR, Senegal – The judge spoke quietly, and decades of custom were quickly rolled back: the Muslim holy men were to be punished for forcing children to beg.

The sentence handed down in a courtroom here last week was gentle, only six months’ probation and a fine for the seven marabouts, or holy men. Yet the result could be a social revolution, in the eyes of some commentators. By government decree, and under international pressure, Senegal has forbidden the marabouts to enlist children to beg on their behalf.

Latin America

Why tourists no longer go loco in Acapulco

Mexico’s vicious drugs war has spilled on to the famous resort’s streets

By Guy Adams Monday, 13 September 2010

Dressed in a vintage safari suit and standing beneath a mango tree, Adolfo Santiago welcomes new arrivals to The Flamingo, a hotel advertised by the sign on its entrance gates as the, “Hideaway of the Hollywood stars, on the highest cliffs in Acapulco”. Above his reception desk are photographs of famous former guests, from Errol Flynn and Red Skelton to Roy Rogers and Cary Grant. Tellingly, almost all of them died several decades ago.

Back in the 1950s, when they were taken, these were black-and-white pictures of the biggest celebrities of the day.

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