Americans tread water in gulf between rich and poor
Faces of new census report reflect frustration and resignation
By JIM FITZGERALD, VICKI SMITH
MOUNT VERNON, N.Y. – A Wall Street adviser leaves early for work to avoid panhandlers at his suburban train station. In coal country, a suddenly homeless man watches from a bench as wealthy women shop for dresses. A down-and-out waitress sits glumly on her stoop across the street from a gleaming suburb. A freshly elected politician loses his day job.
They’re the faces of a census report released this week showing that the gap between the richest and poorest Americans is wider than ever.
Jon Stewart, TV scourge of America’s right, turns his satire against Barack Obama
Daily Show host spearheads liberal discontent with the president’s failure to deliver radical change
Paul Harris in New York
The Observer, Sunday 3 October 2010
Jon Stewart, the famously smart host of the satirical Daily Show and habitual scourge of rightwing Americans, has embraced a remarkable new role as one of the fiercest critics of President Barack Obama and someone who is spearheading a wave of liberal discontent with the Democratic party.The turnaround is a remarkable one for a man whose show soared to national and international fame during the George W Bush era, on the back of incessant ridicule of Republican policies and personalities.
USA
Traumatic brain injury leaves an often-invisible, life-altering wound
By Christian Davenport
Washington Post Staff Writer
The doctor begins with an apology because the questions are rudimentary, almost insultingly so. But Robert Warren, fresh off the battlefield in Afghanistan and a surgeon’s table, doesn’t seem to mind.Yes, he knows how old he is: 20. He knows his Army rank: specialist. He knows that it’s Thursday, that it’s June, that the year is 1020. Quickly, he corrects the small stumble: “It’s 2010.” He knows that his wife is Brittanie, that she’s due with their first child any day now, and that they “got married two to three weeks before I went to that country.”
Democrats playing on opponents’ words
This election season, they are turning Republicans’ oddball statements – on topics such as witchcraft and the president’s religion – into campaign fodder. And, at least in some races, the tactic seems to be working.
By Kathleen Hennessey, Tribune Washington Bureau
Reporting from Washington – In Kentucky, a candidate is accused of being soft on drug abuse. In Delaware, it appears it was evolution the candidate was soft on. In Florida, a House race is resurrecting debate over a 97-year-old amendment to the Constitution.This in an election that was supposed to be all about the economy and jobs.
But in contests across the country, Republican candidates – particularly those aligned with the “tea party” movement – are finding themselves knocked off topic as they try to explain and revise a barrage of prior statements.
Europe
Venice’s historic buildings ‘violated’ by billboards, say cultural experts
Leading architects and museums slam Italian government for allowing advertisements to cover world-famous palazzi
Tom Kington
The Observer, Sunday 3 October 2010
A group of the world’s leading cultural experts have launched a stinging attack on the Italian government over the use of giant advertisements placed on some of Venice’s most historic sights.The directors of the British Museum, the V&A and the Museum of Modern Art in New York are among the signatories of a letter demanding that Italy’s culture minister, Sandro Bondi, outlaw the billboards, which “hit you in the eye and ruin your experience of one of the most beautiful creations of humankind”.
Ireland’s young are on the march again
The financial meltdown is turning it into a land of emigrants once more
By David Sharrock Sunday, 3 October 2010
It’s a journey that every Irish family knows but thought was consigned to the past: the farewell trip to Dublin airport and economic exile. Frank O’Brien has recently bid goodbye to both his sons at the departures gate; his wife Mary was too upset to go with him.“What really hurts is that my boys are the cream of the crop. We raised them well, we gave them the best education we could, both of them graduated with excellent degrees. Neither of them is frightened of hard work. And they are the ones who are now having to leave,” said Frank, his voice breaking with bitterness and anger.
Middle East
PLO demands settlements freeze before peace talks
Palestinian leadership blames Israel for being obstructive as US mediators seek compromise
By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem Sunday, 3 October 2010
Leaders of the main moderate Palestinian factions yesterday voted to oppose further negotiations while building continues in Jewish settlements, amid increasing US frustration at Israel’s refusal to prolong a 10-month moratorium on construction.The Palestinian Liberation Organisation executive decided that any resumption of direct peace talks – the first for 21 months – “requires tangible steps, the first of them a freeze on settlements”. A senior PLO official, Yasser Abed Rabbo, said after yesterday’s meeting in Ramallah: “The Palestinian leadership holds Israel responsible for obstructing the negotiations.”
Syrian leader attacks direct talks
Speaking in Tehran, Bashir al-Assad says the current Israeli-Palestinian negotiations are aimed at bolstering Obama.
Aljazeera
During a visit to Iran, Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, has said direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks were only aimed at bolstering domestic support for the US president.“Nothing has changed in the Palestinian peace process [which] only aims to garner support for [Barack] Obama [the US president] inside America,” Assad was quoted as saying after meeting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, his Iranian counterpart, in Tehran on Saturday.
Assad was speaking at the start of an official visit to Iran, during talks with Ahmadinejad who also criticised the United States and Israel, saying “America’s facade has crumbled and the Zionist regime has been exposed,” without specifying whether he was referring to US mediated peace talks.
“The Syrian government and nation, at the forefront of resistance, have for years stood up against the expansionism and aggression of the Zionist regime,” Ahmadinejad said in reference to Israel, according to Iran’s official IRNA news agency.
Asia
Host shuts down for opening
Matt Wade DELHI
October 3, 2010
BAZAARS and shopping malls in Delhi will shut down today and access to airspace restricted as the city goes into lockdown ahead of tonight’s opening ceremony for the 19th Commonwealth Games.At least 3000 heavily armed security personnel will be on hand at the main Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, backed by specialist anti-terrorism units and air support. Tens of thousands more police will be stationed around the city.
One of India’s top security officials, Home Secretary G.K. Pillai, told The Sun-Herald he was very confident the main stadium would be secure.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys hunt for North Korea’s money
Lawyers for those wronged by the secretive regime find it hard to collect on court judgments. In such cases against other countries, Washington often stands in the way, fearful of setting a precedent that could work against it.
By John M. Glionna, Los Angeles Times
October 3, 2010
Reporting from Seoul –
Plaintiffs’ attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner was in her Jerusalem office in July when she got news of the Puerto Rican court’s verdict.A judge there had just issued a $378-million civil judgment for her clients: the families of 17 Puerto Rican missionaries killed by Japanese Red Army militants at an Israeli airport in 1972.
Yet her euphoria was tempered by pragmatic reality: She would have to try to collect the judgment from a defiant North Korea, which the judge ruled had decades ago given training and support to the assailants.
Africa
Nigeria bombings: SA police arrest man in Jo’burg
South African authorities have arrested an ex-leader of a militant group that claimed responsibility for a dual car bombing that killed 12 people in Nigeria, a Nigerian secret police spokesperson said.
LAGOS, NIGERIA Oct 03 2010 07:31
The arrest of Henry Okah, a former leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, came as Nigeria’s secretive State Security Service acknowledged it received a warning about the impending attack long before the bombs exploded on Friday.Nonetheless, the militant group was still able to detonate the explosives only a 10-minute walk away from a ceremony in Nigeria’s capital Abuja attended by the president and other dignitaries in the oil-rich nation.
“Unfortunately, there’s no way security can be 100% foolproof,” State Security Service spokesperson Marilyn Ogar told the Associated Press on Saturday.
Millennium Goals: How Far Have We Come?
BY CHARLES ABUGRE
A MOTHER cradles her newborn baby girl, with joy where there might have been grief. During labour, the baby was in a dangerous breech position, putting both mother and child at risk of death. But a skilled birth attendant turned the baby, saving their lives.
Thanks to the United Nations (UN) Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), standards world leaders agreed on in 2000 to lift the poor, the sick and the hungry by 2015, professionally-attended births are at an all-time high in Africa. Republic of Benin is most improved, and even war-scarred Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Angola have risen to the challenge, with Angola halving maternal deaths.
Thanks to the impetus of the Millennium Development Goals, the expectant mother and this baby received free prenatal care, and free medical visits will continue through the breastfeeding period, strengthening the child’s body and mind – a low-cost policy Ghana, Malawi, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Rwanda all began. She is likely to escape Africa’s child-killing diseases, because cadres of health workers have been hired and trained to distribute essentials, such as bed nets and improved malaria medicines (in the countries with free prenatal care, plus Zambia and Niger).
Latin America
Ecuador U-turn on controversial austerity law
A senior minister in the Ecuadorean government says parts of a law which provoked a police rebellion earlier this week will be rewritten.
The BBC 3 October 2010
Policy Minister Doris Soliz also told Reuters news agency President Rafael Correa would not now dissolve Congress.President Correa had reportedly suggested he could rule by decree to push through his austerity measures.
The president said Thursday’s unrest amounted to a coup attempt.
Under Ecuador’s constitution, President Correa could have disbanded Congress and ruled by decree until new elections were held.