US and Afghan governments make contact with Haqqani insurgents
Exclusive: US dealing with Haqqani clan – which has close ties to al-Qaida – through Western intermediary
Julian Borger and Declan Walsh
The Guardian, Thursday 7 October 2010
Both the Afghan and US governments have recently made contact with the most fearsome insurgent group in Afghanistan, the Haqqani network, the Guardian has learned.Hamid Karzai’s government held direct talks with senior members of the Haqqani clan over the summer, according to well-placed Pakistani and Arab sources. The US contacts have been indirect, through a western intermediary, but have continued for more than a year.
The Afghan and US talks were described as extremely tentative. The Haqqani network has a reputation for ruthlessness, even by the standards of the Afghan insurgency, and has the closest ties with al-Qaida. But Kabul and Washington have come to the conclusion that they cannot be excluded if an enduring peace settlement is to be reached.
Civil Justice, Military Injustice
EDITORIAL
Supporters of the tribunals at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who insist military justice, not the federal courts, is the best way to deal with terrorists, should pay close attention to Tuesday’s events in a United States District Court in Manhattan. Faisal Shahzad was sentenced to life imprisonment, five months and four days after he tried to blow up his car in Times Square.
When Mr. Shahzad was arrested, and later given a Miranda warning, the “tough on terrorists” crowd screamed about coddling and endangering the country’s security. They didn’t stop complaining, even after Mr. Shahzad cooperated with investigators and entered a guilty plea with a mandatory life sentence. All of this happened without the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the New York Police Department breaking laws or violating Constitutional protections.
USA
Foreign Firms Hoping to Ride US Rail Boom
Obama’s High-Speed Train Revolution
By Mary Beth Warner
The high-speed Velaro trains, built by Siemens, can travel up to 250 miles per hour (403 kilometers/hour), but in Florida this week they were brought in by truck. The special tracks along sunny Interstate 4 haven’t been built yet, and the gleaming cars are just a teaser of what may come. If the German company succeeds in its plans, the trains will one day whisk passengers from Tampa to Orlando, and from Orlando to Miami.Florida is on the verge of accepting bids for its proposed high-speed rail lines, and Siemens wants a piece of the pie. The company is showcasing its Velaro line of trains, which it has sold in Spain, Germany, Russia and China, at a special event at Tampa’s Museum of Science and Industry on Thursday, and will be touring the train cars around the state in coming days so residents and officials can see them first-hand, and be greeted by local celebrities, such as Ronde Barber, the captain of the professional football team the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Midnight grocery runs part of the grim new reality
A monthly spurt of spending when food stamps are replenished
By ANNE D’INNOCENZIO, DENA POTTER
FREDERICKSBURG, Va. – Once a month, just after midnight, the beeping checkout scanners at a Walmart just off Interstate 95 come alive in a chorus of financial desperation.
Here and at grocery stores across the country, the chimes come just after food stamps and other monthly government benefits drop into the accounts of shoppers who have been rationing things like milk, ground beef and toilet paper and can finally stock up again.
Shoppers mill around the store after 11 p.m., killing time until their accounts are replenished. When midnight strikes, they rush for the checkout counter.
Europe
Hungarians battle to hold back toxic sludge spill from Danube
Greenpeace describes incident as ‘one of the top three environmental disasters in Europe in the last 20 or 30 years
Helen Pidd and agencies
The Guardian, Thursday 7 October 2010
Hungary opened a criminal inquiry yesterday into the toxic sludge spill that killed at least four people after a reservoir burst at an aluminium plant.As workers struggled to deal with the flood, the EU urged authorities to do everything they can to keep the slurry from reaching the Danube and affecting half a dozen other countries. Greenpeace yesterday described the spill as “one of the top three environmental disasters in Europe in the last 20 or 30 years”.
Last night workers were pouring 1,000 tonnes of plaster into the water to try to bind the sludge and keep it from flowing into the Danube, just45 miles away.
News alert: Adrià has made cantaloupe caviar
El Bulli chef is back in the kitchen thanks to novel deal with Spanish telecoms company
By Dale Fuchs in Madrid Thursday, 7 October 2010
Ferran Adrià, the Catalan chef who gave the world cantaloupe caviar, the deconstructed Spanish tortilla and quail eggs caramel-coated with a blowtorch, has moved a step closer to turning his Michelin-starred restaurant, El Bulli, into a non-profit research foundation.To some observers, the project seemed as improbable as freezing foie gras into noodles with liquid nitrogen, one of his many techniques that revolutionised the world’s gourmet kitchens.
But the creative cuisine guru has reached a deal with the Spanish telecommunications giant, Telefónica, to sponsor the conversion of his waiting list-only restaurant on the Costa Brava into a “think-tank” of avant-garde gastronomy that will transmit the breaking news of its edible experiments via internet “minute by minute”. It is expected toopen in 2014.
Middle East
Israeli leadership in disarray before Yom Kippur war
The Irish Times – Thursday, October 7, 2010
MARK WEISS in Jerusalem
TOP SECRET protocols released this week reveal the disarray and confusion among the Israeli leadership at the outbreak of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, when a surprise attack by Egyptian and Syrian forces caught Israel off guard.Israeli intelligence failed to predict the outbreak of hostilities exactly 37 years ago, on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.
On the morning of October 6th, 1973, only six hours before the Egyptian and Syrian forces attacked, senior political and military leaders convened in Tel Aviv. A senior Mossad spy in Egypt had passed on credible information that war would break out later in the day. Israeli intelligence also reported that the families of Russian advisers based in Egypt and Syria were being speedily evacuated. But despite the warnings, the Israeli leadership was not convinced that war was imminent.
Stronger Hezbollah Emboldened for Fights Ahead
By THANASSIS CAMBANIS
Published: October 6, 2010
AITA AL SHAAB, Lebanon – It was from this shrub-ringed border town that Hezbollah instigated its war with Israel in 2006, and supporters of the militant Shiite movement sound almost disappointed that they have not fought since.
“I was expecting the war this summer,” said Faris Jamil, a municipal official and small-business owner. “It’s late.” He has yet to finish rebuilding his three-story house, destroyed by an Israeli bomb that year.
Asia
Explorers in India find something almost unheard of: a new language
By Andrew Buncombe, Asia Correspondent Thursday, 7 October 2010
Researchers who had used bamboo rafts to ford surging rivers and climbed steep mountains in the remote north-east of India were rewarded for their toil with the discovery of a rich new language spoken by fewer than 1,000 people.The linguists had travelled to Arunachal Pradesh, a state that requires a special permit to visit, in order to investigate two little-known tongues. But while speaking with members of a hill tribe they discovered a third “hidden” language.
Afghan war moves deeper into Pakistan
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
ISLAMABAD – Information supplied by a Pakistani-German jihadi led to the United States Predator drone attack in Pakistan on Monday in which at least eight other Germans were killed, Asia Times Online has learned.A senior Pakistani security official said the two missile strikes near the town of Mir Ali in the North Waziristan tribal area followed intelligence passed on by Rami Mackenzie, 27, during interrogation following his arrest in the middle of this year by Pakistani security officials in Bannu, the principal city of Bannu district in Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa province.
Africa
Alarm over surge in rhino poaching
October 7, 2010
South Africa has set up a special wildlife crime unit to tackle a dramatic surge in rhino poaching driven by Asian demand for the horn for use in traditional medicines.Rhino poaching has doubled this year in South Africa, with 227 slaughtered so far compared with 122 in all of last year.
The Environment Minister, Buyelwa Sonjica, convened a two-day ”rhino summit” on Tuesday to bring together police and wildlife experts, and unveiled a new crime-fighting unit to crack down on poaching.
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”The National Wildlife Crime Investigation Unit will, among others, react immediately when a serious wildlife crime has been committed and be able to detect and investigate smuggling of wildlife and wildlife products,” she said.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu end public career at 79
Archbishop Desmond Tutu is stepping down from public life, as he celebrates his 79th birthday.
By Karen Allan BBC News, Johannesburg
The man described as the “conscience” of South Africa was a prominent voice during the country’s struggle against white minority rule.He has since been the voice of reconciliation in a number of regional conflicts.
But the Nobel Peace prize winner now says he wants to make way for a new generation of leaders.
Archbishop Tutu is a man widely considered as a moral compass in South Africa, admired for his integrity and adored for his infectious laugh.But now he is bowing out of public life.
Latin America
Buenos Aires, Metropolis of the Zeitgeist
Argentina’s Self-Confident Capital
By Georg Diez in Buenos Aires
It’s no coincidence that Argentina is the guest of honor at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair. Its capital, Buenos Aires, is currently considered the world’s most exciting city. It’s a place where nothing is quite as it seems and the past constantly intermingles with the future.Marcos López pulls out yet another packet of the bitter brown maté tea he’s been sipping all day, and points to the picture on the front. And suddenly we are immersed in the wonderful game of charades that is Buenos Aires.
“Senor López, why does this man — this gaucho, this tough guy — have such a soft, feminine face? If he didn’t have a mustache, you’d think it was a woman.”
“That’s not a woman.”“It is a woman. hat does it mean?”