Barack Obama’s India trip set to seal £6bn worth of deals for US
Barack Obama’s India trip all about business for US with 20 deals worth £6bn ready to be finalised
Jason Burke in Delhi
The Observer, Sunday 7 November 2010
President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, arrived yesterday in the Indian commercial capital of Mumbai on the first leg of a 10-day four-nation tour of Asia to drum up business for American companies and to consolidate relations with key allies in the region.The couple will also hope to find some relief from the domestic political fallout of the Democratic party’s resounding defeat in midterm elections last week.
The president made his first statement of the trip, the longest he has taken in office, at Mumbai’s Taj Mahal Hotel, one of the targets attacked by Islamic militants in the city just under two years ago.
Chasing pirates: Inside Microsoft’s war room
Tech giant’s fight against theft has implications beyond the bottom line
New York Times
As the sun rose over the mountains circling Los Reyes, a town in the Mexican state of Michoacán, one morning in March 2009, a caravan of more than 300 heavily armed law enforcement agents set out on a raid. All but the lead vehicle turned off their headlights to evade lookouts, called “falcons,” who work for La Familia Michoacana, the brutal Mexican cartel that controls the drug trade. This time, the police weren’t hunting for a secret stash of drugs, guns or money. Instead, they looked to crack down on La Familia’s growing counterfeit software ring.
USA
G.O.P. Plans to Use Purse Strings to Fight Health Law
By ROBERT PEAR
Published: November 6, 2010
WASHINGTON – As they seek to make good on their campaign promise to roll back President Obama’s health care overhaul, the incoming Republican leaders in the House say they intend to use their new muscle to cut off money for the law, setting up a series of partisan clashes and testing Democratic commitment to the legislation.
Republicans, who will control the House starting in January but will remain in the minority in the Senate, acknowledge that they do not have the votes for their ultimate goal of repealing the health law, the most polarizing of Mr. Obama’s signature initiatives.
Grim outlook for grizzlies in Yellowstone region
With milder winters affecting their food and hibernation habits, they’re forced into a meat-dependent diet – putting them at odds with humans and livestock. They could end up as despised as wolves.
By Julie Cart, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Cody, Wyo. – It’s been a bad year for grizzly bears, and, if forecasts prove correct, it’s only going to get worse.The tally of grizzly deaths in the states bordering the greater Yellowstone region is fast approaching the worst on record. And that’s before the numbers come in from the current hunting season, a time when accidental grizzly shootings are traditionally high. Here in Wyoming, more bears were killed this year than ever, including a bear shot by a hunter last week.
A number of complex factors are believed to be working against grizzlies, including climate change. Milder winters have allowed bark beetles to decimate the white-bark pine, whose nuts are a critical food sourcefor grizzlies.
Europe
Greece despairs of escaping from mountain of debt
Today’s local elections in Greece are being seen as a referendum on savage state cutbacks. In the struggling Peloponnesian town of Aigio, the verdict is already clear
Helena Smith in Aigio
The Observer, Sunday 7 November 2010
When the sun rises over Aigio, the waters in the Gulf of Corinth shimmer seductively. Shrouded in mist, the mountains that rise out of it appear almost to float. But along the winding road into the town – past piles of uprooted train tracks, empty shopfronts and shuttered factories – beauty gives way to ruin. And in the cafeneia, stony-faced men say the country is heading for catastrophe.“The only thing we know is economic crisis,” sighs Apostolos Karafotias, who has served as mayor of the Peloponnesian town for the past four years. “People are really disappointed, fearful and – let me find the right word for it – yes, furious, with politicians they believe are firmly to blame for our awful financial situation.”
Latin lessons: What can we learn from the world’s most ambitious literacy campaign?
Fifty years ago this month, Cuba committed itself to teach every citizen basic literacy. Today, the country’s education system is the envy of the rest of the world. Nina Lakhani travels to Havana to discover the story behind the success – and ask why some believe that cracks are starting to show…
Sunday, 7 November 2010
Tuesday afternoon in the José Marti Primary School means it’s time for maths. A classroom full of wide-eyed eight-year-old boys and girls are poring over frayed workbooks in pairs while their teacher walks around peering over tiny shoulders. Each wears the standard Cuban primary-school uniform of burgundy shorts or mini-skirt and white short-sleeved shirt, and eager hands go up one after the other as the day’s sums are completed.It is an industrious scene, and one that plays out daily at any of the numerous schools that dot the narrow streets of La Habana Vieja (Old Havana).
Middle East
West panics at American-born voice of jihad
But the cleric accused of radicalising Western Muslims is just a sideshow
By Patrick Cockburn Sunday, 7 November 2010
Anwar al-Awlaki, the militant Islamic cleric in hiding in Yemen, was being denounced in the US and Britain last week as an arch-conspirator against the West, leading to hundreds of videos of his speeches and interviews being hurriedly removed from YouTube.Awlaki, an eloquent preacher, is alleged to have radicalised Roshonara Choudhry, the theology student who stabbed Stephen Timms MP for voting for the Iraq war. Awlaki was also in contact with militant Muslims who later attacked American targets, such as the Nigerian student with explosives sewn into his underpants and the US officer who shot dead 13 of his fellow soldiersat Fort Hood.
Israel confronts flagging interest in military service
By Janine Zacharia
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, November 7, 2010; 12:18 AM
TEL HASHOMER, ISRAEL – Since Israel’s founding, the military here has served not just as a defender against outside threats, but as the glue that brings together a patchwork nation of immigrants.Now, the Israel Defense Forces’ position as the country’s most venerated institution appears to be slipping. While service is compulsory for most young men and women, a growing minority is avoiding conscription, leaving planners to worry the military won’t have the troops it says it needs.
Asia
Veteran dissident pleads with young people in Burma not to vote in poll
U Win Tin, the prominent former political prisoner, insists jail is no deterrent in battle to oust the military regime
Tracy McVeigh
The Observer, Sunday 7 November 2010
Burma’s most prominent former political prisoner yesterday urged the younger generation to risk losing their own freedom in the fight for their country’s liberty.In an impassioned call to his people ahead of an election on Sunday that has already been decried as a sham by international observers, U Win Tin called for a boycott of the vote.
“It is the only thing left to us: there is no hope to come from voting for this party or that party. This government aims to win, and it is so detested that it is impossible for us to do anything but boycott,” he said. “Of course it is not safe to stay at home and not go to the polling stations and people will be worried that they will be punished, but the military junta wants to claim this election as free and fair and so we have to reduce the legitimacy of that claim by not takingpart at all.”
Indonesian Muslims protest Obama’s planned visit
From Andy Saputra, CNN
November 7, 2010
Jakarta, Indonesia (CNN) — Muslims staged rallies across Indonesia on Sunday to protest U.S. President Barack Obama’s planned visit to the southeast Asian nation this week.
The protests — organized by Muslim group Hizbut Tahrir — included women and children.
“We don’t see the differences between Obama and Bush, they both oppress Muslims, they both have blood on their hands,” said Ismail Yusanto, a spokesman for the Muslim group in Indonesia.
“That’s why we reject Obama and we don’t believe that he’s reaching out to Muslims.”
The spokesman said about 20,000 people attended the rallies.
Africa
Zim gem smuggling fuels cross-border dealer hub
JUSTINE GERARDY | MANICA, MOZAMBIQUE – Nov 07 2010
“Here Lebanese. Americans stay here. Ten Guineas stay in that house. Here Pakistan. Here Nigeria,” Raymond Reba (24) offers every few metres, with one man raising a hopeful finger to signal he is open for business.“There is a buyer. Here another buyer. There again, another buyer.”
Globally these rocks are restricted as “blood diamonds”, with the watchdog Kimberley Process failing to agree last week if it will allow Zimbabwe to resume exports from the country’s controversial Marange fields.
Latin America
Cholera death toll rises in hurricane-hit Haiti
The death toll from the current cholera epidemic in Haiti has exceeded 500, the country’s health ministry has said.
The BBC 7 November 2010
Fifty-nine people had died up until and including Thursday, and 617 others had been infected, bringing the total affected to 7,359, the ministry added.The news came as the local authorities and relief agencies attempted to get clean drinking water to those areas worse affected by Hurricane Tomas.
The storm caused flooding and left eight people dead in western Haiti.
The charity, Save the Children, said that in Leogane, the streets had been turned into “rivers” and some 35,000 people had been affected.
The BBC’s Laura Trevelyan in the town said the water reached her knees, and that people were afraid of the risk of disease.