Docudharma Times Tuesday December 9

Alabama’s Two Senators Are Trying To Kill The Auto Bailout Because?

They Don’t Like Unions Or Is There Some Secret Reason?  

Washington Takes Risks With Its Auto Bailout Plans



By DAVID E. SANGER

Published: December 8, 2008

WASHINGTON – When President-elect Barack Obama talked on Sunday about realigning the American automobile industry he was quick to offer a caution, lest he sound more like the incoming leader of France, or perhaps Japan.

“We don’t want government to run companies,” Mr. Obama told Tom Brokaw on “Meet the Press.” “Generally, government historically hasn’t done that very well.”

But what Mr. Obama went on to describe was a long-term bailout that would be conditioned on federal oversight. It could mean that the government would mandate, or at least heavily influence, what kind of cars companies make, what mileage and environmental standards they must meet and what large investments they are permitted to make – to recreate an industry that Mr. Obama said “actually works, that actually functions.”

Mexico gang killings more than double in 2008

Drug cartels are fighting increasingly bloody battles among themselves

Associated Press

MEXICO CITY – Organized-crime slayings in Mexico more than doubled in the first 11 months of 2008, as powerful drug cartels fought increasingly bloody battles for control of trafficking routes and territory, the government said Monday.

Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora said gangland killings rose by 117 percent to 5,376 as compared to the first 11 months of 2007, when there were 2,477 slayings. The government had previously not provided a total number for such killings and the figure came days after Washington began releasing funds from an anti-drug aid package.

Underscoring the brutality of the conflict, authorities on Monday reported that at least 18 people were killed in a single day in southern Guerrero state and two human heads were left in buckets outside the governor’s office.

USA

Internal Warnings Sounded on Loans At Fannie, Freddie

Executives Were Told of Subprime Risk

By Zachary A. Goldfarb

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, December 9, 2008; Page D01



Internal Freddie Mac documents show that senior executives at the company were warned years ago that they were offering mortgages that could pose dangers to the firm, hurt borrowers and generate more risky loans throughout the industry.

At Fannie Mae, top executives were told it was necessary to develop “underground” efforts to buy subprime mortgages because of competitive pressures, although there were growing risks and borrowers often didn’t understand the terms of the loans, documents show.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which has the documents, is holding a hearing today to discuss Fannie and Freddie’s downfall.

Chicago factory sit-in offers a window onto hard times

At Republic Windows and Doors, the standoff between workers, the company and the bank has become a symbol of the divide between rescue plans for Wall Street and Main Street.

From Times Staff and Wire Reports

December 9, 2008

On the chilly factory floor of the Republic Windows and Doors plant, Apolinar Cabrera and a couple hundred workers have decided to make their stand.

Their jobs evaporated Friday when this Chicago company unexpectedly closed its doors, blaming lender Bank of America for cutting off its credit line and preventing it from paying the workers’ severance and vacation.

Cabrera and his co-workers have refused to leave.

“We need only what is promised to us, nothing more, nothing less,” said Cabrera, a 17-year veteran of the plant who hasn’t been home to see his pregnant wife and two children in four days. “I know the economy is bad . . . but this just isn’t right to do this to us.”

Here, in this corner of the recession, the standoff between the workers and Bank of America has quickly evolved into a symbol of the divide between the financial rescue plans for Wall Street and Main Street.

Asia

Pakistan arrests ‘mastermind’ of Mumbai terror attacks

• Militant named by India among 12 seized in raid

• Islamabad says local courts to try the detained

Saeed Shah in Islamabad

The Guardian, Tuesday December 9 2008

Pakistan launched its first major operation against the militant group accused of carrying out the Mumbai attacks, raiding a camp of Lashkar-e-Taiba and capturing a man identified by India as one of the masterminds behind the terrorist strike.

According to local reports, 12 members of the banned group including Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, accused by Delhi as being one of the planners of the carnage in India’s financial centre, were arrested in Sunday night’s raid in the hills above Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. A helicopter gunship hovered overhead and gunfire was heard.

Some Indian officials privately described it as “an important first step”, though there was some scepticism in India about the nature of the raid. The “camp” that was stormed included a hospital, a madrasa (Islamic school) and offices.

Japanese recession much worse than first predicted



From Times Online

December 9, 2008

Leo Lewis, Asia Business Correspondent in Tokyo

Japan’s recessionary plunge is far deeper and more rapid than analysts had predicted, triggering warnings that the world’s second largest economy is politically rudderless in a crisis and primed to get “ugly” in coming months.

The shock revelation of Japan’s plight came in the form of a deeper-than-expected revision to the official reckoning of real gross domestic product (GDP) for the July to September quarter.

When the first set of Japanese GDP figures were released last month, they showed Japan’s economy contracting at an annualised rate of 0.4 per cent.

But those numbers, the Cabinet Office said today, underestimated the extent of the slump. The new numbers show an annualised shrinkage of 1.8 per cent and will almost certainly force the already hugely unpopular government of Prime Minister Taro Aso to abandon official growth targets of 1.3 per cent for 2008.

Europe

Ireland expected to rerun referendum on Lisbon treaty

• Risky strategy follows diplomatic pressure

• Pledges to be given on tax, military and abortion

Ian Traynor, Brussels

The Guardian, Tuesday December 9 2008

The Irish government is expected soon to pledge to hold a second, high-risk referendum on the EU’s reform blueprint within less than a year.

Following a week of intensive diplomacy, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, who currently chairs the EU, hopes to unveil a deal at a summit in Brussels on Thursday, diplomats and officials in Brussels said. The agreement would commit Ireland to rerunning the vote on the Lisbon treaty in return for specific promises aimed at reassuring Irish voters.

The Lisbon treaty, a neo-constitutional blueprint streamlining the way the EU is run, was felled by Irish voters last June when they voted no by 53% to 46%.

Ever since, the Irish government has been under pressure, especially from France and Germany, to find a way of agreeing to the treaty.

Buildings burn as Greek riots escalate



AP

Tuesday, 9 December 2008

Hundreds of youths smashed, burned and looted their way through Greek cities in a third night of mayhem after the shooting of a teenager by police sparked the worst riots in decades.

Dozens of shops, banks and even luxury hotels were damaged and cars torched as youths fought running battles with riot police through the night. Black smoke rose above central Athens, mingling with clouds of tear gas. Broken glass littered the streets.

Police said rioting was abating in the early hours of today, although some clashes continued in central Athens.

Dozens of masked youths were holed up in a university building. Under Greek law, police are barred from entering universities.

Africa

Jacob Zuma thwarts efforts to force Robert Mugabe out



From The Times

December 9, 2008

David Charter Brussels

International efforts to end Zimbabwe’s misery by forcing President Mugabe out of office were blunted yesterday when a key African leader urged further mediation despite the power-sharing impasse in Harare.

As President Sarkozy of France called for a swift end to the Mugabe regime, Jacob Zuma, the head of South Africa’s ruling ANC party, insisted that dialogue was still the best way forward.

“President Mugabe must go,” Mr Sarkozy said in an address in Paris to The Elders, an independent group of statesmen and women who were recently refused visas to travel to Zimbabwe.

Last-minute shift could jeopardize Congo peace talks>

Gen. Laurent Nkunda’s rebel group says Congo’s move to invite 20 other rebel groups could scupper bilateral talks that began Monday.

By Scott Baldauf | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

and Rob Crilly | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the December 9, 2008 edition

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA; AND NAIROBI, KENYA – Talks to end three months of fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo started in Nairobi on Monday, raising hopes that nearly 260,000 internal refugees may finally be able to go home.

The bilateral talks, brokered by United Nations envoy and former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, are the first positive sign since fighting broke out between Gen. Laurent Nkunda’s rebels and government forces, a conflict that has exposed the ineffectiveness of the Congolese Army and stretched the UN peacekeeping force to the breaking point.

A last-minute glitch in the talks between General Nkunda’s representatives and the Congolese government still could bring the talks to a precipitous halt. Congo’s government announced this weekend that it had invited more than 20 other rebel groups to the talks, a move that Nkunda’s spokesman called “impossible” and likely to scupper the talks altogether.

Middle East

Does Hebron clash signal new round of settler revolts?

Last week’s violence in the West Bank reveals just how far ultranationalist Jewish settlers have gone beyond the control of the Israeli government and army.

By Ilene R. Prusher | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the December 9, 2008 edition

HEBRON, WEST BANK – The violence here last week that started with the Israeli army evacuating ultranationalist settlers from a disputed house was captured on film and broadcast around the world. One thing it made clear for many was the extent to which extreme right-wing Jewish settlers have gone beyond the control of the Israeli government and army.

There are differing story lines that describe exactly what happened, but what isn’t in dispute, because it was recorded on video, is this:

Soon after the army and police began dragging settlers and their supporters out of the house – alternatively called the “House of Contention” and the “House of Peace” – young Jewish men from the adjacent settlement of Kiryat Arba came pouring into the area. Along the way, they targeted Arabs living nearby.

Husni Matariyeh, a Palestinian quarryman who lives between the two places, was shot by one of the masked settlers. His father was shot, too.

Arms expert urges moderate approach on Iran

In a new report, Mark Fitzpatrick argues for accepting some aspects of Iran’s nuclear program, such as enrichment, in order to maintain access for inspectors and help prevent development of a bomb.

By Borzou Daragahi

December 9, 2008

Reporting from Paris — A report released Monday by a respected arms-control expert urges the West to change course by accepting sensitive features of Iran’s nuclear program and focusing instead on discouraging Tehran from building an atomic bomb.

Mark Fitzpatrick, director of the nonproliferation program at the London-based Institute for International Strategic Studies, predicts in a 100-page report that Iran will produce enough fissile low- enriched uranium and obtain the expertise next year to build a bomb.

But unless Iran were to boot out international inspectors and begin to further refine its stockpile, steps Tehran insists it won’t take, all would not be lost, he says.

“During 2009, Iran will probably reach the point at which it has produced the amount of low-enriched uranium needed to make a nuclear bomb,” writes Fitzpatrick, who served 26 years in the U.S. State Department. “But being able to enrich uranium is not the same as having a nuclear weapon.”

Latin America

So, was the ‘lost’ city of Machu Picchu ever lost?

US explorer who ‘found’ Inca site ‘didn’t get there first’

By Leonard Doyle in Washington

Tuesday, 9 December 2008

When the handsome American explorer Hiram Bingham set out from the Peruvian city of Cuzco by mule train in early July 1911, he had high hopes of discovering some lost Inca ruins.

Lavishly funded by the National Geographic Society and wealthy friends at Yale University, within days Bingham had stumbled upon Machu Picchu, the “lost city of the Incas”. The city of stone terraces, carved out the Andean peaks, had been abandoned four centuries earlier and Bingham’s discovery guaranteed him a place among the pantheon of the world’s greatest explorers.