“We’ve got a lot of rebuilding
to do … The good news is – and it’s hard for some
to see it now – that out of this chaos
is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast,
like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott’s house
– he’s lost his entire house –
there’s going to be a fantastic house.
And I’m looking forward to sitting on the porch.
” (Laughter) -President Bush, touring hurricane damage,
Mobile, Ala., Sept. 2, 2005
Iran Election In Dispute as 2 Candidates Claim Victory
Ahmadinejad Official Leader, But Mousavi Alleges Fraud
By Thomas Erdbrink
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, June 13, 2009
TEHRAN, June 13 — A pivotal presidential election in Iran ended in confusion and confrontation early Saturday as both sides claimed victory and plainclothes officers fired tear gas to disperse a cheering crowd outside the campaign headquarters of opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi.
With votes still being counted in many cities, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was leading by a 2-1 ratio in early returns, according to Iranian Interior Ministry officials. But Mousavi’s supporters dismissed those numbers, saying the ministry was effectively under Ahmadinejad’s control.
North Korea says it will ‘weaponize’ its plutonium
Associated Press
11:55 PM PDT, June 12, 2009
SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea vowed on Saturday to embark on a uranium enrichment program and “weaponize” all the plutonium in its possession as it rejected the new U.N. sanctions meant to punish the communist nation for its recent nuclear test.North Korea also said it would not abandon its nuclear programs, saying it was an inevitable decision to defend itself from what it says is a hostile U.S. policy and its nuclear threat against the North.
The North will take “resolute military action” if the United States or its allies try to impose any “blockade” on it, the ministry said in a statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.The ministry did not elaborate if the blockade refers to an attempt to stop its ships or impose sanctions.
North Korea describes its nuclear program as a deterrent against possible U.S. attacks. Washington says it has no intention of attacking and has expressed fear that North Korea is trying to sell its nuclear technology to other nations.
USA
Permanence Eludes Some Katrina Victims
Many Still Live in Trailers, Rentals
By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 13, 2009
GULFPORT, Miss. — James Johnson can look across a grassy field here and see acres of empty pastel “Mississippi cottages,” each house an architect’s vision of how government can provide safe, low-cost and permanent housing to families made homeless by Hurricane Katrina nearly four years ago.
At 74, Johnson would like nothing better than to move one of the nearly 700 vacant cottages onto his land, where he now lives in a temporary trailer provided by the government. The cottages — with picturesque white fences and wide front porches — are designed to be set on a permanent foundation and can withstand winds of 150 mph.Johnson’s daughter helped him apply for a cottage, but the request to the state has gone nowhere.
Judgment day: broke California faces shutdown at Arnie Schwarzenegger ‘s hands
From The Times
June 13, 2009
Mike Harvey in San Francisco
The state of California is in crisis and time has almost run out. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Governor, has spent this week haggling with state legislators to agree cuts to basic services in one of the world’s largest economies.The state’s top finance officials warned that unless an emergency austerity plan is agreed by Monday – and there is little chance that it will be – they will not be able to borrow the billions of dollars needed to keep the current government functioning. If California was a company, it would have gone bust months ago.
The breadth and depth of Mr Schwarzenegger’s cuts are unprecedented and no one in the state, not even its dozens of billionaires, will be unaffected.
Asia
Japan’s Generation XX
They are known as the grass-eaters: effeminate young Japanese men more interested in perfecting their looks than finding a job or starting a family.
Saturday, 13 June 2009
In Japan some call them herbivores, and on Saturday nights they come out to graze: a perfumed army of preening masculinity. Groomed and primped, hair teased to peacock-like perfection and bodies wrapped in tight-fitting clothes, their habitat is the crowded city where they live in fear of commitment, and the odd carnivorous female who preys on them.For much of this decade, the older men who drove this country to the top of the economic league tables have looked on in bewilderment at the foppish antics of the generation below.
Japan’s twenty- and thirtysomething males seem disinterested in careers and apathetic about the rituals of dating, sex and marriage. They spend almost as much on cosmetics and clothes as women, live with their mums and sit down on the toilet when they pee. Some have even been known to wear bras. “What is happening to the nation’s manhood?” wonders social critic Takuro Morinaga.
Leading Muslim cleric killed in suicide bomb attack in Lahore
From The Times
June 13, 2009
Jeremy Page, South Asia Correspondent
When a diminutive 60-year-old Muslim cleric defiantly formed a religious alliance against the Taleban last month, he became a figurehead for tens of millions of moderate Pakistanis despairing at the state of their country.Yesterday, however, Sarfraz Ahmed Naeemi paid with his life after a suicide bomber struck the Islamic college that he ran in the eastern city of Lahore, and where he had just conducted Friday prayers.
Dr Naeemi was killed in the office where, less than a month ago, he had welcomed The Times and begun to explain why he had decided to speak out against the Taleban.
“The Taleban is a stigma on Islam,” he had said as his 1,000 students began classes free of charge. “That is why we will support our Government and our army and their right to destroy the Taleban.
Europe
Latvia cuts pensions, salaries to avoid bankruptcy
The Latvian government has agreed to slash pensions and state sector salaries in a bid to keep the country afloat financially. Riga must cut costs to qualify for more financial aid from the EU and the IMF.
12.06.2009
Latvia’s prime minister says last-minute state budget cuts have saved his country from bankruptcy. The country is seeking to avert the possible devaluation of its struggling currency, and it needs to reduce budget shortfalls in order to qualify for crucial financial aid from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.The country has been particularly hard hit by the current recession, and is facing an economic contraction of up to 20 percent this year.
Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis described the decision to slash 500 million lats ($1 billion) from budget expenses as “very difficult”, but necessary if Latvia wants to receive the next installment in a 7.5 billion euro ($10.6 billion) bailout plan which was inked in December.
“Yes, with yesterday’s decisions the state has really been saved from bankruptcy,” he told public radio.
Comprehensive Cuts
Pensions have been worst hit by the budget cuts. Retirees are facing reductions of 10 percent to their pensions, and the government has cut a whopping 70 percent from the allowances of pensioners who still work.
Spanish Civil War bodies exhumed
Seven bodies have been removed from Spanish Civil War graves in the first court-ordered exhumation.
By Danny Wood
BBC News, Madrid
The remains were transferred from two mass graves in the cemetery of Santa Marta village to a medical lab for official identification.
Archaeologists recovered the remains, belonging to men executed by supporters of Gen Francisco Franco in 1936.
This could be the first of thousands of official exhumations that have been the focus of a lengthy legal wrangle.
Judge Garzon
The matter of exhumations is still controversial in Spain 70 years after the Civil War.
Previously, exhumations were done by volunteers with no official help.
These seven bodies were officially exhumed in the presence of relatives over five days.
Middle East
In Mosul, Iraqi army not ready to take over from U.S. forces
By Jack Dolan | McClatchy Newspapers
MOSUL, Iraq – The Iraqi Army colonel glowered at his newest captain. Looking small and lost in his oversized new uniform, the captain conceded that he was an untrained civilian who’d been sent to Iraq’s most violent city by one of the political parties in Baghdad that’s vying for control of the country’s security forces.The Iraqi division that will assume responsibility for security in a swath of Mosul when American combat forces withdraw later this month has been assigned 69 such political appointees recently, said Col. Abdul Aziz Salahuddin.
Then he made a pistol of his fingers and pointed it at his temple. “I’ll kill myself if the Iraqi Army is starting down this path,” Salahuddin said. “This man has no experience; he’s no use.”
How close is Iran to a bomb?
President Ahmadinejad’s bellicose rhetoric has raised concerns about Iran’s intentions. Whether or not he is reelected Friday, here’s what Western policymakers now need to consider.
By Dan Murphy | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
from the June 12, 2009 edition
In Friday’s election, Iranians will show whether they support President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s bellicose rhetoric – particularly on key issues such as the country’s nuclear program. Just before North Korea’s defiant nuclear test on May 25, Iran conducted two successful tests of long-range missiles, including one that Tehran says is more accurate than previous models and can reach Israel.How close is Iran to a bomb?
Officially, Iran’s nuclear program is for developing nuclear power, and a 2007 US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) concluded that they abandoned their weapons program in 2003. But given the Islamic Republic’s past secrecy about the extent of its activities, many are suspicious of its assertions.Here’s what is publicly known:
Key sites include a uranium-enrichment plant at Natanz; a plant at Arak to produce heavy water, which can be used to produce weapons-grade plutonium; a nuclear power station at Bushehr; and a uranium conversion plant at Isfahan.
Latin America
A Mexican Cartel’s Swift and Grisly Climb
La Familia Defies Federal Efforts To Eliminate Its Influence
By Steve Fainaru and William Booth
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, June 13, 2009
APATZINGAN, Mexico — In farm towns across the hot, fertile state of Michoacan, famous for its mangos and marijuana, residents are used to seeing military patrols rumbling through their streets. But until late last month, they had never seen soldiers descending on City Hall.
After surrounding the whitewashed building in Apatzingan’s central square, masked troops armed with AK-47 assault rifles marched up the stairs, past florid murals depicting Mexico’s revolutionary past, and arrested the mayor, Génaro Guízar Valencia, a 62-year-old U.S. citizen who had spent 35 years in Northern California and returned to Michoacan in the 1990s.