Docudharma Times Tuesday November 10

Democrats Raise Alarms Over Costs of Health Bills



By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

Published: November 9, 2009

WASHINGTON – As health care legislation moves toward a crucial airing in the Senate, the White House is facing a growing revolt from some Democrats and analysts who say the bills Congress is considering do not fulfill President Obama’s promise to slow the runaway rise in health care spending.

Mr. Obama has made cost containment a centerpiece of his health reform agenda, and in May he stood up at the White House with industry groups who pledged voluntary efforts to trim the growth of health care spending by 1.5 percent, or $2 trillion, over the next decade.

But health economists say it is impossible to know whether the bills, including one passed by the House on Saturday night, would meet that goal, and many are skeptical that they even come close.

Editor of controversial magazine in China resigns after conflict with backers

Hu Shuli, who exposed corruption in Caijing magazine, is reportedly planning a rival publication

Tania Branigan in Beijing

guardian.co.uk, Monday 9 November 2009 17.50 GMT

The influential editor of a pioneering Chinese magazine resigned today following weeks of conflict with its backers over issues reportedly including its coverage of sensitive current affairs stories.

Admirers say Hu Shuli blazed a trail for other publications with her carefully calibrated exposures of corruption and other official wrongdoing, in a country where the media is tightly controlled.

A spokeswoman for Caijing magazine said Hu would take up a senior academic role, but employees said she is also planning to launch a rival print and online publication and that almost all of them intend to join her.

USA

Fort Hood suspect warned of threats within the ranks

Cited stress facing Muslims Hasan spoke at Walter Reed in 2007

By Dana Priest

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

The Army psychiatrist believed to have killed 13 people at Fort Hood warned a roomful of senior Army physicians a year and a half ago that to avoid “adverse events,” the military should allow Muslim soldiers to be released as conscientious objectors instead of fighting in wars against other Muslims.

As a senior-year psychiatric resident at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Maj. Nidal M. Hasan was supposed to make a presentation on a medical topic of his choosing as a culminating exercise of the residency program.

Website listing addresses and aerial photos of celebrity homes comes under scrutiny

For nearly two years, celebrityaddressaerial.com operated with little notice. But a warrant revealed that a member of an alleged burglary ring had used it to case the homes of young Hollywood stars.

By Andrew Blankstein

November 10, 2009

Suppose you could look at the pool in back of James Cameron’s Malibu estate. Or admire the ornate garden at Haim Saban’s Beverly Hills mansion. Or check out the tennis court at Tiger Woods’ Florida home.

Should you?

The website celebrityad dressaerial.com makes possible exactly that sort of high-tech snooping, listing addresses and aerial photos of the homes of hundreds of celebrities, corporate titans, politicians and others — including Paris Hilton, Steven Spielberg, Warren Buffet, Matt Drudge, Steve Jobs and Kobe Bryant.

Asia

North and South Korean navies exchange fire

North Korean ship reportedly suffers heavy damage as each side blames the other for violating disputed sea border

Tania Branigan in Beijing and agencies

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 10 November 2009 05.58 GMT

Ships from the North and South Korean navies exchanged fire off the peninsula’s west coast today, with each side blaming the other for violating the disputed sea border.

The clash was the first of its kind for seven years. Seoul said there were no casualties on its side and it is unclear if there were deaths on the North Korean vessel – suggesting this was less serious than the deadly naval skirmishes of 1999 and 2002.

“It’s a regrettable incident,” Commodore Lee Ki-sik told reporters in Seoul. “We are sternly protesting to North Korea and urging it to prevent the recurrence of similar incidents.”

China executes nine people over riots that left 200 dead

By Christopher Bodeen in Beijing

Tuesday, 10 November 2009

Nine men have been executed for participating in violent ethnic riots in China’s mainly Muslim north-west that left nearly 200 people dead.

The defendants were the first to be put to death for their roles in the violence on 5 July, when members of the Uighur minority rampaged through the streets of Urumqi, in Xinjiang province, attacking members of the majority Han Chinese community. Two days later, mobs of Han Chinese took to the streets in revenge.

The verdicts against the nine were reviewed by the Supreme People’s Court as required under Chinese law, and the sentences have been carried out. State media gave no details as to when the convicts were executed or how they were put to death.

Europe

Dictator’s wife defiant over forced adoptions

Margot Honecker, a Communist-era minister now living in exile in Chile, left a cruel legacy of separated families

By Tony Paterson

Tuesday, 10 November 2009

More than 2,000 Germans are still searching for family members lost as a result of the forced adoption policies instigated by Margot Honecker. The widow of Erich Honecker, the East German dictator who ordered the building of the Berlin Wall, lives in exile in South America on a German state pension. And 20 years after the collapse of the Iron Curtain she remains unrepentant. In a rare interview recently the 82-year-old insisted that people “lived good lives” under the regime headed by her husband.

The families torn apart by Mrs Honecker’s children’s policy would not agree. Under the policy, the children of dissidents and East Germans who attempted to flee to the West were forcibly and permanently separated from their parents.

Aleksei Dymovsky in YouTube plea for Putin to end police corruption‘

From The Times

November 10, 2009

Tony Halpin in Moscow

A Russian policeman has triggered a political storm by breaking a code of silence over corruption in the ranks, in videos posted on the internet.

Major Aleksei Dymovsky, a senior drugs trafficking investigator, accused corrupt police chiefs of ordering officers to jail innocent people and claimed that it was impossible to live on the official salary, £290 a month, without taking bribes.

He made an appeal to Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister, to order a national inquiry into corruption, saying that he was speaking up for ordinary officers who considered dignity and honour as “words burnt into the mind”.

Middle East

American hikers charged with espionage by Iran

From The Times

November 10, 2009

Catherine Philp, Diplomatic Correspondent

Three American hikers detained in Iran are to be charged with espionage, three months after they were arrested for crossing over the border from Iraq.

The spying allegation, revealed by Tehran’s chief prosecutor yesterday, is the first sign of Iran’s intention to put the three on trial, despite repeated demands from Washington for their release.

Sarah Shourd, 31, Josh Fattal, 27 and Shane Bauer, 27, were hiking near Ahmed Awa waterfall in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan on July 31 when they apparently strayed over the border into Iran.

Lebanon finally forms government

Lebanese President Michel Suleiman has announced the formation of the 30-member national-unity cabinet – five months after a general election.

The BBC  

Five ministers were chosen by President Suleiman, and 15 are from PM-designate Saad Hariri’s Western-backed coalition.

The remaining 10 are from the opposition, including two members of Hezbollah, which struck a deal with the governing coalition last week.

The deadlock over the new government had threatened Lebanon’s stability.

Mr Hariri’s coalition won a narrow majority in June’s election, but needed to negotiate with the opposition to form a unity government.

“Finally, a government of national unity is born,” Mr Hariri said.

Africa

Fear and secrecy cloak Eritrea, Africa’s hermit nation



By Shashank Bengali | McClatchy Newspapers

ASMARA, Eritrea – In this lonely corner of the world, the first sign of distress is the luggage. When one of the few international flights that are still operating here touched down one recent afternoon, the returning passengers emerged from baggage claim as if from a big shopping trip. Old metal trolleys squealed under the weight of mundane items: tires, a laptop computer, tubs of detergent and duffel bags crammed so tightly with food that tin cans bulged through the fabric.

The needs are acute in Eritrea, a narrow shard of sand and rock along the Red Sea that’s presided over by one of Africa’s most secretive regimes. As its quixotic experiment in economic self-reliance falters, the Ohio-sized country of 5 million has slipped into its deepest political isolation in its 16 years of independence.

Glorious vision in Kenya’s sky melts away

Mt. Kenya’s ice cap was so stunning that some began revering it as God’s home. But most of the shining glacier has now disappeared, robbing communities of water and leading to a crisis of faith.

By Edmund Sanders

November 10, 2009

Reporting from Muranga, Kenya – From a tree-shaded plateau facing Mt. Kenya, the worshipers gaze anxiously at its melting ice cap and wonder: Is God dead?

For 7 million Kenyans who rely on the runoff of Africa’s second-highest peak to survive, evaporating springs and dry riverbeds are making life harder. In the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, reduced melts have contributed to rolling blackouts when rivers fed by the mountain are unable to run hydroelectric plants.

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