Docudharma Times Friday November 13

Afghan Enclave Offers Model to Rebuild, and Rebuff Taliban



By SABRINA TAVERNISE

Published: November 12, 2009

JURM, Afghanistan – Small grants given directly to villagers have brought about modest but important changes in this corner of Afghanistan, offering a model in a country where official corruption and a Taliban insurgency have frustrated many large-scale development efforts.Since arriving in Afghanistan in 2001, the United States and its Western allies have spent billions of dollars on development projects, but to less effect and popular support than many had hoped for.

Much of that money was funneled through the central government, which has been increasingly criticized as incompetent and corrupt.

In Canada, a Royal Yawn for Prince Charles



By IAN AUSTEN

Published: November 12, 2009

PETAWAWA, Ontario – As things now stand, when Prince Charles succeeds his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, his many roles will include being the king of Canada.

But as his 11-day tour of the country with the Duchess of Cornwall, his wife, drew to a sleepy close on Thursday, few Canadians seemed to be looking forward to the day when his face appears on their coins and their laws are proclaimed, as well as their criminals prosecuted, in his name.

The huge crowds that greeted Charles and Princess Diana during the 1980s were absent, frequently replaced by groups, like one at the airport near here, that could be measured by the dozens or, at one stop in Newfoundland, with the fingers of two hands.

USA

White House counsel poised to give up post

Tenure marked by struggles over closing Guantanamo

By Anne E. Kornblut and Ellen Nakashima

Washington Post Staff Writers

Friday, November 13, 2009

TOKYO — White House Counsel Gregory B. Craig is expected to announce his departure as early as Friday, people familiar with the situation said, ending an embattled tenure in which he struggled to lead the closure of the U.S. military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Craig will be replaced by Bob Bauer, a prominent Democratic lawyer who is Obama’s personal attorney.

The departure comes after months of dissatisfaction over Craig’s management of Guantanamo policy and other matters and less than a month after officials said Craig was no longer guiding the effort to close the prison. His departure represents the highest-level White House shake-up to date.

2 Japanese subs sunk after World War II found

The two submarines were among the most advanced of their time, but neither saw action in WWII. The U.S. captured the subs at war’s end and sank them off Oahu after gleaning their scientific secrets.

By Thomas H. Maugh II

November 13, 2009

U.S. researchers said Thursday that they have located the remains of two high-tech Japanese submarines that were scuttled by the U.S. Navy off Hawaii in 1946 to prevent the technology from falling into the hands of the Soviet Union at the beginning of the Cold War.

One of the craft was the largest non-nuclear sub ever built and had the ability to circle the globe 1 1/2 times without refueling. Called the I-14, the behemoth was 400 feet long and 40 feet high and carried a crew of 144. It was designed to launch two folding-wing bombers on kamikaze missions against U.S. cities such as New York and Washington, D.C., although changes in tactics, and the end of the war, prevented such attacks.

Europe

1930s journalist Gareth Jones to have story retold

Correspondent who exposed Soviet Ukraine’s manmade famine to be focus of new documentary

Mark Brown, arts correspondent

guardian.co.uk, Friday 13 November 2009

In death he has become known as “the man who knew too much” – a fearless young British reporter who walked from one desperate, godforsaken village to another exposing the true horror of a famine that was killing millions.

Gareth Jones’s accounts of what was happening in Soviet Ukraine in 1932-33 were different from other western accounts. Not only did he reveal the true extent of starvation, he reported on the Stalin regime’s failure to deliver aid while exporting grain to the west. The tragedy is now known as the Holodomar and regarded by Ukrainians as genocide.

Two years after the articles Jones was killed by Chinese bandits in Inner Mongolia – murdered, according to his family, in a Moscow plot as punishment.

Medvedev promises new era for Russian democracy

President uses State of the Nation address to deliver damning verdict on country and unveil blueprint for reform

By Shaun Walker in Moscow

Friday, 13 November 2009

In his biggest speech since taking office yesterday, President Dmitry Medvedev laid out a harsh critique of the state of Russia and unveiled a blueprint for its reform.

The way forward for Russia was for its economy to become modern, hi-tech and innovative, the President said in his annual State of the Nation address. He promised to jail corrupt officials and promote innovative businesses that would be the catalyst of modernisation. Russia had fallen behind, he said, due to its over-reliance on the export of natural resources.

Asia

General who beat Tamil Tigers quits to challenge the President

Fonseka resigns amid talk of push to contest April elections

By Andrew Buncombe, Asia Correspondent

Friday, 13 November 2009

The Sri Lankan general who oversaw the successful military operation to crush the Tamil Tigers has resigned from his post amid mounting speculation that he is to challenge the country’s powerful President at the ballot box.

General Sarath Fonseka yesterday confirmed that he had stood down from his position as chief of the defence staff but declined to detail his future plans. “I gave my retirement papers,” the general told reporters after performing religious rituals at a Buddhist temple near Colombo. “I have been serving my country in the past and I will serve the country in future as well.”

Pakistan spy agency struck by militants in Peshawar ‘

From Times Online

November 13, 2009

Times Online

A suicide car-bomber destroyed an office of Pakistan’s main intelligence agency in the northwestern city of Peshawar earlier today, killing at least eight people and wounding over 30.

Militants have stepped up attacks on security forces including a commando-style raid and hostage-taking at the army’s headquarters in Rawalpindi last month.

The frontier city of Peshawar has been targeted several times since the army began an offensive against the militants in the South Waziristan region on the Afghan border on October 17.

“It was the biggest explosion I’ve ever heard,” said Asad Ali, a Peshawar resident.

Middle East

Iranian doctor Arash Hejazi who tried to rescue Neda Soltan tells of wounds that never heal

From The Times

November 13, 2009

Martin Fletcher

As Arash Hejazi sat in an Oxford coffee bar, members of Iran’s Basij militia in Tehran were demanding his extradition outside the British Embassy.

The previous day the Iranian regime had sent an Oxford college a letter of protest over a scholarship given to honour Neda Soltan, the student killed during a huge demonstration against electoral fraud in Tehran in June. The letter also suggested that Dr Hejazi was responsible for her murder.

For Dr Hejazi, who had tried to save Ms Soltan’s life, that was the final straw.

Israel challenged on Gazan’s ejection from West Bank

Student’s case comes as Netanyahu talks of easing restrictions

By Howard Schneider

Washington Post Foreign Service

Friday, November 13, 2009  

JERUSALEM — Gaza-born Berlanty Azzam, 21, was two months from receiving her bachelor’s degree from Bethlehem University when the past caught up with her.

During a routine stop at a West Bank checkpoint on Oct. 28, an Israeli guard noticed Gaza City as the town of residence on her ID, placed her under arrest for being in the West Bank without permission and, within hours, had her deported back to the Gaza Strip, blindfolded briefly and in handcuffs.

Latin America

Brazil celebrates 45% reduction in Amazon deforestation

 A police offensive and the global economic crisis have combined to produce the largest fall in more than 20 years

 Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro

guardian.co.uk, Friday 13 November 2009

The Brazilian government yesterday announced a “historic” drop in the deforestation of the Amazon, weeks before world leaders meet in Copenhagen for climate change talks.

Brazilian authorities said that between August 2008 and July this year, deforestation in the world’s largest tropical rainforest fell by the largest amount in more than 20 years, dropping by 45% from nearly 13,000 square kilometres to around 7,000 square kilometres (5,000 square miles to 2,700 square miles).

“It is an excellent figure – a historic result,” the environment minister, Carlos Minc, said in the capital, Brasilia.

“It is a substantial drop,” said the head of Brazil’s Space Institute, Gilberto Câmara, according to the government news provider Agência Brasil. He claimed it was the most significant cut in deforestation since his institute started monitoring rainforest destruction with satellite technology in 1988.

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