Docudharma Times Monday January 4

Homeowners forced to buy flood insurance after FEMA redraws maps

It’s part of an ongoing effort to update the list of high-risk areas. But the changes have met with resistance from tens of thousands of Southern California residents now being forced to buy coverage.

By Catherine Saillant

January 4, 2010

Tens of thousands of homeowners in Southern California are being forced to buy costly flood insurance because new maps issued by a federal agency say they live in a high-risk flood area.

The federal government has informed property owners in more than 150 cities and unincorporated areas in Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Riverside and San Bernardino counties about the new requirement. Most live near rivers and creeks, below dams or in low- lying areas that are at greater risk of flooding than previously believed, according to maps developed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Environmental Refugees Unable to Return Home



By JOANNA KAKISSIS

Published: January 3, 2010

DHAKA, BANGLADESH – Mahe Noor left her village in southern Bangladesh after Cyclone Sidr flattened her family’s home and small market in 2007. Jobless and homeless, she and her husband, Nizam Hawladar, moved to this crowded megalopolis, hoping that they might soon return home.

Two years later, they are still here. Ms. Noor, 25, and Mr. Hawladar, 35, work long hours at low-paying jobs – she at a garment factory and he at a roadside tea stall. They are unable to save money after paying for food and rent on their dark shanty in Korail, one of the largest slums in Dhaka. And in their village, more people are leaving because of river erosion and dwindling job opportunities.

USA

Use of potentially harmful chemicals kept secret under law



By Lyndsey Layton

Monday, January 4, 2010

Of the 84,000 chemicals in commercial use in the United States — from flame retardants in furniture to household cleaners — nearly 20 percent are secret, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, their names and physical properties guarded from consumers and virtually all public officials under a little-known federal provision.

The policy was designed 33 years ago to protect trade secrets in a highly competitive industry. But critics — including the Obama administration — say the secrecy has grown out of control, making it impossible for regulators to control potential dangers or for consumers to know which toxic substances they might be exposed to.

TSA tries to assuage full-body scan concerns

 As authorities work to close security gaps, they also face privacy questions

By Philip Rucker

Already shoeless, beltless and waterless, more beleaguered air passengers will be holding their legs apart, raising their arms and effectively baring it all as they pass through U.S. airport security checkpoints.

Add the “full-body scan” to the list of indignities that some travelers are confronting in the post-Sept. 11, 2001, era of vigilance.

Federal authorities, working to close security gaps exposed by the thwarted Christmas Day terrorist attack on a Detroit-bound airliner, are multiplying the number of imaging machines at the nation’s biggest airports. The devices scan passengers’ bodies and produce X-ray-like images that can reveal objects concealed beneath clothes.

Middle east

Iraq will help Blackwater victims sue



Reuters, Baghdad

guardian.co.uk, Sunday 3 January 2010 21.50 GMT

Iraq will help victims of the 2007 shooting of civilians in Baghdad to file a lawsuit in the US against employees of security firm Blackwater, an incident that turned a spotlight on the United States’ use of private contractors in war zones.

Last week, a US judge threw out charges against five guards accused of killing 14 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, saying the defendants’ constitutional rights had been violated.

Iraq called that decision “unacceptable and unjust” and, as well as supporting a lawsuit brought by Iraqis wounded in the shooting and families of those killed, it will ask the US justice department to review the criminal case, a government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, said .

Records fall as world’s tallest building opens

Dubai tower also has the most stories – and the highest observation deck

Associated Press  

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Dubai is set to open the world’s tallest building amid tight security on Monday, celebrating the tower as a bold feat on the world stage despite the city state’s shaky financial footing.

But the final height of the Burj Dubai – Arabic for Dubai Tower – remained a closely guarded secret on the eve of its opening. At more than 2,625 feet, it long ago vanquished its nearest rival, the Taipei 101 in Taiwan.

The Burj’s record-seeking developers didn’t stop there.

The building boasts the most stories and highest occupied floor of any building in the world, and ranks as the world’s tallest structure, beating out a television mast in North Dakota. Its observation deck – on floor 124 – also sets a record.

Europe

Professional models barred from German magazine

‘Brigitte’ recruits ordinary women to star in its fashion shoots

By Tony Paterson in Berlin Monday, 4 January 2010

Normally she teaches history at a Hamburg grammar school, but elaborately made up to look like Marlene Dietrich and wearing a €480 (£425) silk dress, Sybille Zschaber was yesterday all over the fashion pages of Germany’s most popular women’s magazine as it began its ban on professional models.

The 29-year-old blonde teacher was among a cast of more than six “normal women” selected by the mass circulation middle-market Brigitte to pose for its January fashion feature following an editorial pledge by the magazine to keep controversial size-zero models off its pages.

French clubbers win the right to party all night long

From The Times

January 4, 2010

Adam Sage in Paris

France may be famous for its joie de vivre, but night-clubbers say that it has become the dullest country in Europe, with French dance-floors shutting long before those of neighbouring countries.

Now the Government is seeking to end France’s reputation as le capital de l’ennui by allowing discothèques to stay open until 7am.

Ministers said that their aim was to harmonise closing times across France, which had previously been set by local authorities, and to bring them into line with those of other European countries.

The decree – introduced for New Year’s Eve – was welcomed by discothèque owners, who complain that closures as early as 4am have resulted in a loss of custom to rivals in Spain, Italy, Belgium, Germany and even Britain. Many hope to boost their takings by serving coffee and croissants to revellers before they head home.

Asia

Afghan parliament wins kudos for blocking Karzai appointees



By Roy Gutman | McClatchy Newspapers

KABUL, Afghanistan – Parliament’s refusal to approve more than two-thirds of the proposed Afghan cabinet shows the extent to which President Hamid Karzai’s recent fraud-tainted election victory had left him severely weakened, lawmakers of all political stripes said Sunday.

National assembly members said they were receiving nonstop phone calls of congratulations for their decision Saturday to reject 17 out of 24 ministers Karzai had proposed.

“I had two Afghan expatriates call and ask what could they do to strengthen the parliament,” said Mirwais Yasini, the first deputy speaker, who himself had run against Karzai in August’s disputed elections. “They’re saying: ‘Good for you.'”

What’s behind North Korea’s new ‘peace offensive’?

 While North Korea’s New Year’s reconciliation message may be a sign of its willingness to return to six-party talks, it bears no clue as to whether the North would give up its nuclear program before attaining a number of other goals.

By Donald Kirk Correspondent / January 3, 2010

Washington

North Korea is in the throes of a new “peace offensive” that analysts say could lead to the resumption of six-party talks on its nuclear program.

The North Korean regime kicked off the offensive with a carefully modulated New Year’s message of reconciliation with the US that appears as a follow-up to US envoy Stephen Bosworth’s mission to Pyongyang in early December.

The statement calls for establishing “a lasting peace system on the Korean peninsula” in order to “make it nuclear-free through dialogue,” and it contains none of the invective or recriminations that often characterize North Korea’s statements regarding the US. Rather, it advocates for “an end to the hostile relationship” with the US while asking North Koreans “to defend with our very lives the leadership” of Kim Jong-il.

As if to provide sound effects for the message, about 100,000 people demonstrated in Pyongyang on Saturday, shouting support for the regime’s New Year’s policies, according to Yonhap, the South Korean news agency.

Africa

Kenyan tribe slowly driven off its ancestral lands

First it was colonists who put the Ogiek on reserves in Mau Forest. After freedom corrupt officials drove them out as they set up farms. Now a reforestation effort has forced them even farther away.

 By Robyn Dixon

January 4, 2010

Mau Forest, Kenya – For centuries, the little-known Ogiek people foraged wild honey and used bows and arrows to hunt gazelles in the Mau Forest of Kenya.

But recently, for the second time in 16 years, they were driven from their homes and are now living in makeshift bamboo-and-plastic tents at the side of the road in a valley that long ago was part of the forest.

Their plight casts a focus on Kenya’s endemic corruption and its potentially catastrophic effect on a small, powerless tribe, and the rest of the nation.

We have been beaten in jail, say first openly gay couple in Malawi

From The Times

January 4, 2010

Raphael Tenthani in Malawi and Valentine Low

Since they became the first openly gay couple in Malawi to be engaged, Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza have been arrested, put in prison and charged with offences that could lead to a 14-year jail sentence.

Between true love and gay martyrdom, however, is the brutal reality of life in a Malawi prison. Yesterday, in their first interview since being jailed, the pair claimed that they had been beaten in prison, and demanded to go to court to prove their innocence.

While Mr Chimbalanga, 20, who dresses as a woman, spoke defiantly of his love for the man he plans to marry, Mr Monjeza, 22, said that he was “drunk” when they met and was considering ending their engagement.

Latin America

South America: Media has become a political battleground

From Argentina to Venezuela, governments have identified the media as a political obstacle

Rory Carroll

The Guardian, Monday 4 January 2010

Television networks, radio stations and newspapers have become political battlegrounds pitting media owners and journalists against governments in South America. Charismatic presidents in the Andean states, and in Argentina, have identified the media as a principal obstacle to their efforts to transform the region. The subjects of clashes range from Caribbean slums, where journalists are accused of exaggerating crime, to icy Patagonian resorts, where they are accused of confecting corruption scandals.

South America’s media war started, and remains most intense, in Venezuela. When Hugo Chávez swept to power a decade ago, promising to oust discredited elites, the media feted him. But they turned with a vengeance and backed a coup that briefly ousted him in 2002.

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