Docudharma Times Saturday February 6

Tea Party turns nasty: ‘It’s our country – let’s take it back’

From The Times

February 6, 2010

Tim Reid in Nashville

They will proudly boast of how they have galvanised ordinary Americans against runaway government spending, but a dark underbelly of xenophobia has been exposed at the first national gathering of the Tea Party movement.

Here in the vast Gaylord resort in Nashville, where 600 members of the conservative grassroots phenomenon that exploded in revolt against President Obama’s economic policies have gathered, it would be advisable not to wear a T-shirt declaring “I am an illegal immigrant”.

The anti-Government, anti-Establishment movement, which has splintered in the past week with many boycotting this gathering, has billed itself as a revolution born of the widespread disgust at Washington and the way that the nation’s politicians are bankrupting America’s future.

Why do losers keep gambling? Brain to blame

Study show near-wins trick people into trying again and again

LiveScience  

Betting on the Super Bowl, roulette, or even online poker can be thrilling, and with the advent of online gambling, it’s easier than ever before. Yet winning and losing can have unexpected effects on the brain that keep people coming back for more, scientists are finding.

Gamblers sink an increasing sum of money into their efforts to win. Over the last 20 years legalized betting has grown tremendously; it’s now a $100 billion industry. More than 65 percent of Americans gamble, according to Gallup’s annual Lifestyle Poll conducted last year, and up to 5 percent of those betters develop an addiction to the activity.”For most individuals, gambling is enjoyable and harmless, but for others, it is as destructive as being addicted to drugs,” said Catharine Winstanley, an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia’s Department of Psychology.

USA

Sarah Palin, Vocal and Ready … but for What?



By MARK LEIBOVICH

Published: February 5, 2010

WASHINGTON – Without leaving home, Sarah Palin will be able to reach much of her political base, courtesy of a soon-to-be-built television studio in her living room paid for by her newest media patron, Fox News. From her house in Wasilla, Alaska, Ms. Palin also sends missives to 1.3 million Facebook “fans,” writes newspaper columns, Tweets and signs copies of her book for donors.

She reads daily e-mail briefings on domestic and foreign policy from a small group of advisers who remained loyal after her tumultuous vice presidential campaign in 2008. And though she has fashioned an image as an antiestablishment conservative, she also speaks regularly to a bipartisan nobility of Washington insiders who have helped enrich her financially and position her on the national political stage.

Paulson’s book details GE chief’s private concerns in 2008 over company’s debt



By Jeff Gerth

ProPublica

Saturday, February 6, 2010

As the financial crisis worsened toward the end of 2008, chief executive Jeffrey Immelt and other leaders at General Electric repeatedly assured the public there was no need to worry about the company’s ability to access credit markets and refinance its massive debts as they came due.

But in private conversations that alarmed then-Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., Immelt laid out a different picture of GE’s credit situation, according to Paulson’s new book about the crisis.

Instead, Paulson writes, Immelt on at least four occasions expressed worries about GE’s short-term debt, known as commercial paper, and eventually lobbied for access to special government guarantees for such debt.

Middle East

Iran says ‘final’ deal on uranium exchange is near

• Foreign minister hints at terms west may reject

• China threatens to block UN sanctions on Iran

Julian Borger, diplomatic editor

The Guardian, Saturday 6 February 2010

Iran’s foreign minister claimed last night that his country was “approaching a final agreement” on a uranium exchange proposal, but hinted at conditions that may make it unacceptable to the west.

Manouchehr Mottaki was talking about a deal made in principle last October to swap most of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile for fuel rods. The agreement appeared to unravel at the end of last year, amid bitter disagreements in Tehran.

Speaking at a security conference in Munich last night, however, Mottaki said: “I personally believe we have created conducive ground for such an exchange in the not very distant future.

Lebanese fear stall in tribunal on Hariri slaying



By BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press Writer

BEIRUT – The head of the international tribunal on the assassination of Lebanon’s former prime minister sought to reassure Lebanese this week that the investigation is on track, but there are growing concerns here that work is languishing in the case.

For supporters of the slain former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the court is their key to hopes for uncovering who was behind the February 2005 suicide truck bombing that killed him. Many Lebanese accuse neighboring Syria.

Syria denies any involvement, but the killing led to the withdrawal of Syrian troops and the end of Damascus’ 29-year domination of the country. That opened the door to a still unresolved struggle for power between Syrian-backed Lebanese led by Hezbollah and pro-Western factions.Hariri’s supporters and their allies are preparing for a mass rally in downtown Beirut on Feb. 14 to mark the fifth anniversary of Hariri’s assassination. In the past years hundreds of thousands of people took part in the rally.

Europe

Leading article: The eurozone faces its most difficult test yet

Policymakers must address the central problem of credibility

Saturday, 6 February 2010

The European single currency has entered the stormiest seas it has yet experienced. Sovereign debt anxiety is swelling among global investors. There have been mounting fears over the soundness of Greek debt for several months. And this week those fears spread to encompass the borrowings of Spain and Portugal. Some suggest that the euro ship itself could capsize if this weather gets much worse.

It is important to recognise that, while several European nations have weak public finances, Greece has exceptional problems. Athens’ budget deficit is abnormally large, as is its stock of debt. And the European Commission discovered recently that the Greek government had been engaged in dishonest accounting to disguise the scale of its liabilities.

Ukraine’s presidential showdown in danger of erupting on streets

From The Times

February 6, 2010

Tony Halpin in Kiev

The bitter rivals to become President of Ukraine staged their final election rallies last night amid rising fears that the contest will boil over into a challenge for power on the streets.

With tensions soaring ahead of tomorrow’s election, evidence mounted that Yuliya Tymoshenko, the firebrand heroine of the 2004 Orange revolution, and her arch rival, the pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych, were mobilising supporters for demonstrations after the result is declared.

Alarm is growing that the loser will refuse to accept defeat and take to the streets to protest alleged vote fraud, plunging the country of 46 million people into fresh political turmoil.

Ms Tymoshenko, the Prime Minister, has threatened to launch a second Orange revolution against what she says is a plot by her opponent to rig the ballot.

Asia

Transatlantic, meet Pacific: China’s bold stance at Munich security conference

In front of 300 diplomats, including senior US officials, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said the US was violating international law by a proposed arms sale to Taiwan, and defended Chinese TV and radio as more reliable than Western media.

By Robert Marquand Staff writer / February 5, 2010

Munich, Germany

Today Chinese foreign minister Yang Jiechi, speaking with unusual bluntness in front of 300 leading diplomats – including senior US officials – here in Munich publicly stated that China is getting stronger on the international stage. He said the US was violating international law by a proposed arms sale to Taiwan, offered that China’s TV and radio news service contains “more solid” and reliable news than Western media, and that China is not ready to address sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program, stating instead that the Islamic Republic “has not totally closed the door on the IAEA.”

Transatlantic – meet the Pacific.

Foreign Minister Yang is the first Chinese official to speak at the annual Munich Security Conference, the premier transatlantic security meeting, in its 46 year history. He turned heads in the group at a time when the People’s Republic and the US have come to loggerheads over Taiwan arms sales, Internet freedom, currency rates, and climate policy coming out of the Copenhagen meeting in December.

Desperation fuels North Korea’s leniency

Feb 6, 2010

By Donald Kirk  

SEOUL – Score one for the great North Korean propaganda machine.

American missionary Robert Park walked across the frozen Tumen River from China into North Korea on Christmas Eve bringing “Christ’s love and forgiveness” to Dear Leader Kim Jong-il, and now he is to go home thankful for the “love” he got from the North Koreans.

The saga of the 28-year-old Korean-American missionary, the son of Korean parents living in Tucson, Arizona, is the latest surprise in the stop-go signals emanating from North Korea as the country undergoes the trauma of revulsion against currency reform and a power struggle among the elite.

Just how far Park got with his message is unclear, but the North Koreans appear to have adroitly picked up on the theme – and put it in reverse. They are sending Park home full of thanks for the folks in Pyongyang for having been “incredibly kind and generous here to me, very concerned for my physical health as never before in my life”.

Africa

Former leader Nelson Mandela retraces steps of his Long Walk to Freedom

From The Times

February 6, 2010

Jonathan Clayton in Johannesburg

Nelson Mandela will return next week to the prison from which he walked free after 27 years behind bars for fighting the apartheid regime.

The former President, now a frail 91 years old, will mark the twentieth anniversary next Thursday of the day that he left Victor Verster prison, renamed Groot Drakenstein, and took the first steps to his election four years later with a re-enactment of that iconic event.

Yesterday Fikile Mbalula, the Deputy Police Minister, announced Mr Mandela’s participation, putting an end to speculation that he was in such poor health that he was in no condition to travel.

Mr Mandela’s former wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, who walked out with him to freedom on February 11, 1990, will lead a 500-yard symbolic march along the same route.

Latin America

Missionaries turn on their leader over ‘kidnapping’ of Haiti children

Charity head from Idaho had debt problems and faced legal action

By Guy Adams in Los Angeles Saturday, 6 February 2010

The leader of the Baptist missionaries from Idaho charged with trying to remove 33 Haitian children from the country illegally knew many of the so-called “orphans” still had living parents or other close relatives but tried to move them over the border anyway, her own lawyer, Edwin Coq, has claimed.

Laura Silsby, among the 10 Americans now in custody in Port-au-Prince, where they are accused of “child kidnapping and criminal association,” deliberately ignored the lack of correct paperwork to enable her to bring the youngsters into the Dominican Republic legally, he said.

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