Docudharma Times Thursday June 10

BP oil spill: US will ‘take action’ to stop BP dividend

The United States government has signalled it will take legal action to force BP to stop paying a dividend to shareholders in the latest in a series of attacks on the company by Barack Obama’s administration.

By Louise Armitstead, Myra Butterworth and Alastair Jamieson

Published: 7:39AM BST 10 Jun 2010  

Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli said the Justice Department was “planning to take action” when asked at a Congressional hearing if an injuction was being considered against BP to stop the payout amid anger over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Ken Salazar, the interior secretary, added that BP would be asked to compensate energy companies for losses if they had to make workers redundant because of a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling imposed in the wake of the leak.

Why it’s standing room only for World Cup VIPs

So many leaders have been invited to Saturday’s opening game that seats have run out

By Daniel Howden in Johannesburg

Thursday, 10 June 2010

The 10 stadiums are ready, the airports upgraded and even the high-speed Gautrain rail link passed a late fitness test this week. In fact, the only thing that isn’t finished ahead of tomorrow’s World Cup kick-off is the VIP seating plan for the opening ceremony at Johannesburg’s Soccer City stadium. And it could be the task that tests relations between the South African government and world football’s governing body, Fifa, to destruction.

It was Samuel Johnson who famously remarked that “patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels” and there will be plenty of them in attendance wrapping themselves in their respective flags.

USA

Increase in inspectors hasn’t kept pace with boom in offshore U.S. oil rigs and projects



By Juliet Eilperin and Steven Mufson

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Over the past quarter-century, oil companies have pushed the frontiers of offshore drilling, sharply stepping up the number of deep-water rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.

However, although the number of exploration rigs soared and the number of deep-water oil-producing projects grew more than tenfold from 1988 to 2008, the number of federal inspectors working for the Minerals Management Service has increased only 13 percent since 1985.

Green cards and other immigration benefits face fee hikes  

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will raise fees an average 10% to help close a projected $200-million budget deficit. The cost of citizenship applications will not increase.

By Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times

June 9, 2010 | 7:37 p.m.

The cost of obtaining a green card, business visa and other immigration benefits will increase an average 10% under a proposal announced Wednesday by federal immigration officials.

But in a move hailed by immigrant advocates, officials decided not to propose fee hikes for citizenship applications, one of the largest and most politically popular categories of immigration benefits. Citizenship fees were increased by nearly 70% to $675 in 2007, which immigrant advocates say contributed to a sharp drop in the number of citizenship applications over the last two years.

Europe

Gain for anti-Islam party in Dutch poll

Humiliating crash of Christian Democrat vote but no overall winner; free-market VVD and Labour parties increase seats and will dominate difficult and protracted coalition talks

Ian Traynor

The Guardian, Thursday 10 June 2010

The Netherlands’ anti-Islamic MP Geert Wilders appeared on course for major gains in a general election yesterday, more than doubling his party’s seats in the Dutch parliament and overtaking the incumbent ruling Christian Democrats, according to exit polls last night.

Wilders’ Freedom party looked to have taken third place in a close-fought election which in the end was tied between rightwing free-market liberals and the centre-left Labour Party, according to the projections.

Wilders, campaigning for a halt to Muslim immigration andmosque-building, and to a tax on Islamic head gear, increased his party’s seats from 9 to 23, according to exit polls.

Tenor’s story acclaimed by anti-abortion campaigners

Andrea Bocelli recounts how his mother decided not to terminate the pregnancy and the he was born

John Hooper in Rome

The Guardian, Thursday 10 June 2010

The anti-abortion movement was yesterday hailing the popular Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli as a hero after he described how his mother had rejected advice from her doctors to abort him.

Jason Jones, founder of the Los Angeles-based Human Rights, Education and Relief Organisation, said a video of the blind singer posted to the web by a supporter of his group in Italy was “one of the most beautiful, authentic things I’ve ever seen”.

Middle East

Tim Franks: Is he really biased against both sides in the Middle East?

The BBC’s man in Jerusalem and a practising Jew is stepping down. Ian Burrell hears him explain why

Thursday, 10 June 2010

The BBC Middle East correspondent Tim Franks will this morning bid his farewell to Jerusalem with an extraordinary broadcast on the difficulties he has faced in reporting the troubled region for the corporation as a practising Jew.

“The Middle East has become occluded by prejudice… too many people have unshakeable views of others,” says Franks forlornly in a special edition of From Our Own Correspondent, which is broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and the World Service.

Iran defiant after toughest UN sanctions

From Times Online

June 9, 2010



James Bone in New York and Hugh Tomlinson in Dubai  

Iran vowed to continue enriching uranium yesterday as the UN Security Council imposed its toughest sanctions yet in what could be its last chance to prevent the Islamic republic from acquiring a nuclear bomb.

China and Russia joined the majority vote of 12 in favour of the sanctions in the 15-nation council, but Lebanon abstained and Brazil and Turkey voted against.

“Nothing will change. The Islamic Republic of Iran will continue uranium enrichment activities,” said Ali Asghar Soltanieh, the Iranian envoy to the UN’s nuclear watchdog, after the vote.

Asia

Views of North Korea Show How a Policy Spread Misery



By SHARON LaFRANIERE

Published: June 9, 2010

YANJI, China – Like many North Koreans, the construction worker lived in penury. His state employer had not paid him for so long that he had forgotten his salary. Indeed, he paid his boss to be listed as a dummy worker so that he could leave his work site. Then he and his wife could scrape out a living selling small bags of detergent on the black market.It hardly seemed that life could get worse. And then, one Saturday afternoon last November, his sister burst into his apartment in Chongjin with shocking news: the North Korean government had decided to drastically devalue the nation’s currency. The family’s life savings, about $1,560, had been reduced to about $30.

India’s 2010 census considers taboo question: What’s your caste?

India abolished caste divisions decades ago, and now uses quotas to help bottom-caste members get jobs and education. Updating caste data in the 2010 census could help refine the quotas, but critics see it as a regressive step.

By Mian Ridge, Correspondent / June 9, 2010

New Delhi

Soma Maiti did not think that her caste was a big deal until she fell in love.

The Brahmin – a member of the caste at the top of Hinduism’s vast hierarchy – had always had friends from lower castes. Like most modern, urban Indians, she considered herself largely blind to the ancient system that for millenniums determined position in life in India.

But when the charity worker from West Bengal told her parents she wanted to marry a low-caste man, they were appalled.

Latin America

Colombian ex-army officer jailed for 1985 disappearances

Luis Alfonso Plazas sentenced to 30 years after 11 people were allegedly tortured and killed in Palace of Justice seizure  

Associated Press

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 10 June 2010 08.15 BST

A Colombian judge sentenced a retired army colonel to 30 years in prison yesterday for the disappearance of 11 people in 1985 when soldiers stormed the Palace of Justice to retake it from leftist guerrillas.

Retired colonel Luis Alfonso Plazas was the commander of the Bogotá cavalry school, which led the military assault on the rebels. He is the first officer to be convicted in the siege.

Rebels from the M-19 guerrilla group seized the palace on 6 November, 1985, taking hostages and demanding to hold a trial of then-president Belisario Betancur.

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