Docudharma Times Thursday February 14

This is an Open Thread:

London calling to the faraway towns

Now that war is declared-and battle come down

London calling to the underworld

Come out of the cupboard, all you boys and girls

Thursday’s Headlines: Obama’s Lead in Delegates Shifts Focus of Campaign: Baseball star caught in ‘drug lie’ duel: Police left Ramos-Horta to bleed: brother :S. Korea Mourns Landmark Lost to Arson : China feels heat as activists take their cue from Spielberg: Serbia appeals to security council as Kosovo prepares to go it alone: Georgian billionaire declared ‘enemy of the state’ is found dead in Surrey exile: : Robert Fisk: Bloody end of man who made kidnapping a weapon of war: Chad vows raids ‘to seek rebels’

Candidates’ Earmarks Worth Millions

Of Front-Runners, McCain Abstained

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton helped secure more than $340 million worth of home-state projects in last year’s spending bills, placing her among the top 10 Senate recipients of what are commonly known as earmarks, according to a new study by a nonpartisan budget watchdog group

Working with her New York colleagues in nearly every case, Clinton supported almost four times as much spending on earmarked projects as her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), whose $91 million total placed him in the bottom quarter of senators who seek earmarks, the study showed.

Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the likely GOP presidential nominee, was one of five senators to reject earmarks entirely, part of his long-standing view that such measures prompt needless spending.

USA

Obama’s Lead in Delegates Shifts Focus of Campaign

WASHINGTON – Senator Barack Obama emerged from Tuesday’s primaries leading Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton by more than 100 delegates, a small but significant advantage that Democrats said would be difficult for Mrs. Clinton to make up in the remaining contests in the presidential nomination battle.

Neither candidate is expected to win the 2,025 pledged delegates needed to claim the nomination by the time the voting ends in June. But Mr. Obama’s campaign began making a case in earnest on Wednesday that if he maintained his edge in delegates won in primaries and caucuses, he would have the strongest claim to the backing of the 796 elected Democrats and party leaders known as superdelegates who are free to vote as they choose and who now stand to determine the outcome.

Baseball star caught in ‘drug lie’ duel

Roger Clemens is used to handling pressure as one of the greatest baseball pitchers of all time. But the former New York Yankees player came under greater scrutiny yesterday than he ever has on the pitcher’s mound.

The burly sports star clashed in a televised congressional hearing with the former trainer who claims that he used steroids and human growth hormone (HGH) to boost his performance.

The showdown was as intensely watched as any pitching duel in a World Series game. Clemens and his accuser, Brian McNamee, each gave sworn testimony that directly contradicted each other. “Let me be clear, I have never taken steroids or HGH,” Clemens told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Asia-Pacific

Police left Ramos-Horta to bleed: brother

United Nations police were “bloody cowards” who left East Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta lying bleeding outside his house for nearly 30 minutes after he’d been shot, says the President’s younger brother.

Arsenio Ramos Horta said he cradled his brother’s body, trying to stem the bleeding from his bullet wounds, as he waited more than 20 minutes for an ambulance.

But a road block thrown up by the UN police stopped medical teams from getting to the stricken President.

“When the shooting started the police put the road block up, and they wouldn’t put the people in, and they needed to go to rescue the President right away. That’s what went wrong,” he said.

Asia

S. Korea Mourns Landmark Lost to Arson

Grief, Anger and Recrimination Follow Destruction of Seoul’s Treasured 14th-Century Gate

SEOUL, Feb. 13 — To appreciate the fury that has gripped South Korea since Sunday, imagine this:

The Alamo (or Independence Hall or the Old North Church) is set afire. There is live prime-time coverage on national television. Firefighters rush to the scene but dither for more than an hour before spraying any water. As the irreplaceable goes up in smoke, firemen argue jurisdictional niceties with government preservationists.

China feels heat as activists take their cue from Spielberg

Focus on Darfur as human rights campaigners salute film director and vow to target main sponsors of the games

The Chinese authorities yesterday received an uncomfortable preview of the scrutiny and criticism likely to accompany the Beijing Olympics this summer as human rights groups hailed Steven Spielberg’s withdrawal from his role as an artistic adviser to the games.

Campaign groups vowed to turn their attention to the major Olympic sponsors and other high-profile supporters of the games as they celebrated the international reaction to Spielberg’s decision.

The director stepped down from his role as artistic adviser to Beijing late on Tuesday, citing his opposition to China’s support for the Sudanese regime responsible for the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. He accused China of not doing enough to press Sudan to end the “continuing human suffering” in the troubled region. China imports two-thirds of Sudan’s oil and in return is said to be the African country’s biggest arms supplier.

Europe

Serbia appeals to security council as Kosovo prepares to go it alone

The battle over Kosovo’s independence entered its endgame yesterday with Serbia calling for an emergency meeting of the UN security council as the province’s leader declared that the final preparations for statehood had been completed.

Serbia’s foreign minister, Vuk Jeremic, is expected in New York today to ask security council members not to recognise the province – seen as a breakaway from Serbia – if it declares independence, as expected, early next week.

Russia expressed its support for the emergency session. However, western diplomats said the debate would not postpone Kosovo’s declaration.

In Pristina, Kosovo’s prime minister, Hashim Thaci, said yesterday: “The Kosovo issue has already left the security council building.” He told the Guardian: “The flag is ready. The constitution is ready.” Both Kosovo’s new flag and constitution have been the subject of prolonged secret discussion in Pristina.

Georgian billionaire declared ‘enemy of the state’ is found dead in Surrey exile

By Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor

Thursday, 14 February 2008

Badri Patarkatsishvili, an exiled billionaire considered an “enemy of the state” in his native Georgia, has died in his Surrey mansion of a suspected heart attack, two months after accusing Georgian authorities of plotting his murder.

Surrey police said they were treating the death as “suspicious” and ordered a post-mortem examination. Mr Patarkatsishvili, who challenged the Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili in last month’s presidential election, was based in Britain after having his assets frozen in Georgia, where he faced charges of attempting to mount a coup against the president.

It is the second time in just over a year that British police have been brought in to investigate the death of a man with links to leading Russian dissidents in London, following the murder of the former KGB security agent Alexander Litvinenko, who died of radiation poisoning in a London hospital.

Africa

Chad vows raids ‘to seek rebels’

Chad’s government says it will continue house-to-house searches to seek rebels in the capital following a coup attempt earlier this month.

A BBC correspondent says the raids have terrorised parts of N’Djamena.

Interior Minister Mahamat Ahmat Bachir was speaking after dozens of alleged rebels, many of them children, were paraded in front of journalists.

He also reportedly said an enquiry had begun into the whereabouts of three missing opposition leaders.

The three, who include former President Lol Mahamat Choua, disappeared while rebels were attacking the city.

The opposition say they were seized by government soldiers but the government says they went missing from parts of the city controlled by the rebels, AFP news agency reported.

Middle East

Robert Fisk: Bloody end of man who made kidnapping a weapon of war

It wasn’t the staring eyes, nor the way he picked up an apple in front of me and cut it open with such careful deliberation. It was the vice-like handshake, the steely grip that made my fingers hurt. “Imad Mougnieh,” he said, as if to show he wasn’t on the run, wasn’t afraid to use his real name.

Yes, he said, he was a “member of Islamic Jihad” – I knew very well he was the leader of the organisation, that he had arranged the kidnapping of so many Western hostages in Beirut – but he was in Tehran, in the upper floor of a luxury hotel. Safe from his enemies – but then again, that’s probably what he thought when he climbed into his car in Damascus on Tuesday night.

Thousands of New Prisoners Overwhelm Iraqi System

BAGHDAD – The increase in American troops in Iraq over the past year has been accompanied by waves of new Iraqi detainees, inundating the country’s already overburdened prisons and courts, American officials said Wednesday.

American advisers say Iraq’s nascent justice system does not have enough prison beds, investigative judges or lawyers to absorb the thousands of suspects that have been detained since last summer by the augmented American and Iraqi security forces. More than half of the 26,000 prisoners are still awaiting trial, and some have languished for years, American officials said.

Latin America

Mexican Rights Panel Called ‘Disappointing’

Report Cites Lack of Focus on Military

TIJUANA, Mexico, Feb. 13 — A leading U.S. human rights group said Wednesday that Mexico’s national human rights commission fails to press the military to end abusive practices and “has helped create an atmosphere of distrust.”

In a 128-page report released in Mexico City, the New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch concluded that Mexico’s commission “is failing to live up to its promise” and is “tolerating abusive practices.” The report said the commission “has been disappointing,” despite having a $73 million annual budget and 1,000 employees, making it “by far the largest of any ombudsman’s office in the Americas and one of the largest in the world.”