Docudharma Times Sunday February 17

This is an Open Thread:

Look at us- but don’t look at us in disgust

Because you know the reality and it’s time to adjust

Sunday’s Headlines: CIA’s ambitious post-9/11 spy plan crumbles: ’80s rules reform skews Democrats’ nominee process: Europe :Kosovo gears up for independence: Trafficked children ‘sent back to gangs’: Asia: An extraordinary encounter with Musharraf: China repents and seeks to woo Pope: Middle East: Israel kills terror chief with headrest bomb: Army intervenes in Beirut clashes: Africa: South Africa battles national identity crisis: Bush defends his decision to skirt Africa’s hot spots: Latin America: ‘Suitcase-gate’ gives cop her 15 minutes

Justice Official Defends Rough CIA Interrogations

Severe, Lasting Pain Is Torture, He Says

The Bush administration allowed CIA interrogators to use tactics that were “quite distressing, uncomfortable, even frightening,” as long as they did not cause enough severe and lasting pain to constitute illegal torture, a senior Justice Department official said last week.

In testimony before a House subcommittee, Steven G. Bradbury, the acting chief of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, spelled out how the administration regulated the CIA’s use of rough tactics and offered new details of how simulated drowning was used to compel disclosures by prisoners suspected of being al-Qaeda members.

USA

CIA’s ambitious post-9/11 spy plan crumbles

The agency spent millions setting up front companies overseas to snag terrorists. Officials now say the bogus firms were ill-conceived and not close enough to Muslim enclaves.

WASHINGTON — The CIA set up a network of front companies in Europe and elsewhere after the Sept. 11 attacks as part of a constellation of “black stations” for a new generation of spies, according to current and former agency officials.

But after spending hundreds of millions of dollars setting up as many as 12 of the companies, the agency shut down all but two after concluding they were ill-conceived and poorly positioned for gathering intelligence on the CIA’s principal targets: terrorist groups and unconventional weapons proliferation networks.

The closures were a blow to two of the CIA’s most pressing priorities after the 2001 terrorist attacks: expanding its overseas presence and changing the way it deploys spies.

The companies were the centerpiece of an ambitious plan to increase the number of case officers sent overseas under what is known as “nonofficial cover,” meaning they would pose as employees of investment banks, consulting firms or other fictitious enterprises with no apparent ties to the U.S. government.

’80s rules reform skews Democrats’ nominee process

Changes have left uncertainty

WASHINGTON – At 5 a.m. on June 25, 1988, after five days of tense negotiations, officials from the presidential campaigns of Michael Dukakis and Jesse Jackson emerged from the library of a Washington law firm with an agreement.

The team had reworked the rules for picking a Democratic Party nominee, creating an elaborate framework for selecting delegates based on proportion of votes in states and congressional districts, with an additional role played by party elders.

The guidelines hammered out by the two campaigns assured peace between the Jackson and Dukakis camps at that summer’s convention in Atlanta. But now, as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama fight down to the last delegate, changes that were meant to make the nomination process more inclusive and ultimately more conclusive may be accomplishing neither goal.

Europe

Kosovo gears up for independence

Celebrations have begun in Kosovo’s capital, Pristina, ahead of an expected declaration of independence.

Tens of thousands of Kosovans have been dancing in the streets, setting off fireworks and waving Albanian flags.

The US and a number of EU countries support the move, which is opposed by Serbia and its ally Russia.

Speaking in Tanzania on Sunday, President George W Bush said he was in favour of a UN plan that envisages a supervised independence for Kosovo.

Trafficked children ‘sent back to gangs’

Charity’s alarm as youngsters slip through Britain’s protection system

Trafficked children rescued in the UK face being recycled into a life of further financial and sexual exploitation because of alarming gaps in the child protection system, according to one of Britain’s leading charities.

The NSPCC has said that it fears some victims are ‘disappearing’ back into the black economy or are being returned overseas where they risk falling into the hands of criminal gangs.

The charity has also expressed alarm that government agencies often don’t believe trafficked children are minors and instead treat them as adults – which means they can be ejected from the UK more easily. ‘We have concrete concerns that children are being dealt with inappropriately and are at risk of going missing or being returned without proper risk assessments,’ said Zoe Hilton, policy adviser with the NSPCC.

‘Within the system there seems to be a culture of disbelief,’ Hilton said. ‘Often there is a presumption that separated children are over 18. It’s hard to say whether there’s a conspiracy, but it feels like the odds are stacked against them.’

Asia

An extraordinary encounter with Musharraf

As Pakistan votes tomorrow in its postponed elections, Jemima Khan is granted a rare interview with Pervez Musharraf, the country’s beleaguered leader

‘Since you were so kind as to greet us in London at Downing Street last month, the President would like to return the favour,” announces Major-General Rashid Qureshi, President Pervez Musharraf’s PR man over the phone. Only in Pakistan could the government’s head of spin be a retired major-general. He is referring to my last encounter with the President on 28 January – when, along with a 2,000-strong, placard-waving, slogan-jeering mob, I protested on the main road outside 10 Downing Street while Musharraf discussed democracy with Gordon Brown over lunch inside. On the way in he waved at us. Clearly he’s a man who is not afraid of confrontation. Much to the justifiable fury of every journalist in Islamabad, he has now granted me an exclusive half-hour interview despite or perhaps because of the fact that I have recently described him as one of the most repressive dictators Pakistan has ever known.

China repents and seeks to woo Pope

TEMPTED by the prize of a historic visit to China by Pope Benedict XVI, the nation’s leaders have authorised a renewed effort in confidential discussions with the Vatican to heal their rift and inaugurate diplomatic ties.

The talks have intensified over recent months, leading some diplomatic observers in Beijing to believe the Chinese may be seeking to announce a deal before the Olympic Games in August.

Liu Bainian, the de facto head of Beijing’s official Patriotic Church, has said on several occasions that he would like to welcome the Pope to China once an agreement has been reached.

While the Vatican says it has received no formal invitation, observers say Liu’s words would have been uttered only with approval from the highest levels.

Middle East

Israel kills terror chief with headrest bomb

NOTHING seemed very remarkable about the short, bearded man who mingled with other guests on Tuesday evening at a reception in Damascus, the Syrian capital, to mark the 29th anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iranian revolution.

Yet before the night was over he was dead in the twisted wreckage of his car and the inevitable assumption was that Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence service, had killed him with an ingeniously planted bomb.

The news spread rapidly that the dead man was Imad Mughniyeh, an elusive figure known as “the Fox” who had been one of the world’s most feared terrorist masterminds.

Army intervenes in Beirut clashes

The Lebanese army has intervened to break up clashes between rival political factions in Beirut, firing in the air to disperse crowds.

Several people were injured in the violence, which took place in three mixed Sunni and Shia neighbourhoods.

Loyalties are split in such areas between the government and the Hezbollah-led opposition.

Africa

South Africa battles national identity crisis

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) – A draft loyalty pledge has plunged South Africa into a new identity crisis as it mulls its common values 14 years after discarding apartheid to forge a united society under a single flag.

As the motley “Rainbow Nation” quibbles over a government proposal to introduce a pledge of allegiance in schools, some ideological battle lines are being redrawn.

The oath has been described alternatively as an attempt at fostering social cohesion and as ideological abuse.

One newspaper columnist said it would do little but remind children that “the little white ones among them are evil seed”.

Bush defends his decision to skirt Africa’s hot spots

His five-nation trip is meant to laud U.S. programs that fight diseases and corruption, he says.

DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA — President Bush on Saturday defended his decision to avoid Africa’s most troubled quarters on his trip across the continent’s midsection, saying the United States was ready to help countries that make the “right choices.”

For Bush, the trip underscores an effort over seven years to shift the way the United States does business with the developing world, tying government aid to anti-corruption campaigns and commercial ventures to free- trade commitments.

He said he wanted to say to future U.S. presidents and members of Congress that it was in America’s national interest to provide foreign aid, but that instead of “making ourselves feel better . . . our money ought to make the people of a particular country feel better about their government.”

Bush stopped in Benin, in West Africa, on his way across the continent to Tanzania, on the Indian Ocean.

Latin America

‘Suitcase-gate’ gives cop her 15 minutes

Last August, the Argentine opened some luggage for a routine inspection. She found $800,000 — and then fame for her role in an international scandal.

BUENOS AIRES — She went from night-shift airport cop to pinup girl. From chilly anonymity to red-hot notoriety. Next up: The “suitcase girl” is in line for a TV ice-skating gig.

“I never imagined anything like this would happen,” Maria del Lujan Telpuk told the Argentine edition of Playboy in an interview that accompanies her appearance on the cover this month. “And all for a suitcase that somehow put me into the middle of a rivalry of nations.”

Dubbed “Suitcase-gate,” one of Latin America’s most celebrated political scandals is the best thing that has happened to Telpuk. Her police vigilance was the catalyst for the explosive episode, which has chilled U.S.-Argentine relations and embarrassed Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.