Docudharma Times Monday June 2

The United States Constitution

Continues To Weep

Monday’s Headlines:  Immigration Prosecutions Hit New High    Australia ends operations in Iraq   Turkish star faces jail for criticising army    Murdered by Mugabe’s mob    Department for International Development has diplomacy in Africa   Yves Saint Laurent, fashion designer, dies at 71   Italy grapples with Iranian leader’s visit    After China’s quake, disarray for kids    Singapore opposition leader sentenced to jail for contempt   Chavez party picks candidates in primary

US accused of holding terror suspects on prison ships

· Report says 17 boats used

· MPs seek details of UK role

· Europe attacks 42-day plan

Duncan Campbell and Richard Norton-Taylor

The Guardian,

Monday June 2 2008

The United States is operating “floating prisons” to house those arrested in its war on terror, according to human rights lawyers, who claim there has been an attempt to conceal the numbers and whereabouts of detainees.

Details of ships where detainees have been held and sites allegedly being used in countries across the world have been compiled as the debate over detention without trial intensifies on both sides of the Atlantic. The US government was yesterday urged to list the names and whereabouts of all those detained.

Taliban Leader Flaunts Power Inside Pakistan

By JANE PERLEZ

Published: June 2, 2008

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – With great fanfare, the Pakistani Army flew journalists to a rugged corner of the nation’s lawless tribal areas in May to show how decisively it had destroyed the lairs of the Taliban, including a school for suicide bombers, in fighting early this year. Then, just days later, the usually reclusive leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, held a news conference of his own, in the same region, to show just who was in charge.

He rolled up in an expensive-looking Toyota pickup packed with heavily armed Taliban fighters, according to the Pakistani journalists invited to attend.

USA

Clinton rolls to Puerto Rico win

By Susan Milligan

Globe Staff / June 2, 2008

SAN JUAN – Senator Hillary Clinton scored a lopsided victory in the Puerto Rico primary yesterday, boosting both her spirits and her popular vote count, but offering little hope that she can catch rival Senator Barack Obama by the end of the Democratic presidential primary season tomorrow.

Even in defeat, Obama crept closer to the nomination, picking up 17 of Puerto Rico’s 55 pledged delegates. Obama is now 47 delegates short of the 2,118 needed to sew up a clear majority, according to the latest Associated Press tally, and Obama’s advisers believe they will get a slew of superdelegate endorsements after tomorrow’s primaries to make it official.

Immigration Prosecutions Hit New High

By Spencer S. Hsu

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, June 2, 2008; Page A01

Federal law enforcement agencies have increased criminal prosecutions of immigration violators to record levels, in part by filing minor charges against virtually every person caught illegally crossing some stretches of the U.S.-Mexico border, according to new U.S. data.

Officials say the threat of prison and a criminal record is a powerful deterrent, one that is helping drive down illegal immigration along the nearly 2,000-mile frontier between the United States and Mexico. Skeptics say that the government lacks the resources to sustain the strategy on the border and that the effort is diverting resources from more serious crimes such as drug and human smuggling.

Middle East

Australia ends operations in Iraq

Australia, one of the first countries to commit troops to the war in Iraq five years ago, has ended its combat operations there

Australian troops are due to begin returning home in a few days in line with a promise by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd who swept to power in November.

He said the Iraq deployment was making Australia more of a terrorist target.

The Australians had deployed more than 500 troops in Iraq, helping to train some 33,000 Iraqi soldiers.

About 300 Australians will remain inside Iraq on logistical and air surveillance duties.

Turkish star faces jail for criticising army

Robert Tait in Istanbul

The Guardian,

Monday June 2 2008

One of Turkey’s most popular singers is facing up to three years in jail after being accused of trying to weaken public support for the powerful armed forces.

In a case highlighting the pivotal role of the army in Turkish life, prosecutors have indicted Bülent Ersoy on charges of “making the public detest military service” after saying on nationwide television that if she had a son, she would not let him fight against Kurdish separatists.

Her comments, made last February, came after the army launched a controversial ground offensive in northern Iraq against the militant Kurdistan Workers party (PKK) – regarded by Turkey and many western countries as a terrorist organisation.

Africa

Murdered by Mugabe’s mob

By Daniel Howden and Raymond Whitaker

Monday, 2 June 2008

Tonderai Ndira will not be campaigning when Zimbabwe votes again. He will not rally his neighbourhood, as he did two months ago, for one last push against an unwanted regime. Instead, he is buried in an unmarked grave in the Warren Hills cemetery in Harare. A week on from his funeral, only his brother knows for sure which of the mounds is his. He will not leave a marker because he believes state agents are still not finished with the murdered activist. They would like to dig up his brother’s remains to remove the incriminating evidence.

Mr Ndira’s body was only found by accident in one of the capital’s morgues a fortnight ago. His eyes had been gouged out and his tongue cut off.

Department for International Development has diplomacy in Africa

From The Times

June 2, 2008

Jonathan Clayton

The last decade has been boom time for the aid business.

Money and resources have poured in. Britain now proudly claims to be the second-largest overseas aid donor in the world, behind only the United States.

The amount of money and its “successes” are impressive. The chosen vehicle for Britain’s “fight against world poverty” is the Department for International Development (DfID), which enjoys an almost semi-autonomous role within the Government.

DfID, which was set up in 1997 after Labour came to power, now has an annual budget of £5.3 billion. By 2010 this will have risen to £7.9 billion. The Department has a total staff of 2,446 – who are often recruited from outside the traditional British civil service

Europe

Yves Saint Laurent, fashion designer, dies at 71

From The Times

June 2, 2008

Adam Sage in Paris

Yves Saint Laurent, the fashion designer who broke the mould of women’s postwar clothing, died last night in Paris at the age of 71.

The death of the reclusive fashion great was announced by la Fondation Bergé-Saint Laurent, the body he created with Pierre Bergé, his business partner and lover.

Saint Laurent, who retired from haute couture in 2002, was known to have been unwell although he never revealed the details of his illness.

Italy grapples with Iranian leader’s visit

 By Peter Popham in Rome

Monday, 2 June 2008

Italy was wrestling yesterday with the problem of what to do about a one-man diplomatic nightmare known as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, who is making his first trip to western Europe this week.

The Holocaust-denier, who has repeatedly called for Israel to be destroyed, is flying in to Rome, with 40 other heads of state, for a UN summit on the soaring cost of food. Organisers at the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) insist they had no choice but to invite him with the heads of state of all the UN’s other 190 members.

Israel is incensed. “To imagine on the podium of a UN organisation a leader who calls for the destruction of a member state is a disgrace for every democrat,” its ambassador to Rome, Gideon Meir, told the daily La Repubblica.

Asia

After China’s quake, disarray for kids

By Peter Ford  | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the June 2, 2008 edition

Wufu, China – As they do every year on Children’s Day, parents of this village went to the park in nearby Mianzhu on Sunday.

But this year the straggling group had no mischievous offspring in tow. Instead, each carried a framed photo of the child they had lost in the May 12 earthquake.

In a tent city a few miles away, preschoolers celebrated in more joyful fashion, playing on slides at a new day-care center.

The plight of the quake’s youngest victims has drawn attention because of the tragic way thousands of schoolchildren died at their desks.

Singapore opposition leader sentenced to jail for contempt

by Ian Timberlake

SINGAPORE (AFP) – A Singapore opposition leader who is among a rare few to publicly challenge the country’s rulers was sentenced Monday to 12 days’ jail for contempt, in the latest legal ruling against him.

A judge ruled Chee Soon Juan, 45, secretary general of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), had been in contempt because he said justice had been “raped” and “kicked” during a defamation case filed by Singapore’s leaders against him.

He remains free but Supreme Court Justice Belinda Ang Saw Ean ruled that Chee will be taken to jail if he does not file an appeal by late Wednesday.

Latin America

Chavez party picks candidates in primary

CARACAS, Venezuela – A television talk show host, a former mayor of Caracas and President Hugo Chavez’s older brother are among the winners of the ruling party’s primary.

More than a million members of Chavez’s party cast ballots in the Sunday vote, nominating candidates for 23 state governorships and 337 municipal offices up for grabs in November. Most are already held by Chavez allies.

Chavez’s brother Adan will be the party’s gubernatorial candidate in their home state of Barinas, where their father is now governor