News roundup…

No time for a full essay, today, and Magnifico has the day off, so here are some top news stories…

Los Angeles Times:

Iraq war budget jumps for 2008

Bush plans to increase his request to nearly $200 billion. The troop buildup and new gear are the main reasons.

By Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 22, 2007

WASHINGTON — — After smothering efforts by war critics in Congress to drastically cut U.S. troop levels in Iraq, President Bush plans to ask lawmakers next week to approve another massive spending measure — totaling nearly $200 billion — to fund the war through next year, Pentagon officials said.

If Bush’s spending request is approved, 2008 will be the most expensive year of the Iraq war.

If I were writing one essay, today, it would be about that.

Guardian:

The new British empire? UK plans to annex south Atlantic

Owen Bowcott
Saturday September 22, 2007
The Guardian

Britain is preparing territorial claims on tens of thousands of square miles of the Atlantic Ocean floor around the Falklands, Ascension Island and Rockall in the hope of annexing potentially lucrative gas, mineral and oil fields, the Guardian has learned.

The UK claims, to be lodged at the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, exploit a novel legal approach that is transforming the international politics of underwater prospecting.

Britain is accelerating its process of submitting applications to the UN – which is fraught with diplomatic sensitivities, not least with Argentina – before an international deadline for registering interests.

Guardian:

Iran in show of military power

Ned Temk
Saturday September 22, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

The Iranian president was talking on the eve of his departure from Tehran, amid a storm of opposition to his visit to New York and growing international alarm over his country’s nuclear ambitions. He is poised to deliver a defiant address to the UN General Assembly this week.

The Iranian military showed off a new long-range ballistic missile called the Ghadr – Farsi for ‘power’. In a speech marking the event, Ahmadinejad shrugged off US and regional concerns about Iran’s more assertive role, saying: ‘Iran is an influential power in the region and the world should know that this power has always served peace, stability, brotherhood and justice.’

Ahmadinejad does what he does: blabbity blabbity blab. Look for our media to use it as further evidence that we need to think about war. Idiots, on both sides, with the Iranian people’s lives hanging in the balance.

More…

Guardian:

First UK case of bluetongue disease found

Staff and agencies
Saturday September 22, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

A double threat emerged for Britain’s farmers tonight when bluetongue disease joined foot and mouth as a menace to their livestock.

Bluetongue – never before found in the UK – has been discovered in a cow near Ipswich, Suffolk, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has said.

The disease which is transmitted by certain species of midges, does not affect humans.

Bluetongue is a viral disease to which all species of ruminants are susceptible, although sheep are most severely affected. The virus causes fever and mouth ulcers, and can be fatal for affected animals.

BBC:

Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori has arrived in Lima after extradition from Chile to face charges of human rights abuses and corruption.

Hundreds of supporters were waiting at the main airport, but his plane landed instead at a military base.

The ex-leader denies the allegations, which date back to the early 1990s, and has fought extradition since 2005.

BBC:

Burma’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has greeted Buddhist monks protesting against the military junta.

Apparently unable to hold her tears, Aung San Suu Kyi came out of the house she has been detained in since 2003 as the monks were let through a roadblock.

At least 2,000 monks are staging a sixth day of protests through the streets of the main city of Rangoon.

Up to 10,000 marched through Mandalay with protests also taking place in five townships across Burma.

Ms Suu Kyi has spent 11 of the last 18 years in detention.

One of the world’s great heroes.

Spiegel Online

Leisure Photos of Camp Guards Shock Germans

Newly released photos of SS officers sitting in canvas chairs, participating in sing-alongs and enjoying their free time at a recreation home near Auschwitz have shocked many in Germany this week.

Twelve SS auxiliaries sit happily on a fence railing eating blueberries given to them by an SS officer. The photo was taken in 1944 in Solahütte, a recreation home located near Auschwitz for the SS team in charge of running the concentration camp. Another shows the auxiliaries callously feigning tears once their bowls are empty.

Fifteen photos are posted on Spiegel’s website. The banality of evil.

New York Times:

G.O.P. Hopefuls Take Varying Paths in Wide Open Race

By MICHAEL COOPER and MICHAEL LUO
Published: September 23, 2007

The race for the Republican presidential nomination remains remarkably fluid, with important constituencies like evangelical voters having yet to settle on a candidate, and the late entrance of former Senator Fred D. Thompson generating little excitement.

Their best hope seems to be no hope at all.

New York Times:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has consolidated her early lead in the Democratic presidential contest, showing steady strength as the candidates head toward the first voting early next year.

She has been challenged for fund-raising supremacy and news media attention by Senator Barack Obama of Illinois. Former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina beat her to the punch in introducing big policy proposals. But nothing that her main rivals have done has so far has derailed Mrs. Clinton, leading them to begin rolling out aggressive new strategies aimed primarily at her, including courting black voters in South Carolina and stepping up attacks.

She has maintained solid leads in most national polls. And while polls in early voting states like Iowa and New Hampshire are of limited value in predicting the outcome, they too show her more than holding her own entering the period in which primary voters begin to make up their minds.