Docudharma Times Tuesday June 10

What We All Want

The 14-year-old Afghan suicide bomber

As three soldiers are blown up, teenager caught on a lethal mission reveals how he was groomed to kill British troops

By Kim Sengupta in Kabul

Tuesday, 10 June 2008  

The surroundings were grim and forbidding, a notorious jail run by Afghanistan’s feared security service for those taken prisoner in the bloody war with the Taliban.

Among the inmates: Shakirullah Yasin Ali; a small, frail boy, just 14 years old, arrested as he prepared to carry out a suicide bombing against British and American targets. “If I had succeeded, I would be dead now, I realise that,” he said in a soft, nervous voice.

USA

How HUD Mortgage Policy Fed The Crisis

Subprime Loans Labeled ‘Affordable’

By Carol D. Leonnig

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, June 10, 2008; Page A01

In 2004, as regulators warned that subprime lenders were saddling borrowers with mortgages they could not afford, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development helped fuel more of that risky lending.

Eager to put more low-income and minority families into their own homes, the agency required that two government-chartered mortgage finance firms purchase far more “affordable” loans made to these borrowers. HUD stuck with an outdated policy that allowed Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to count billions of dollars they invested in subprime loans as a public good that would foster affordable housing.

After a Deadly Weekend, New Storms Cause Flooding in Three States

By SUSAN SAULNY

Published: June 10, 2008

CHICAGO – A stalled storm system poured heavy rain on parts of the Midwest on Monday, setting off severe flooding in Indiana, Iowa and Wisconsin, where already swollen rivers and lakes overflowed their banks, broke through dams and created havoc for thousands of residents.The stationary storm aggravated a dangerously soggy situation. Thunderstorms that began late last week had brought 6 to 10 inches of rain to parts of the region, meteorologists said, leaving the ground saturated.

There were no new fatalities reported as of late Monday. Over the weekend, however, the storms were responsible for 10 deaths in four states, officials said.

Europe

Oil prices: Europe threatened with summer of discontent over rising cost of fuel

· Spanish and French truckers block border

· Coordinated action raises fears of food shortages

Angelique Chrisafis in Paris and Graham Keeley in Barcelona

The Guardian,

Tuesday June 10 2008

Concerns were growing last night over a summer of coordinated European fuel protests after tens of thousands of Spanish truckers blocked roads and the French border, sparking similar action in Portugal and France, while unions across Europe prepared fresh action over the rising price of petrol and diesel.

Spanish hauliers began an indefinite strike, demanding a government aid package to offset the effect of record oil prices. Lorry drivers blocked motorways at the border with France and caused 12-mile tailbacks around Madrid and Barcelona. Long queues formed at Spanish and Portuguese supermarkets after truckers said shops could run out of fresh food in days. Even before the strike began thousands of people formed long lines outside petrol stations and supermarkets.

The Mysterious Mr. No

The campaign against the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland is buoyant, thanks in large part to the zeal of Declan Ganley. But the question remains: who is bankrolling him?

By David McKittrick

Tuesday, 10 June 2008

Outside Dublin’s Croke Park traders were selling hats, scarves and T-shirts to the thousands of fans on their way in to watch Dublin play Louth at Gaelic football. A well-dressed, well-groomed highly articulate man with an English accent was on a rather different selling mission, handing out, not sporting paraphernalia, but copies of the Lisbon Treaty on Europe’s future.

The man, Declan Ganley, should be a member of Ireland’s elite establishment: he is after all a millionaire, living in a mansion in Galway and owning a Rolls-Royce, a Merc and a helicopter. Yet the establishment is intensely fearful of him, because of the highly effective role he has played in persuading Irish voters to reject the Lisbon Treaty and send the European Union back to the drawing board.

Asia

A country where every passer-by is a potential threat

By Jerome Starkey in Musa Qala, Helmand

Tuesday, 10 June 2008

For the soldiers fighting in Afghanistan life has become a lottery of roadside bombs and suicide attacks.

Gone are the days of pitched battles when squads of Taliban fighters would attack en masse and fight for ground. Back then, a soldier could fire and manoeuvre to survive. Now they take their chances against an enemy they rarely see – the homemade bomb – sometimes strapped to a fanatic’s chest, more often simply buried in the desert to await its unknown victim.

The day Royal Marine Dale Gostick died, his patrol had fought off 15 insurgents who attacked their armoured vehicles with grenades and machine guns.

US beef row: South Korean Cabinet quits; ‘million-man’ march in Seoul

From Times Online

June 10, 2008

Leo Lewis, Seoul

South Korea’s Prime Minister and his entire cabinet offered to resign this morning as riot police across Seoul prepared the centre of the city for a night of mass demonstrations and violence.

Korean police – well used to the country’s often explosive political protests – raised their state of alert to the highest possible state as public feeling over the “mad cow” crisis threatened to spiral out of control.

The demonstration is timed to coincide with the 21st anniversary huge pro-democracy protests that shook the authoritarian regime of the time to its foundations and paved the way for the country’s first free elections.

Africa

Zimbabwe’s campaign of violence escalates

The international community seeks to influence the Mugabe government as Army leaders orchestrate political attacks.

By Scott Baldauf  | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

and And a contributor

from the June 10, 2008 edition

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa; and HARARE, Zimbabwe – The options for resolving Zimbabwe’s crisis are dwindling as political violence rises ahead of the June 27 presidential elections.

International analysts now have little faith in the credibility of the vote – or their ability to improve the process. They suggest that any resolution is likely to come through mediation.

Zimbabwean authorities detained and harassed US and British diplomats last week while they were on a fact-finding mission over political violence.

Normally, harassment of diplomats is the sort of thing that brings on sanctions and sternly worded statements in the United Nations. But for Zimbabwe – which has rolled out a series of strong-armed measures against opposition party activists, international aid agencies, and tens of thousands of its own people – harassment is now commonplace.

Somali factions sign ‘peace deal’

BBC

Somalia’s government has signed a peace deal with an opposition bloc aimed at ending 17 years of conflict in the country, the UN envoy to Somalia says.

Ahmedou Ould Abdallah said the government and the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia agreed to cease hostilities for three months.

The deal brokered at UN-led talks in Djibouti, also envisages that Ethiopian troops leave Somalia within 120 days.

But some opposition hardliners and Somali rebels have dismissed the talks.

The deal does not include many of the armed Somali groups at present fighting the transitional government and the Ethiopian troops backing it.

Middle East

In Iraq, muscle is a growth industry

Security needs give bodybuilding a lift in war-torn country

By Ernesto Londoño and Saad al-Izzi

BAGHDAD – Younis Imad, 18, started lifting weights at the Future Gym along Baghdad’s Palestine Street a little over a year ago. “I was overweight,” he said, taking a break between sets. “I was very upset about that.” He was also in need of a job.

The gym’s entrepreneurial owner, Ali Torkey, took Imad under his wing, gave him dieting tips and put him on a whey protein regimen. Four months ago, newly buff after weeks of working out, Imad secured work as a security guard at a radio station in Baghdad, a city where improving security is reflected in the revival of everyday activities such as bodybuilding

Gaza: Mahmoud Abbas seeks deal with Hamas

Ian Black, Middle East editor

The Guardian,

Tuesday June 10 2008

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, is urging pro-western Arab governments to promote reconciliation with Hamas, the Islamist movement that has controlled the Gaza Strip since last year.

Abbas was in Cairo yesterday for talks with President Hosni Mubarak on healing the inter-Palestinian rift and prospects for a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip. On Sunday he flew to Saudi Arabia to ask King Abdullah to help.

Abbas appeared to change tack on Hamas last week when he called for “a national and comprehensive dialogue” with it, though aides insist he is still demanding that Hamas surrender control of the strip. Israel and the US oppose reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas.

Latin America

Chávez Goes Over the Line, and Realizes It

By SIMON ROMERO

Published: June 10, 2008

President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela started this month as the most prominent political supporter of Colombia’s largest rebel group and a fierce defender of his own overhaul of his nation’s intelligence services. But in the space of a few hours over the weekend, he confounded his critics by switching course on both contentious policies.

In doing so, Mr. Chávez displayed a willingness for self-reinvention that has served him well in times of crisis throughout his long political career. Time and again, he has gambled by pushing brash positions and policies, then shifted to a more moderate course when the consequences seemed too dire.