Docudharma Times Friday June 20

Like A Pro Wrestler

John McCain

Flips and Flops

All Over The Ring

U.S. Says Exercise by Israel Seemed Directed at Iran

By MICHAEL R. GORDON and ERIC SCHMITT

Published: June 20, 2008

WASHINGTON – Israel carried out a major military exercise earlier this month that American officials say appeared to be a rehearsal for a potential bombing attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Several American officials said the Israeli exercise appeared to be an effort to develop the military’s capacity to carry out long-range strikes and to demonstrate the seriousness with which Israel views Iran’s nuclear program.

More than 100 Israeli F-16 and F-15 fighters participated in the maneuvers, which were carried out over the eastern Mediterranean and over Greece during the first week of June, American officials said.

Taliban ambassador wielded power within Guantanamo

By Tom Lasseter | McClatchy Newspapers

KABUL, Afghanistan – When U.S. guards frog-marched Abdul Salam Zaeef through the cellblocks of Guantanamo, detainees would roar his name, “Mullah Zaeef! Mullah Zaeef!”

Zaeef, in shackles, looked at the guards and smiled.

“The soldiers told me, ‘You are the king of this prison,’ ” he later recalled.

Zaeef is the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, famous for his defiant news conferences after 9-11, in which he said the militant Islamist group would never surrender Osama bin Laden.

USA

Midwestern towns wonder whether to rebuild after floods

Some businesses and residents have already thrown in the towel.

By P.J. Huffstutter, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

8:48 PM PDT, June 19, 2008    

NEW HARTFORD, IOWA — A small sign taped to the glass front door of the town’s hardware store still pleads for donations to the victims of the tornado.

Less than four weeks ago, a funnel cut down the northern edge of this farming town of nearly 650 people. The wind flung tractors more than a mile, crumbled Civil War tombstones and killed two people.

Then, before the white roses had wilted in their cemetery urns, the rest of the town was destroyed — by a flood.

When Beaver Creek swelled June 8, the tributary of the Cedar River swallowed dirt levees and miles of rolling cornfields.

Mexicans in the U.S. sending fewer dollars home

 Remittances peaked at $24 billion last year. A slowing US economy and tougher border enforcement is blamed

By Sara Miller Llana  | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Emiliano Zapata, Mexico –  When the finishing touches were put on this coral-pink Roman Catholic church last year, residents beamed. Our Lady of Guadalupe was the first church built here – and it was only made possible by the toil of sons, husbands, and brothers in the US.

But today, many suspect this will be the last new edifice of any kind in some time. The flow of cash sent from the US, which over the years has helped pave the main road, build a basketball court, and construct or renovate almost every home in this 500-person village in Michoacán, has suddenly become a trickle.

Since 2000, remittances nationally have quadrupled, hitting a record $24 billion last year. Money from Mexicans abroad is now second only to oil as a source of foreign revenue. But the tide is turning – and is felt most acutely in rural Mexico. Remittances dropped 2.37 percent in the first four months of this year, compared with the same period in 2007, according to Mexico’s central bank.

Europe

Publisher convicted of insulting Turkey

· Hearing followed book on Armenian genocide

· Five-year sentence likely to be reduced to fine

Robert Tait in Istanbul

The Guardian,

Friday June 20, 2008

The publisher of a book by a British author acknowledging the 1915 Armenian genocide has been convicted under Turkey’s notorious Article 301, despite reforms intended to make the law less draconian.

A judge sentenced Ragip Zarakolu to five months in prison after ruling that The Truth Will Set Us Free, written by George Jerjian, “insulted the Turkish republic”.

The conviction came despite a letter of support from the author to the court arguing that his book was intended to forge a “new understanding of history between Turks and Armenians”.

Translated into Turkish in 2005, Jerjian’s book tells the story of the slaughter of up to 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman forces during the first world war through the eyes of his Armenian grandmother, who survived largely thanks to the protection of a Turkish soldier.

Spanish archive sheds light on Franco’s dark days

Graham Keeley in Barcelona

The Guardian,

Friday June 20, 2008

A wig used to disguise a communist leader, censored poems written by the current culture minister and a list of prisoners facing the firing squad are just a few of the treasures within 157,000 boxes of archives highlighting both the dark and ridiculous sides of the Spanish civil war and Franco’s dictatorship.

Now the documents, which stretch 109 miles back to back, are to be sent from an archive in Madrid to a new Centre for Historical Memory in Salamanca, the wartime headquarters of Franco, to go on view when the centre opens in two years after refurbishment.

Among the artefacts will be the wig used by Santiago Carrillo when he secretly returned to Spain after Franco’s death in 1975. Visitors will also be able to pore over lists of dates of the executions by firing squad of enemies of Franco’s regime.

Africa

Zimbabwe death toll reaches 85 as militias step up killings and torture

By Basildon Peta in Johannesburg, Anne Penketh and Daniel Howden

Friday, 20 June 2008  

The death toll from state-sponsored violence ahead of Zimbabwe’s presidential run-off next week has reached at least 85, independent observers say.

Fourteen killings were reported in a single day yesterday, including four opposition activists burnt to death in a petrol bombing. Human rights groups fear the real toll may be far higher, with many opposition supporters believed to be held in torture camps and police cells, and unidentified bodies being found every morning.

As the killings have increased, the Mugabe regime that has ruled for 28 years has faced unprecedented criticism from fellow African leaders.

Simon Mann names London tycoon as coup leader

From The Times

June 20, 2008

Martin Fletcher in Malabo

Simon Mann, the former SAS officer accused of plotting to overthrow the President of Equatorial Guinea, yesterday portrayed a reclusive London-based tycoon as “the Cardinal”, who controlled every aspect of the attempted coup in 2004, and himself as a mere “junior”.

Mr Mann asserted that Ely Calil, 64, was one of a shadowy group of rich and powerful figures who were still plotting to remove Teodoro Obiang Nguema and seize control of his tiny, oil-rich state. “They’re not going to give up,” the Old Etonian told the judges at his trial in the hot and humid Equatorial Guinean capital.

As if to help his case, the prosecution presented evidence later in the day against six other defendants – all Equatoguineans linked to the exiled opposition leader Severo Moto and accused of participating in a plot against Mr Obiang, 66, this year.

Middle East

How Iran would retaliate if it comes to war

Military analysts say the Islamic Republic would strike back in unconventional ways – targeting American interests in Iraq and Afghanistan.

By Scott Peterson  | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the June 20, 2008 edition

Istanbul, Turkey –  Pressure is building on Iran. This week Europe agreed to new sanctions and President Bush again suggested something more serious – possible military strikes – if the Islamic Republic doesn’t bend to the will of the international community on its nuclear program.

But increasingly military analysts are warning of severe consequences if the US begins a shooting war with Iran. While Iranian forces are no match for American technology on a conventional battlefield, Iran has shown that it can bite back in unconventional ways.

Iranian networks in Iraq and Afghanistan could imperil US interests there; American forces throughout the Gulf region could be targeted by asymmetric methods and lethal rocket barrages; and Iranian partners across the region – such as Hezbollah in Lebanon – could be mobilized to engage in an anti-US fight

Iraqi troops move into militia-held city of Amara



By Alissa J. Rubin and Suadad Salhy

Published: June 20, 2008

BAGHDAD: Despite reports of arrests and rough handling by the Iraqi security forces as they swept through the southern city of Amara on Thursday, supporters of the rebel cleric Moktada al-Sadr stood by their promise to lay down their weapons peacefully.

Iraqi troops entered Amara, near the border with Iran, as part of a campaign against militias, seeking in this case also to reclaim government buildings taken over by political parties. The sweep officially began Thursday, although the military and the police have been massing for the operation for nearly a week.

Sadr’s restrained response seemed in sharp contrast to similar operations where he is influential, in the southern port city of Basra and in Sadr City, the Shiite enclave in Baghdad. In both those areas, a truce came only after days of fighting.

Asia

Chinese athletes pushed to the limit, and beyond, for Olympic gold

By Howard W. French

Published: June 20, 2008

 SHANGHAI: When China’s champion 10-meter platform diver lost a retina while training, a year after winning a gold medal in the 2004 Athens Olympics, family members and fans speculated about the imminent end of a great career.

The parents of the diver, Hu Jia, had surrendered him to trainers from the Chinese sports establishment at the age of 10, and had seen little of him since then. In an interview with a Chinese newspaper after the diver’s injury, his father suggested that this was sacrifice enough. Had he known his son risked blindness, the father said, “I would never have sent him off to dive.”

But less than two months before China hosts the Olympics for the first time, Hu is training and competing fiercely again, aiming to bolster a national diving squad that China hopes will dominate the sport this summer.

Tight security for Thai protest

BBC

Security is tight in parts of the Thai capital, Bangkok, for a rally by a protest group which is demanding the government step down.

Thousands of police were deployed as the People’s Alliance for Democracy began a march on Government House.

The PAD, mostly made up of middle-class Bangkok residents, say the government is a proxy for Thaksin Shinawatra, who the military ousted in a 2006 coup.

They have been protesting in Bangkok since late May.

The group led the massive anti-Thaksin street protests that preceded the 2006 coup, but the demonstrations this time have so far remained small.

Latin America

High above Sao Paulo’s choked streets, the rich cruise a new highway

As the economy booms, the number of helicopters in this vast city is soaring

Tom Phillips in Sao Paulo

The Guardian,

Friday June 20, 2008

With the newsroom clock about to strike 11.30am Natalia Ariede, a 26-year-old reporter from Brazil’s biggest TV network, was gearing up for another day’s work.

Minutes later she was 2,400 feet over one of the world’s largest cities, racing to the scene of a road-traffic accident in her floating office – Globo television’s specially adapted four-seater Squirrel helicopter better known as the Globocop.

“Even if something happens on the other side of the city we can be there in 15 minutes,” she said as the aircraft swept towards its target across a seemingly endless sea of concrete dotted with swimming pools, helipads, shantytowns and abandoned warehouses.