Tag: Docudharma Times

sittin’ up here

watchin’ all the lights blink down below

the earth is turning

why does it go so slow

Sunday’s Headlines: In Washington, a Split Over Regulation of Wall Street: Talking about race: Um, you first: Pakistan to meet militants: Taiwan ballot boosts links with mainland:  Robert Fisk: How Ireland exorcised the ghost of empire: 4,000 to lose homes to Vladimir Putin’s Winter Olympics: Robert Mugabe ‘cannot win election – but he can still steal it: Alexander McCall Smith creates the No 1 Ladies’ opera house: Cheney backs Israel over security: Blasts target Baghdad’s Green Zone:  

Since ’01, Guarding Species Is Harder

Endangered Listings Drop Under Bush

With little-noticed procedural and policy moves over several years, Bush administration officials have made it substantially more difficult to designate domestic animals and plants for protection under the Endangered Species Act.

Controversies have occasionally flared over Interior Department officials who regularly overruled rank-and-file agency scientists’ recommendations to list new species, but internal documents also suggest that pervasive bureaucratic obstacles were erected to limit the number of species protected under one of the nation’s best-known environmental laws.

We have the chance to turn the pages over

We can write what we want to write

Saturday’s Headlines: Coping With Loss, Military Kin Also Struggle With a Windfall: In New York, a Turf War in the Battle Against Terrorism: Taiwan counts presidential votes:  Police and troops tighten grip as publicity drive gets under way: Italy’s toxic waste crisis, the Mafia – and the scandal of Europe’s mozzarella: Hamas men ‘tortured by Egyptians’: Cheney, Saudis talk oil, security:  Falling oil production a challenge for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez: Sea change for Mexico City: No welcome mat for Somalia refugee

Tibet: the jealousy, rage and bitterness of a new generation that fuelled deadly riots

Young Tibetans may not remember earlier uprisings but the ethnic tension between the ruled and their rulers is just as acute today

at the door, gouged out the mud-baked roof and bayed for the blood of a top ethnic Tibetan official of the Chinese Government.

Captive in a room within the Jokhang Temple, Tibet’s most holy Raidi cowered under a table, sobbed with fear and begged ethnic Han Chinese officials trapped with him for protection. He knew Tibetan retribution would be fiercest against one seen as a turncoat.

Today, nearly two decades later, the ethnic bitterness between ruling Han Chinese and deeply Buddhist Tibetans is no less acute.

Sometimes you dream, sometimes it seems

Theres nothing there at all

You just seem older than yesterday

And youre waiting for tomorrow to call

Friday’s Headlines: Slump Moves From Wall St. to Main St.: Iran a Nuclear Threat, Bush Insists: Saudis to retrain 40,000 clerics : Penniless migrant becomes a maths superstar: Abkhazia, the country that doesn’t exist, prepares to follow Kosovo’s example:  Death of the Reeperbahn: Hamburg’s streets of shame: China mobilises more troops to crush spreading Tibetan unrest: Storm clouds gather as Pakistan prepares for a new dawn: Robert Mugabe grip on power rocked by surging opposition

Police ‘shot at Tibet protesters’

Chinese police opened fire and wounded four protesters “in self-defence” last Sunday in a Tibetan area of Sichuan province, the Xinhua news agency says.

It is the first time China has admitted injuring anyone since anti-Chinese protests in Tibet began last week.

Xinhua said police opened fire in Aba county – the same place that Tibetan activists said eight people were killed during protests near Kirti monastery.

Activists released graphic photos of dead bodies showing bullet wounds.

China has said that only 13 people have been killed during the protests, and that all were innocent and killed by “rioters” in Lhasa.

I knew a lady who came from Duluth

Bitten by a dog with a rabid tooth

She went to her grave just a little too soon

Threw a late howl at the yellow moon

Thursday’s Headlines: On War’s Anniversary, Bush Cites Progress: Hillary Clinton’s schedules shed little light on work as first: lady ‘We live in a nightmare.: The final battle for Basra is near, says Iraqi general: Challenge to TGV as Ryanair brings budget air travel to France: Europe’s last divided city in sight of peace: Fahmida Mirza takes her seat as Pakistan’s first woman Speaker: Chad peace force ‘to shoot back’: Removed Ghanaian dies of cancer

Tibet: China ‘ready for for talks with Dalai Lama’

Britain called for a resumption of negotiations between China and Tibetan representatives yesterday after Gordon Brown announced that he had spoken to the Chinese Premier and would meet the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, in May.

Last night China’s state media admitted for the first time that riots had spread to two provinces outside Tibet, but Beijing claimed that order was returning to the restive Himalayan region.

Mr Brown took the Commons by surprise when he informed MPs that Wen Jiabao, the Chinese Prime Minister, had told him in a telephone conversation yesterday that he was ready to enter into a dialogue with the Dalai Lama, provided that he did not support the total independence of Tibet and that he renounced violence.

Sometimes you dream, sometimes it seems

Theres nothing there at all

You just seem older than yesterday

And youre waiting for tomorrow to call

Friday’s Headlines: Slump Moves From Wall St. to Main St.: Iran a Nuclear Threat, Bush Insists: Saudis to retrain 40,000 clerics : Penniless migrant becomes a maths superstar: Abkhazia, the country that doesn’t exist, prepares to follow Kosovo’s example:  Death of the Reeperbahn: Hamburg’s streets of shame: China mobilises more troops to crush spreading Tibetan unrest: Storm clouds gather as Pakistan prepares for a new dawn: Robert Mugabe grip on power rocked by surging opposition

Police ‘shot at Tibet protesters’

Chinese police opened fire and wounded four protesters “in self-defence” last Sunday in a Tibetan area of Sichuan province, the Xinhua news agency says.

It is the first time China has admitted injuring anyone since anti-Chinese protests in Tibet began last week.

Xinhua said police opened fire in Aba county – the same place that Tibetan activists said eight people were killed during protests near Kirti monastery.

Activists released graphic photos of dead bodies showing bullet wounds.

China has said that only 13 people have been killed during the protests, and that all were innocent and killed by “rioters” in Lhasa.

I see you slither away with your skin and your tail,

Your flickering tongue and your rattling scales

Like a real reptile.

Tuesday’s Headlines: Plunge Averted, Markets Look Ahead Uneasily: Obama speech will try to defuse race issue :  State TV switches to non-stop footage of Chinese under attack: 1,000 Tibetans arrested in Chinese crackdown: President Robert Mugabe ‘raises the dead’ to secure electoral victory in Zimbabwe: Ghanaian fashion accessory is plastic fantastic: UN forces face grenade and gun attacks from Serbs in Mitrovica: The Big Question: What is the role of the EU President:  Vatican in Saudi talks on building churches: Egypt army to tackle bread crisis: Mexican leftist’s ally appears to win party helm

Arrests after governor’s threat to deal harshly with resistance

Thousands of paramilitary police were massing in Lhasa and other Tibetan areas of unrest last night ahead of an ultimatum to protesters to hand themselves in.

Witnesses reported that arrests had begun long before a midnight deadline passed in the capital, and authorities in other provinces were cracking down both on protests and those who report them.

Hong Kong journalists were ordered to leave Lhasa, and foreign reporters have been turned away or ordered to leave Tibetan areas in the Qinghai, Sichuan and Gansu provinces in the past two days.

Tibet’s governor, Qiangba Puncog, said that protesters who turned themselves in would be “treated with leniency within the framework of the law … Otherwise, we will deal with them harshly.”

Lower the curtain down in memphis,

Lower the curtain down all right.

I got no time for private consultation,

Under the milky way tonight.

Monday’s Headlines: U.S. may be just at midpoint in Iraq: Fed Acts to Rescue Financial Markets: Death, destruction and fear on the streets of cafes, poets and booksellers: Iran poll delivers challenger to president: Ex-policemen jailed for journalist’s murder:  UN police retake Kosovo’s court: Major Stock Markets in Asia Tumble: China plays victim for its audience: Mexico City: A sea of Juarez streets:  First coca find in Brazil Amazon: Tunisia hostage deadline extended

Midnight ultimatum for Tibet showdown

The only Western journalist in Lhasa reports from a city gripped by fear

Last night I gazed out over a deserted city. After two days of deadly riots and arson attacks, the people of Lhasa hunkered down before a midnight deadline and a feared military crackdown.

Rubble and burnt-out vehicles littered the streets, but few people dared to set foot in the narrow and winding alleyways, fearful of turning a blind corner and running into an army patrol. Only the occasional gunshot rang out over the city, the whoops and cheers of the rioters silenced. Amid claims that many people have been killed in the most dramatic backlash against Chinese rule for almost 20 years, a showdown looms tonight. The rioters must turn themselves in by midnight or face the consequences.

You can’t help being hard up

Can’t trust the gods we trusted

Don’t think that’s any insurance

Sunday’s Headlines: For Democrats, Increased Fears of a Long Fight: D.C.’s Gun Ban Gets Day in Court: Iran’s young women find private path to freedom: Militant’s death unites Bethlehem:  Scores of civilians and US military staff feared dead as huge Albanian arms dump explodes: Britain’s refugee shame: Taiwanese to rally over China law:  New Pakistan parliament set to convene: Leftist Mexico party in danger of split: Official: 4 Belgians freed in Guatemala: In His Own World of Denial

Beijing locks down Lhasa as crisis grows

At least 10, possibly dozens, killed as violence spreads and international protests mount

China flooded the streets of Lhasa with riot police, yesterday, as the international community urged an end to the bloodshed in Tibet that has already claimed at least 10 – possibly dozens more – lives.

Security forces were also used to regain control of a second community yesterday as a protest in Xiahe, Gansu province, followed the worst riots in Lhasa in almost 20 years. Thousands of protesters smashed government offices in Xiahe after marching through the streets chanting support for the Dalai Lama, according to overseas support groups. Observer correspondent Tania Branigan said the crowd was dispersed with tear gas, but quickly regrouped.

Grim-faced and forbidding,

Their faces closed tight,

An angular mass of new yorkers

Pacing in rhythm,

Saturday’s Headlines: Behind Bear Stearns Rescue Plan, a Wall St. Domino Theory: Inside the slave trade: Olympic year gives nationalists chance to intensify campaign: We will not let Mugabe be beaten, police and army chiefs warn: Nigerian deals ‘wasted billions’:  I fought for my land against the US. Now I fight alongside them: Iran polls vote count under way: Veto keeps Guatemala executions on hold:  Meet the new mob

Gunfire on the streets of Lhasa as rallies turn violent

Witnesses report killings and attacks on Chinese in fiercest protests for 20 years

China was struggling last night to bring Lhasa, Tibet’s capital, under control after the fiercest anti-government protests for 20 years led to rioting and gunfire on the streets yesterday.

Authorities ordered a curfew and deployed thousands of police officers around the city after a day of turmoil in which eyewitnesses reported hearing automatic gunfire, tanks were seen in the centre and armed police used water cannon and teargas as young Tibetans set security vehicles on fire and stoned Chinese residents.

A witness said Chinese drivers were carried from vehicles with bloodied faces after being beaten by angry youths.

And what you say about his company

Is what you say about society.

Friday’s Headlines: Economy Hammered by Toxic Blend of Ailments: Ozone Rules Weakened at Bush’s Behest: Body of kidnapped archbishop found in Iraq: Islamic Jihad resumes rocket attacks on Israel after brief lull: How to spot a mafioso: a tourist’s guide:  EU presses ahead with substantial cuts in emissions: China admits sending in troops to quell Tibetan monk demos: Victory for Kazemi as Home Secretary halts deportation to Iran: Maria Barragan wants her parents jailed:  Questions about Venezuela as Rice arrives in Brazil: Chad and Sudan make peace

Iraq: teachers told to rewrite history

MoD accused of sending propaganda to schools

By Richard Garner, Education Editor

Friday, 14 March 2008

Britain’s biggest teachers’ union has accused the Ministry of Defence of breaking the law over a lesson plan drawn up to teach pupils about the Iraq war. The National Union of Teachers claims it breaches the 1996 Education Act, which aims to ensure all political issues are treated in a balanced way.

Teachers will threaten to boycott military involvement in schools at the union’s annual conference next weekend, claiming the lesson plan is a “propaganda” exercise and makes no mention of any civilian casualties as a result of the war.

They believe the instructions, designed for use during classroom discussions in general studies or personal, social and health education (PSE) lessons, are arguably an attempt to rewrite the history of the Iraq invasion just as the world prepares to mark its fifth anniversary.

You’re dangerous ’cause you’re honest

You’re dangerous, you don’t know what you want

Thursday’s Headlines: Pentagon Cites Tapes Showing Interrogations: EPA Tightens Pollution Standards: HK schools close amid flu fears:  Women and children killed in Afghanistan by British air  strike : Bereaved Iraqi mother vows revenge on US : Iran starts ‘treason’ inquiry ahead of poll : Anschluss and Austria’s guilty conscience : ‘Magic is over’ for U.S., says French foreign minister: Museveni refuses to hand over rebel leaders to war crimes court : UN heading for Iraq-style disaster in Darfur, warn officials : Bush pushes Colombia trade pact

Mountain residents bulldozed out of government’s world heritage vision

Locals complain of evictions and threats as officials aim to impress Unesco inspectors

Tania Branigan in Shanxi

The Guardian,

Thursday March 13 2008

The sacred Buddhist mountain of Wutai is renowned for its serenity. But the residents of Taihuai, the town in the middle of the mountain’s five peaks, were angry and tearful as police and officials arrived to discuss their future again.

Huddled in a little courtyard off Taiping Street, they were anxious to share their complaints. The greeting pasted to the tiled wall behind them had a hollow ring: “May a multitude of things be as you hope.”

Optimism is in short supply, for their homes will soon be bulldozed. Many inhabitants have spent their whole lives here and fear they will end up homeless, jobless and even without compensation.

The government wants Wutai’s natural beauty and 2,000-year Buddhist history to be recognised with world heritage status. Inclusion on Unesco’s list would boost tourism and burnish China’s lustrous cultural reputation.

Why do the heathens rage behind the firehouse

Where Peewee sits upon the wall to preach?

This boy and girl that gather pearls

Of wisdom falling from his mouth

Tuesday’s Headlines:Clinton, Obama prepare for long, hard slog in Pennsylvania: Domestic terror groups in disarray after Sept. 11: We are facing food crisis, admits Mugabe: Spanish PM urges unity in face of conservative gains: Croat general Ante Gotovina stands trial for war crimes: Cost of Iraqi and Afghan wars has more than doubled: In the shadow of Sharon: Warlord under siege after ‘kidnap and torture’ of former ally: Bombs kill 15 in Pakistan’s Lahore:  Drug-trafficking suspect will be tried in Venezuela

U.N. Alleges Nuclear Work By Iran’s Civilian Scientists

Iranian nuclear engineer Mohsen Fakhrizadeh lectures weekly on physics at Tehran’s Imam Hossein University. Yet for more than a decade, according to documents attracting interest among Western governments, he also ran secret programs aimed at acquiring sensitive nuclear technology for his government.

Experts at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have repeatedly invited Fakhrizadeh to tea and a chat about Iran’s nuclear work. But for two years, the government in Tehran has barred any contact with the scientist, who U.S. officials say recently moved to a new lab in a heavily guarded compound also off-limits to U.N. inspectors.