Morning Shinbun Saturday October 9

Gunmen in Pakistan torch nearly 30 NATO fuel tankers

 Attacks continue as Khyber Pass border crossing remains closed

By Gul Yusufzai

msnbc.com news services

QUETTA, Pakistan – Gunmen in southwestern Pakistan set fire to nearly 30 tankers carrying fuel for NATO troops in Afghanistan on Saturday, an official said.

The attack came two days after the United States apologized to Pakistan for an air raid that killed two Pakistani soldiers and which led Pakistan to close the famous Khyber Pass border crossing.

South Africa Iron Age site ‘threatened’



By Catriona Davies, for CNN

A coal mine being developed close to a World Heritage Site in South Africa could “completely destroy” one of the country’s most cherished national parks, UNESCO has warned.

Environmental, wildlife and archaeological groups have objected to the South African government’s decision to allow the mine near the boundary of Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape in the extreme north of the country.

The area has evidence of the first complex society in southern Africa, dating back to the Iron Age about 1,000 years and rock art up to 10,000 years old. It was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003.

USA

Activism of Thomas’s Wife Could Raise Judicial Issues

 

By JACKIE CALMES

Published: October 8, 2010

RICHMOND, Va. – As one of the keynote speakers here Friday at a state convention billed as the largest Tea Party event ever, Virginia Thomas gave the throng of more than 2,000 activists a full-throated call to arms for conservative principles.

For three decades, Mrs. Thomas has been a familiar figure among conservative activists in Washington – since before she met her husband of 23 years, Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court. But this year she has emerged in her most politically prominent role yet: Mrs. Thomas is the founder and head of a new nonprofit group, Liberty Central, dedicated to opposing what she characterizes as the leftist “tyranny” of President Obama and Democrats in Congress and to “protecting the core founding principles” of the nation..

Buyers anxiously await foreclosure deals to go through

 

 By Dina ElBoghdady

Washington Post Staff Writer

Since lenders began halting foreclosure sales elsewhere in the country, Peter Guarino has nervously been calling his real estate agent several times a week to ask what’s become of the Burtonsville condominium he snagged at an auction on the courthouse steps in August.

Guarino has ponied up $30,000 for a down payment to buy the foreclosed property. He’s signed a contract and now, before heading to settlement, he’s waiting for final court approval – unsure whether he will get his money back if the deal fails.

Europe

Barcelona takes a stand against its ‘living statues’



By Dale Fuchs in Madrid Saturday, 9 October 2010

They are known as “living statues” – street performers who cover themselves in body paint or flowing cloaks reminiscent of stone goddesses, kings and thinkers.

They strike eternal poses; they do not blink or scratch (unless you catch them off duty with a sandwich or cigarette). If a passer-by drops a coin, they might wink or offer a slight wave.

For many city dwellers, these immobile acts have already become invisible, part of the urban scenery. But for residents of Barcelona’s famed pedestrian walkway, The Rambla, they are all too visible – in fact, the glut of petrified mimes is causing traffic jams. To keep the crowds moving, the city council has decided to regulate the statues standing frozen on the thoroughfare at the heart of Barcelona’s medieval quarter that attracts 200,000 visitors a day, or 78 million people per year.

India trade deal with EU will allow thousands of immigrants into Britain  

Thousands of Indian workers will be allowed into Britain under a new European Union trade deal that threatens to overturn the Coalition’s pledge severely to limit immigration

By Bruno Waterfield in Brussels  

A planned “free trade agreement” with India, to be signed this December, will give skilled Indian IT workers, engineers and managers easy passage into Europe in return for European companies gaining access to India’s huge domestic market.

The deal has split some of the most senior figures in the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition. Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, and William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, argue that the EU-India agreement must go ahead because it is worth hundreds of millions of pounds to business. But David Cameron, the Prime Minister, and Theresa May, the Home Secretary, are opposed. They, and other Conservatives, have insisted that the government uphold a high-profile pledge to bring down net immigration, which is currently at 176,000 entrants a year.

Middle East

Arab League urges US to call halt on Israeli settlements

Committee has backed the decision of Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to suspend peace talks with Israel

Ian Black, Middle East editor

The Guardian, Saturday 9 October 2010

Arab foreign ministers have given the US another month to persuade Israel to halt settlement activity in the occupied territories – backing the decision by Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to suspend peace talks.

Talks in Libya produced a statement by the Arab League last night urging the Obama administration to carry on working for an extension of Israel’s 10-month settlement freeze, which expired last month, so that the already faltering negotiations can continue.

Abbas had urged ministers of the 22-member league to back his call for more time before pronouncing the talks a failure, as many observers predict they eventually will be.

Egyptian fiction growing, challenging conservative norms

The Egyptian fiction industry, formerly overshadowed by Beirut and Baghdad, is booming and evolving to challenge norms and reflect a changing society.

By Sarah Topol, Correspondent / October 8, 2010

The age-old Middle Eastern adage that books are written in Cairo, published in Beirut, and read in Baghdad is getting a run for its money. Today, a new wave of Egyptian fiction has increased readership both inside and outside the country.

Many trace the new style of literature to a 2002 novel, “The Yacoubian Building” by Alaa Al Aswany, that moved themes of social stigma and societal pressure to the forefront of Egyptian literature. Since its publication, “The Yacoubian Building” has sold more than a million copies worldwide in 40 countries and has been translated into 30 languages.

Asia

Julia Lovell: Beijing values the Nobels. That’s why this hurts

Comment

Saturday, 9 October 2010

China has an unhappy relationship with Nobel Prizes.

After it re-entered the international community in the 1980s, the country developed a publicly acknowledged “Nobel Complex”. The Beijing government has seen the prize – like Olympic medals and entry to the World Trade Organisation – as an important source of international “face”, as the chance to win global recognition as a modern world power. Since it first emerged, however, China’s Nobel Complex has been mired in controversy.

Most years, Chinese scholars, politicians and journalists worry that a Nobel Prize has never been awarded to a Chinese person while resident in China. Ethnically Chinese scientists have won only for breakthroughs made outside their country of birth. The only literature prize given to a Chinese writer was given in 2000 to Gao Xingjian, who now lives in Paris, and whose novels openly denounce Communist policies.

Kyrgyzstan Has Become an Ungovernable Country

‘A Completely Lawless Place’

By Erich Follath and Christian Neef in Osh, Kyrgyzstan  

Editor’s note: This feature is the first of a series on Central Asia that will be running on SPIEGEL International in the coming weeks. You can read more about future installments in the series here.

The sun is high in the sky, directly above the Taht-I-Suleiman, a giant rock in the middle of the city where the Biblical King Solomon was once said to have preached. In fact, the sun is so unrelentingly bright that the snow-covered peaks of the Tian Shan have disappeared behind a curtain of flickering heat. Somewhere in the city a muezzin is calling the faithful to prayer.

On the surface, Osh seems almost idyllic.

Africa

Zimbabwe in crisis after Mugabe defies deal with PM



Brian Latham

October 9, 2010

DURBAN, South Africa: The Zimbabwean Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, has accused the President, Robert Mugabe, of breaking political promises and has said he is disgusted with his partner in the country’s power-sharing government.

Mr Tsvangirai said Mr Mugabe and his party, ZANU-PF, had broken agreements made last year, when ZANU-PF formed a government with Mr Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Mr Tsvangirai said events in the past few months had left him ”disappointed in Mugabe, and [a] betrayal of the confidence that I and many Zimbabweans have personally invested in him”..

Ugandan police unravel World Cup bomb plot

If Ugandan police investigators are right, the size of the conspiracy behind the twin bombings during July’s World Cup finals could hardly have been bigger.

GODFREY OLUKYA | KAMPALA, UGANDA – Oct 09 2010  

Ugandan police — with help from the FBI and Kenyan police — have arrested 36 people from seven countries in the wake of blasts that rocked Uganda’s capital, killing 76 people.

The suspects hail from at least three countries with known terror links: Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan. At least one suspect said he was recruited and trained by al-Qaeda. The Somali militant group that claimed responsibility for the blast, al-Shabaab, has known links with the international terror group.

Latin America

Rescuers ‘hours away’ from reaching Chilean miners

Rescuers say they could be just hours away from completing an escape tunnel for 33 miners trapped in a mine in Chile

 

Engineers said earlier they had just 34m (112ft) to drill to reach the miners 700m underground.

But Mining Minister Laurence Golborne warned that the rescuers had to work carefully not to jam the drill.

He also said that it would be three to eight days before the rescue mission at the San Jose mine would begin.

The miners were trapped in a chamber when part of the mine collapsed on 5 August.

The miners have now been underground longer than any other group.

Sirens and car horns

“We are very close,” Mr Golborne said on Friday. “It would be very complicated if after all the work we have done… you lose the hole. We have to be very careful and do it ina controlled way”.

Ignoring Asia A Blog