Election Day could bring historic split: Democrats lose House, keep Senate



By Karen Tumulty

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, October 25, 2010; 12:10 AM  

The question around Washington today is not whether Nov. 2 will be a difficult day for the Democrats who control Congress, but rather how bad it will be.

Increasingly, it looks like the answer depends on which chamber of Congress you’re following.

The nonpartisan Cook Political Report now estimates that more than 90 Democratic House seats are potentially in play; on the Republican side of the aisle, it estimates that only nine appear in jeopardy. As a result, most leading forecasters say it is more likely that Republicans will win the 39 House seats they need to take control.

Robert Fisk: The shaming of America

Our writer delivers a searing dispatch after the WikiLeaks revelations that expose in detail the brutality of the war in Iraq – and the astonishing, disgraceful deceit of the US

Sunday, 24 October 2010

As usual, the Arabs knew. They knew all about the mass torture, the promiscuous shooting of civilians, the outrageous use of air power against family homes, the vicious American and British mercenaries, the cemeteries of the innocent dead. All of Iraq knew. Because they were the victims.

Only we could pretend we did not know. Only we in the West could counter every claim, every allegation against the Americans or British with some worthy general – the ghastly US military spokesman Mark Kimmitt and the awful chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Peter Pace, come to mind – to ring-fence us with lies.

KAWAII DIPLOMACY

Officials in Hikone, Shiga Prefecture, were beaming after Hikonyan, a “samurai cat” that serves as the city’s mascot, was chosen as the favorite character at the Japan Expo in France.

A Japanese woman was one of six people selected to become a temporary panda keeper in China’s Sichuan province.

A Toyama-based NPO called Dream of the Earth has embarked on an 18-month project to teach fishermen in southern Sri Lanka “a traditional Japanese fishing method using fixed nets.”

In an unusually poetic turn of phrase, a Fuji TV newscaster described the scene at last week’s rescue of miners in Copiapo, Chile, as kisu no arashi-“a storm of kisses.”

Meanwhile, Japan’s space agency revealed it had sent the miners a care package that included “antibacterial underwear” and brown-sugar candies that are used for “space food.”

News organizations look at leak with different eyes

Times handles WikiLeaks disclosures more cautiously than Guardian, Al-Jazeera

By Alex Johnson

Reporter  

WikiLeaks.org tried to coordinate coverage of its highly anticipated release of secret U.S. documents from the war in Iraq by sharing the material with a select group of news organizations weeks in advance, but it couldn’t coordinate what they actually said.

In the end, the shadowy, decentralized organization couldn’t even coordinate the release of its own documents.

Al-Jazeera, one of the news organizations that it had given the documents weeks ago, broke WikiLeaks’ embargo by publishing a six-minute video on its website late Friday afternoon. The New York Times, The Guardian of Britain and Le Monde, which also received the material under the embargo, followed swiftly with their extensive prepared reports.

U.S. halts aid to some Pakistan military units

AP source: White House worried about human rights abuses

By MATTHEW LEE  

The Obama administration is withholding assistance to some Pakistani military units over concerns they may have been involved in human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings and torture, a senior U.S. official said Thursday.

The official said aid to a handful of Pakistani units believed to have committed, encouraged or tolerated abuses had been suspended under 1997 legislation championed by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. The so-called Leahy Amendment bars U.S. military assistance from going to foreign armed forces suspected of committing atrocities.

“In accordance with the Leahy Amendment, we have withheld assistance from a small number of units linked to gross human rights violations,”the official said.

China ‘trying to block publication of UN Darfur report’

Beijing is trying to prevent the release of a report which says Chinese bullets have been used against Darfur peacekeepers, unnamed UN diplomats say.

The BBC   21 October 2010

The report is being discussed by a United Nations committee which monitors sanctions against Sudan, including an arms embargo on Darfur.

Beijing says it is vaguely worded and full of flaws.

Ceasefires and peace negotiations have failed to end the conflict in the volatile western Sudanese region.

The report says that a dozen different brands of Chinese bullet casings have been found in Darfur, some at sites where attacks on UN troops took place.

The BBC’s Barbara Plett at the UN in New York says the allegations are controversial, but adds that China has the right to sell munitions to Khartoum as long as they are not used in Darfur.

Flight delays cost passengers $16.7 billion

FAA-funded study factors in time lost, secondary travel arrangements

By JOAN LOWY

WASHINGTON – Airline flight delays cost passengers more than inconvenience – $16.7 billion more – according to a study delivered to the Federal Aviation Administration on Monday.

The FAA-funded study looks at the cost to passengers for flight delays in 2007, the latest year for which complete data was available when researchers began working on the study.

Unlike past studies of the impact of flight delays, researchers looked more broadly at the costs associated with flight delays, including passengers’ lost time waiting for flights and then scrambling to make other arrangements when flights are canceled.

Super-Typhoon Megi hits northern Philippines

Super-Typhoon Megi has made landfall in the northern Philippines, lashing the area with heavy rains and winds of more than 225km/h (140mph).

The BBC

Thousands of people in the path of the storm have fled their homes, emergency services are on high alert and schools have been closed in many areas.

It is the strongest storm the Philippines has faced for four years.

In 2006, a storm with winds of 155km/h triggered mudslides, burying villages and killing about 1,000 people.

‘Preparing for war’

The northern provinces of Cagayan and Isabela are on the highest storm alert.

One man in Cagayan was reported missing after he fell into the fast-flowing Buntun river. The man was named as Vicente Decena, a candidate in next week’s local elections.

Key U.S. allies in Iraq said to be rejoining rebels

Many have quit Sunni Awakening or are covertly helping al-Qaida group

By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS and DURAID ADNAN

BAQUBA, Iraq  – Members of United States-allied Awakening Councils have quit or been dismissed from their positions in significant numbers in recent months, prey to an intensive recruitment campaign by the Sunni insurgency, according to government officials, current and former members of the Awakening and insurgents.

Although there are no firm figures, security and political officials say hundreds of the well-disciplined fighters – many of whom have gained extensive knowledge about the American military – appear to have rejoined Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

THE NAKED AND THE CRISP

Participants in Chiba’s Ohara Hadaka Matsuri (“Ohara naked man festival”) got a jolt when lightning struck, injuring 34 people carrying shrines, two of them seriously.

In a bid to crash Apple’s iPad party, Sharp is rolling out its new portable e-reader called Galapagos. The company says the tablet will be “adopting a unique evolutionary path of using Japanese technology and design to match the needs of the Japanese user.” (Does that mean we will now be spared grown men reading pornographic manga on the train?)

After paying ¥17 million a year for the naming rights to Miyashita Park in Shibuya-ku, Nike came up with the catchy “Miyashita Nike Park” moniker.