BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Ireland said it was discussing stabilization measures with its European partners on Tuesday and ways to cut its heavily indebted banks’ funding costs in what a top EU official called a “survival crisis” for the euro zone.
A euro zone source said finance ministers of the 16-nation currency area meeting in Brussels would declare support for Dublin’s austerity measures and express readiness to help financially, if it asks for aid, but would not announce any practical measures.
In Dublin, Prime Minister Brian Cowen rebuffed calls to request a bailout, saying the government was fully funded until mid-2011, and insisted that only the banks may need help.
In other news, kiss goodbye any Stock Market gains in November. As Atrios says is seems that only when the Market goes down do our “leaders” in Washington pay attention, so, more days like this please.
In about half an hour (2:30 pm ET) the Senate Banking Committee will be holding hearings on Title Fraud. You can watch it here @ senate.gov (h/t dday). It’s not on C-Span unfortunately.
Among the scheduled witnesses are- Barbara Desoer, president of Bank of America Home Loans, and David Lowman, chief executive of Chase Home Lending. Also Tom Miller, Attorney General of Iowa, Adam J. Levitin of Georgetown University Law, and Diane E. Thompson with the National Consumer Law Center.
There may be fireworks but attentive readers will remember I’ve been outlining many of the myriad problems for a long time and once again as recently as yesterday so I’m not really expecting any surprises.
The good news is that finally at least some of our brain dead political class seems to be waking up to the facts which have been apparent for months and years now. emptywheel highlights a newly released study from the TARP Congressional Oversight Panel that’s worth taking a look at.
Georgetown University Law professor, Jonathan Turley joined Rachel Maddow to discuss Supreme Court Jusice Clarence Thomas’ wife’s, Virginia Thomas, disassociate from the conservative activist group that she founded, Liberty Central and about the potential conflict of interest raised by her political advocacy work.
The question that was only hinted at, but that has been raised elsewhere, is, does this constitute a reason for impeachment? There is also the question of Justice Thomas, along with Justices Alito and Scalia, raising money for conservative political groups and a close association with the billionaire Koch brothers.
Justice Samuel Alito attended a gala fund raising dinner sponsored by American Spectator, a right-wing magazine known for its role in the Project,” a well-funded effort to invent stories with the goal of eventually impeaching President Clinton. When asked by Lee Fang of Think Progress if this was a conflict of interest, Alito dismissed his presence as “not important”.
Documents exposed by ThinkProgress last month revealed that Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas have also attended secret political fundraisers. We published a memo detailing fundraising events, organized by oil billionaires David and Charles Koch, to fund Republican campaigns, judicial elections, and groups running ads in the 2010 midterm election. The fundraisers, attended by some of the nation’s wealthiest bankers, industrialists, and other executives, help fund much of the conservative infrastructure. The memo stated the Thomas and Alito were past participants of the Koch fundraisers.
in determining when they may participate in fundraising activities. Under that Code:
Fund Raising. A judge may assist nonprofit law-related, civic, charitable, educational, religious, or social organizations in planning fund-raising activities and may be listed as an officer, director, or trustee. A judge may solicit funds for such an organization from judges over whom the judge does not exercise supervisory or appellate authority and from members of the judge’s family. Otherwise, a judge should not personally participate in fund-raising activities, solicit funds for any organization, or use or permit the use of the prestige of judicial office for that purpose. A judge should not personally participate in membership solicitation if the solicitation might reasonably be perceived as coercive or is essentially a fund-raising mechanism.
Considering that all three Justices voted for Citizens United v FEC, they should come forward with full disclosure of all their fundraising activities and donations to clear up what appears to be egregious conflicts of interest. If they do not, the House Judiciary Committees should, at the very least, begin an investigation and dependent on their findings start impeachment proceedings according to the Constitution. With the 112th Congress, I don’t expect much interest.
“Punting the Pundits“ is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.
On Wednesday David Axelrod, President Obama’s top political adviser, appeared to signal that the White House was ready to cave on tax cuts – to give in to Republican demands that tax cuts be extended for the wealthy as well as the middle class. “We have to deal with the world as we find it,” he declared.
The White House then tried to walk back what Mr. Axelrod had said. But it was a telling remark, in more ways than one.
The obvious point is the contrast between the administration’s current whipped-dog demeanor and Mr. Obama’s soaring rhetoric as a candidate. How did we get from “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for” to here?
But the bitter irony goes deeper than that: the main reason Mr. Obama finds himself in this situation is that two years ago he was not, in fact, prepared to deal with the world as he was going to find it. And it seems as if he still isn’t.
When I was a kid my Uncle Robert, for whom I was named, used to say that blacks needed to “fight on all fronts, at home and abroad.”
By that he meant that while it was critically important to fight against racial injustice and oppression, it was just as important to support, nurture and fight on behalf of one’s family and community.
Uncle Robert (my father always called him Jim – don’t ask) died many years ago, but he came to mind as I was going over the dismal information in a new report about the tragic conditions confronting a large portion of America’s black population, especially black males.
The report, titled “A Call for Change,” begins by saying that “the nation’s young black males are in a state of crisis” and describes their condition as “a national catastrophe.” It tells us that black males remain far behind their schoolmates in academic achievement and that they drop out of school at nearly twice the rate of whites.
Black children – boys and girls – are three times more likely to live in single-parent households than white children and twice as likely to live in a home where no parent has full-time or year-round employment.
In 2008, black males were imprisoned at a rate six-and-a-half times higher than white males.
The terrible economic downturn has made it more difficult than ever to douse this raging fire that is consuming the life prospects of so many young blacks, and the growing sentiment in Washington is to do even less to help any Americans in need. It is inconceivable in this atmosphere that blacks themselves will not mobilize in a major way to save these young people. I see no other alternative.
The president emerged Friday from a meeting with the heads of state and finance ministers of the 20 biggest economies, in Seoul, South Korea, saying they had agree to “get the global economy back on the path of recovery.”
But where are the specifics? The three-page communique that also emerged from the session brims with bromides about the importance of “rebalancing” the global economy, “coordinating” policies, and refraining from “competitive devaluations.”
All nice, but not a single word of agreement from China about revaluating the yuan, or from the United States about refraining from further moves by the Fed to flood the U.S. economy with money (thereby reducing interest rates, causing global investors to look elsewhere for higher returns, and lowering the value of the dollar).
But more fundamentally, we are here because we know what happened in this city during the G20 and the wrong people are on trial for it.
There are police officers that should be facing charges for assault and harassment — and so should any supervisors who enabled or covered over those abuses.
So far no one in authority has paid any price for what happened. . . . .
But this is not just about the cops. There are also high-level politicians who should be under investigation — for their role in ordering the militarization of our city, for subverting the legislative process to increase police powers, for grossly misappropriating public funds, using them to buy off constituents and grease donors. Tony Clement, we are talking about you.
When it comes to Afghanistan policy, December 2014 is the new July 2011.
It makes sense to push further into the future any talk of the United States stepping back, and the major players have bought in: Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who has pushed for the benchmark; the NATO alliance, which is likely to commit to it at a meeting later this week; and President Obama, who will attend the NATO summit in Lisbon.
So far, in fact, you could say that only the American people have yet to be clued in.
I come not to bury the manifesto issued last week by President Obama’s debt-reduction commission, but to praise the most welcome of its ideas: Slash defense spending along with everything else.
The panel’s co-chairmen, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, identify $100 billion in defense cuts that could be made in 2015. That would be too little and too late, but what’s almost revolutionary is the notion that if we’re ever to get this nation back on sound economic footing, we have to cut what Dwight Eisenhower called the “military-industrial complex” down to size.
The United States accounts for 46.5 percent of the world’s total defense spending, according to a widely accepted recent estimate. The next-biggest spender is China, which has undertaken an immense buildup to become a military as well as economic superpower – yet accounts for just 6.6 percent of the world’s toThe panel’s co-chairmen, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, identify $100 billion in defense cuts that could be made in 2015. That would be too little and too late, but what’s almost revolutionary is the notion that if we’re ever to get this nation back on sound economic footing, we have to cut what Dwight Eisenhower called the “military-industrial complex” down to size.
The United States accounts for 46.5 percent of the world’s total defense spending, according to a widely accepted recent estimate. The next-biggest spender is China, which has undertaken an immense buildup to become a military as well as economic superpower – yet accounts for just 6.6 percent of the world’s to
The lame-duck session of Congress that kicks off this week will test whether Democrats have spines made of Play-Doh and whether President Obama has decided to pretend that capitulation is conciliation.
Congress faces an enormous amount of unfinished business, largely because of successful GOP obstruction tactics during the regular session. Republican senators who declare themselves moderate helped block action on important bills, objecting to provisions they didn’t like or to Democratic procedural maneuvers.
To read the papers and watch TV news during the past week, you would think that the most dire problem afflicting Americans was the federal deficit in 2020 or 2030.
But for most people, the crisis right now is lost income, lost jobs, lost homes.
And the recommendations of the two co-chairs of the fiscal commission would make the prolonged stagnation worse, by commencing belt-tightening less than a year from now, at the beginning is fiscal year 2012 (October 2011) when most economic forecasts say unemployment will still be around ten percent.
The economy is on the brink of a period of prolonged deflation. With the Obama stimulus of February 2009 already starting to peter out, state budgets in free fall, home foreclosures proceeding at the rate of several hundred thousand a month, and job creation too low to cut the unemployment rate, the outlook is for endless slump — unless we get more public investment, not less.
At this point most of the country has heard the story of “Aqua Buddha.” According to an anonymous account, during his college days, Kentucky Sen.-elect Rand Paul dragged a woman down to a river and told her to bow down to the river, which he referred to as “Aqua Buddha.” His opponent in the campaign tried to make an issue out of this incident by implying that Paul worshiped the river as a god.
Whatever the truth of this incident, it doesn’t come close to the silliness exhibited by Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, the co-chairs of President Obama’s deficit commission. Among the items on the to-do list of the chairs was a cap of government spending at 21 percent of GDP. One can only assume that the number 21 bears some sort of religious significance for Simpson and Bowles because it certainly makes no sense to have this sort of rule on policy grounds.
The standard way to determine the size of government is to have the government perform the services that are more efficiently and effectively done by the government than the private sector. If the total value of these services is less than 21 percent of the economy, that would be fine. On the other hand, there is no obvious problem created if it is more than 21 percent, except for those with religious beliefs about the number 21.
As I tweeted and wrote for Danger Room today, the incoming chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Buck McKeon, briefly argued in a speech today that Congress should “reaffirm – in statute – the Authorization to Use Military Force of 2011.” To expand on that: McKeon mentioned the AUMF in the context of detainee policy – that is, to keep terrorism detainees out of federal courts. But it clearly goes beyond that. Here’s what a McKeon aide told me:
The objective wouldn’t the “drop a new Authorization to Use Military Force, but to reaffirm and strengthen the existing one,” says an aide to McKeon who requested anonymity, “recognizing that the enemy has changed geographically and evolved since 2001.” Sounds like the shadow wars may get some sunshine.
For the Obama administration, AUMF has operated like an Emergency Law, providing blanket authorities for things like drone strikes beyond Afghanistan that are never mentioned in the brief 2001 language. A new AUMF would at least be more specific about what powers Congress actually intends the president to have to conduct a war against al-Qaeda – as well as, perhaps, what the boundaries of those authorities might be. It’s still not a declaration of war – my understanding is there’s not an appetite for that in Congress – but it also would represent the first congressional reconsideration of the scope of a war that, in practice, is endless. That could go in any number of directions, but at least it’ll be debated.
This is a means to justify the drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen or any other country the US deems a threat, as well as, to “justify” the illegal, indefinite detention of persons that the US decides is too dangerous to release.
But there are two other aspects to a “reaffirmed and strengthened” AUMF. As McKeon’s aide notes, the enemy has changed geographically, moving to Yemen and Somalia. A new AUMF will make it easier to build the new bases in Yemen they’re planning.
The U.S. is preparing for an expanded campaign against al Qaeda in Yemen, mobilizing military and intelligence resources to enable Yemeni and American strikes and drawing up a longer-term proposal to establish Yemeni bases in remote areas where militants operate.
And I would bet that the AUMF is drafted broadly enough to allow drone strikes anywhere the government decides it sees a terrorist.
Which brings us to the most insidious part of a call for a new AUMF: the “homeland.” The AUMF serves or has served as the basis for the government’s expanded powers in the US, to do things like wiretap Americans. Now that the Republicans know all the powers the government might want to use against US persons domestically, do you really think they will resist the opportunity to write those powers into an AUMF (whether through vagueness or specificity), so as to avoid the quadrennial review and debate over the PATRIOT Act (not to mention the oversight currently exercised by DOJ’s Inspector General)? The only matter of suspense, for me, is what role they specify for drones operating domestically…
Did the young Austrian nun named Maria really take to the hills surrounding Salzburg to sing spontaneously of her love of music? Did she comfort herself with thoughts of copper kettles, and did she swoon to her future husband’s song about an alpine flower while the creeping menace of Nazism spread across central Europe? No, the real-life Maria von Trapp did none of those things. She was indeed a former nun, and she did indeed marry Count Georg von Trapp and become stepmother to his large brood of children, but nearly all of the particulars she related in her 1949 book, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, were ignored by the creators of the Broadway musical her memoir inspired. And while the liberties taken by the show’s writers, Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, and by its composer and lyricist, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, caused some consternation to the real Maria von Trapp and to her stepchildren, according to many later reports, those liberties made The Sound of Music a smash success from the very night of its Broadway opening on this day in 1959.
The Sound of Music opened on Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on November 16, 1959, moved to the Mark Hellinger Theatre on November 6, 1962 and closed on June 15, 1963 after 1,443 performances. The director was Vincent J. Donehue, and the choreographer was Joe Layton. The original cast included Mary Martin (at age 46) as Maria, Theodore Bikel as Captain Georg von Trapp, Patricia Neway as Mother Abbess, Kurt Kasznar as Max Detweiler, Marion Marlowe as Elsa Schraeder, Brian Davies as Rolf and Lauri Peters as Liesl. Soprano June Card was one of the ensemble members in the original production. The show tied for the Tony Award for Best Musical with Fiorello!. Other awards included Martin for Best Actress in a Musical, Neway for Best Featured Actress, Best Scenic Design (Oliver Smith) and Best Musical Direction (Frederick Dvonch). Bikel and Kaznar were nominated for acting awards, and Donehue was nominated for his direction. The entire children’s cast was nominated for Best Featured Actress category as a single nominee, even though two children were boys.
The Sound of Music was the final musical written by Rodgers and Hammerstein; Hammerstein died of cancer nine months after the Broadway premiere.
Rebecca Luker leads the 1998 Broadway revival cast in a performance of ‘Climb Every Mountain,’ ‘Do Re Mi’ and ‘The Sound of Music’ at the Tony Awards.
534 – A second and final revision of the Codex Justinianus is published.
1491 – An auto de fe, held in the Brasero de la Dehesa outside of Avila, concludes the case of the Holy Child of La Guardia with the public execution of several Jewish and converso suspects.
1532 – Francisco Pizarro and his men capture Inca Emperor Atahualpa.
1776 – American Revolutionary War: Hessian mercenaries capture Fort Washington from the Patriots.
1776 – American Revolution: The United Provinces (Low Countries) recognize the independence of the United States.
1805 – Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Schongrabern – Russian forces under Pyotr Bagration delay the pursuit by French troops under Murat.
1821 – American Old West: Missouri trader William Becknell arrives in Santa Fe, New Mexico over a route that became known as the Santa Fe Trail.
1849 – A Russian court sentences Fyodor Dostoevsky to death for anti-government activities linked to a radical intellectual group; his sentence is later commuted to hard labor.
1852 – The English astronomer John Russell Hind discovers the asteroid 22 Kalliope.
1857 – Second relief of Lucknow. Twenty-four Victoria Crosses are awarded, the most in a single day.
1863 – American Civil War: Battle of Campbell’s Station near Knoxville, Tennessee. Confederate troops unsuccessfully attack Union forces.
1885 – Canadian rebel leader of the Metis and “Father of Manitoba”, Louis Riel is executed for treason.
1907 – Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory become Oklahoma and are admitted as the 46th U.S. state.
1907 – Cunard Line’s RMS Mauretania, sister ship of RMS Lusitania, sets sail on her maiden voyage from Liverpool, England to New York City.
1914 – The Federal Reserve Bank of the United States officially opens.
1938 – LSD is first synthesized by Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann at the Sandoz Laboratories in Basel, Switzerland.
1940 – World War II: In response to Germany’s leveling of Coventry, England two days before, the Royal Air Force bombs Hamburg.
1940 – Holocaust: In occupied Poland, the Nazis close off the Warsaw Ghetto from the outside world.
1943 – World War II: American bombers strike a hydro-electric power facility and heavy water factory in German-controlled Vemork, Norway.
1944 – Dueren, Germany is destroyed by Allied bombers.
1945 – Cold War: Operation Paperclip: The United States Army secretly admits 88 German scientists and engineers to help in the development of rocket technology.
1945 – UNESCO is founded.
1965 – Venera program: The Soviet Union launches the Venera 3 space probe toward Venus, the first spacecraft to reach the surface of another planet.
1973 – Skylab program: NASA launches Skylab 4 with a crew of three astronauts from Cape Canaveral, Florida for an 84-day mission.
1973 – U.S. President Richard Nixon signs the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act into law, authorizing the construction of the Alaska Pipeline.
1979 – The first line of Bucharest Metro (Line M1) is opened from Timpuri Noi to Semanatoarea in Bucharest, Romania.
1988 – The Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR declares that Estonia is “sovereign” but stops short of declaring independence.
1988 – In the first open election in more than a decade, voters in Pakistan elect populist candidate Benazir Bhutto to be Prime Minister of Pakistan.
1989 – A death squad composed of El Salvadoran army troops kills six Jesuit priests and two others at Jose Simeon Canas University.
1989 – UNESCO adopts the Seville Statement on Violence at the twenty-fifth session of its General Conference.
1997 – After nearly 18 years of incarceration, the People’s Republic of China releases Wei Jingsheng, a pro-democracy dissident, from jail for medical reasons.
2000 – Bill Clinton becomes the first U.S. President to visit Vietnam since the end of the Vietnam War.
LONDON – European officials, increasingly concerned that the Continent’s debt crisis will spread, are warning that any new rescue plans may need to cover Portugal as well as Ireland to contain the problem they tried to resolve six months ago.
Any such plan would have to be preceded by a formal request for assistance from each country before it would be put in place. And for months now, Ireland has insisted that it has enough funds to keep it going until spring. Portugal says it, too, needs no help and emphasizes that it is in a stronger position than Ireland.
Edward Wedbush’s roof leaks, but his wallet doesn’t
He kept his investment firm going in the recession. He drives a 1992 Town Car and brings lunch from home. The office carpet is patched with duct tape. One worker calls him ‘the cheapest man alive.’
By Walter Hamilton, Los Angeles Times
November 16, 2010
He built the largest stock brokerage in Los Angeles, and his name adorns one of the city’s most distinctive high-rises. He’s worth tens of millions of dollars.
So why can’t Edward Wedbush manage to fix his roof?
The peeling shingles atop his one-story stucco house in Ladera Heights are covered in blue and black tarpaulin. The bandaged roof has been an eyesore for years in a neighborhood of carefully tended mid-century homes.
USA
Access to General Motors stock offering won’t include many of its rescuers
Most Americans won’t have access to the automaker’s IPO shares, and many of those who will are likely to be well-heeled customers at big Wall Street firms.
By Walter Hamilton and Nathaniel Popper, Los Angeles Times
November 16, 2010
Reporting from Los Angeles and New York –
General Motors Co. is set to reemerge as a public company this week in one of the year’s hottest initial public stock offerings, but many American taxpayers who helped rescue the company won’t be going along for the ride.
That’s because most Americans won’t have access to the new shares of the Detroit automaker. And many of those who do are likely to be well-heeled customers at big Wall Street firms.
Erin Brockovich prepares for a real-life sequel
Her campaign became a Hollywood hit. Now the same pollution is back – and so is she
By David Usborne, US Editor Tuesday, 16 November 2010
The film version ended well enough – chased down by the unlikely crusader Erin Brockovich, played by Julia Roberts, the giant California power company PG&E settled with residents in the high desert town of Hinkley over claims it had poisoned their water supply and exposed them to life-threatening illnesses.
Regrettably, a sequel may now have to be ordered. Thirteen years after the company paid $333m (£207m) to settle the class-action suit against it spearheaded by Ms Brockovich, the silent scourge in the soil may be back.
Europe
Nato eyes ‘fresh start’ with Russia
Nato will launch a “fresh start” with Russia this week with a deal to step up collaboration on Afghanistan and efforts to end suspicion over a European missile shield, the alliance’s chief said on Monday
1:07AM GMT 16 Nov 2010
Nato leaders meeting in Lisbon on Friday and Saturday are expected to endorse a plan to mount a missile shield that will defend Europe from ballistic missiles and invite Russia to join the system.
At a separate summit in the Portuguese capital, Nato and Russia are also expected to reach an agreement on their first ever joint review of common security threats and deepen their co-operation on Afghanistan.
“I think we are witnessing a fresh start in the relationship between Nato and Russia and maybe I could go further and say a fresh start in the relationship between Russia and the West,” Anders Fogh Rasmussen told a news conference.
Battling Merkel calls for stability to end euro zone crisis
The Irish Times – Tuesday, November 16, 2010
DEREK SCALLY in Karlsruhe
A FEISTY Angela Merkel insisted yesterday that change to European treaties was the only way to create a “new culture of stability” in the EU and prevent another euro zone crisis.
She delivered an assured performance at yesterday’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) conference, leaving her critics in no doubt that, after a decade as party leader and five years as chancellor, Angela Merkel is at the peak of her political powers.
“I’ve heard we won’t manage to get the necessary changes to European treaties and that it’s utopian to think we’ll get agreement of all countries,” she said. “But faint-heartedness is a poor adviser. This is about everything: if the euro fails, Europe fails and, with it, the European idea of shared values and unification.”
Middle East
Woman sentenced to death by stoning confesses ‘sin of adultery’ to Iran TV
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani also blamed activist Mina Ahadi for spreading story around world
Saeed Kamali Dehghan
The Guardian, Tuesday 16 November 2010
Iranian state TV broadcast a statement last night by the woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery, in which she described herself as a “sinner”.
Appearing on TV for the third time since her case caught the world’s attention, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, 43, also accused Mina Ahadi, an activist of the German-based International Committee Against Stoning (Icas), of spreading her story around the world.
The report also broadcast purported statements by two men whose faces were blurred. State TV identified them as Ashtiani’s son, Sajjad Qaderzadeh, 22, and her lawyer, Houtan Kian, both of whom were arrested last month.
Israel blames Egypt for Hamas rearm
TEL AVIV has accused Cairo of not doing nearly enough to clamp down on arms smuggling into Gaza, allowing the Palestinian militant group Hamas to build up a potent arsenal of rockets.
A top Israeli intelligence official who declined to be named, said Egypt could easily halt the clandestine weapons trade, but corruption and a fear of straining Arab relations were holding Cairo back.
“This is one of the biggest problems we have,” the official told a briefing for foreign journalists, adding that Hamas had recovered from the killing of one of its commanders in Dubai earlier this year and was receiving a steady flow of arms.
Asia
Family leads outcry at blasphemy death penalty
Anger at Pakistan’s ‘discriminatory’ laws grows as the Christian Asia Bibi appeals against sentence for insulting Mohamed
By Andrew Buncombe, Asia Correspondent Tuesday, 16 November 2010
Campaigners in Pakistan say the case of Asia Bibi – the first woman to be sentenced to death for blasphemy – highlights the need for urgent reform of laws that are routinely used to persecute minorities and settle grudges.
The 45-year-old Christian, who has at least two children, was sentenced to death by a court in Sheikhupura, near Lahore, after prosecutors accused her of insulting the Prophet Mohamed and promoting her own faith. Her family have rejected the allegations and launched an appeal. “We have never ever insulted the Prophet or Islamic scripture, and we will contest the charges,” said her husband Ashiq Masih..
Delhi building collapse: 51 dead
November 16, 2010
At least 51 people died when a four-storey building collapsed in a crowded area of New Delhi, officials say, as rescuers continued searching on Tuesday for more victims feared trapped in the rubble.
Officials said the building in eastern Delhi may have been weakened by heavy flooding brought on by some of the strongest monsoon rains in decades, which burst the banks of the nearby river Yamuna that runs through Delhi.
Rescue workers and residents worked through the night trying to remove debris after the building caved in late Monday in the congested working-class Lalita Park area of Laxmi Nagar, where narrow lanes made it difficult for rescue services to bring in heavy lifting equipment.
Africa
Senegal to open inquiry into deadly 2002 ferry sinking
By Sapa-AFP
President Abdoulaye Wade had ordered the inquiry into the capsizing of the government-owned ferry Joola off the coast of Gambia in September 26, 2002, a justice ministry official said.
“A decision has been made by the highest authority to open a judicial enquiry on the Joola,” the official said, confirming an earlier statement by Justice Minister Cheikh Tidiane Sy cited by media.
Southern Sudan begins registration for independence vote
TUESDAY, 16 NOVEMBER 2010
VOTERS’ registration has begun in Sudan for a January referendum that would allow the country’s autonomous southern region, which holds a majority of the nation’s oil, to secede from the north.
The move came as northern and southern leaders agreed they would form a “soft border” allowing the free movement of trade and nomads between their territories in the event of a separation, as part of a framework agreement to resolve a list of disputes between the two sides.
The Cable News Network (CNN) said a United Nations panel has arrived in Sudan to monitor the 17-day registration effort, which will take place at 3,000 sites across the country and in eight countries abroad, , the UN said.
Latin America
Rory Carroll in Port-au-Prince
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 16 November 2010 05.00 GMT
Crowds hurled rocks, set up burning barricades and blocked roads to protest over the foreign troops and the government’s response to the crisis
Protestors in Haiti attack UN peacekeepers in cholera backlash
Protestors in Haiti have attacked UN peacekeepers over suspicion that Nepalese soldiers brought the cholera epidemic which has swept the country and killed 1,000 people.
Crowds in two northern towns hurled rocks, set up burning barricades and blocked roads to protest the foreign troops and the government’s response to the crisis, rattling authorities and the UN in the run to a November 28 election.
Cap-Haitien, the country’s second city, was this morning cut off from the rest of Haiti after a day of rioting shut its roads and airport and left more than a dozenpeople wounded.
The Wall is the eleventh studio album by English progressive rock group Pink Floyd, released as a double album on 30 November 1979. It was subsequently performed live with elaborate theatrical effects, and adapted into a film, Pink Floyd The Wall.
As with their previous three studio albums The Wall is a concept album, and deals largely with themes of personal isolation. It was first conceived during the band’s 1977 In the Flesh Tour, where bassist and lyricist Roger Waters’ frustration with the spectators’ perceived boorishness became so acute that he began to imagine building a wall between the performers and audience. The album is a rock opera that centres on the character Pink, who is largely based on Waters. Pink’s life experiences, which begin with the loss of his father during the Second World War, and continue with abuse from his schoolteachers, an overprotective mother and the breakdown of his marriage, factor into his self-imposed isolation from society, represented by the metaphorical “Wall” of the album title.
The Wall features a notably harsher and more theatrical style than Pink Floyd’s previous releases. Keyboardist Richard Wright left the band during the album’s production but returned as a salaried musician, performing during later concerts. Hugely successful upon its release, in the United States (US) the album was one of the best selling of 1980. It is one of the best-selling double albums of all time, and is in the top five best-selling albums of all time in the US.
I suppose I should say a word or 2 about Sarah Palin’s Alaska. Yes I kinda sorta watched it in that face down on the keyboard in a puddle of drool sort of way which gives me nightmares about Stephen Colbert beating me with his Platinum membership card because I don’t buy enough Prescott Pharmaceuticals.
Sarah is absolutely right. Yelling at Bears and their cubs while you’re stealing their fish is kind of begging Darwin to smite you Piper. What was more interesting to me is that she didn’t wait 5 minutes to call out Joe McGinniss which sort of set the tone for her 40 minute campaign ad that plodded leadenly from talking point to talking point.
Mama Grizzlys indeed.
Now you may have a different impression and if not you have a chance to form a totally new one based on my particular prejudices tonight when it repeats, but when I say it lacks the drama and sincerity of Ochocinco: The Ultimate Catch I’m making a professional judgement as a critic.
Because I’m not a journalist, just a deadline writer.
YANGON (AFP) – Newly freed democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi on Monday called for a “non-violent revolution” in Myanmar as she knuckled down to the task of rebuilding her weakened opposition movement.
Speaking at her party headquarters in Yangon, where she met senior regional members for the first time in years, she told the BBC she was sure democracy would eventually come to her country, although she did not know when.
“I think we also have to try to make this thing happen… Velvet revolution sounds a little strange in the context of the military, but a non-violent revolution. Let’s put it that way,” the 65-year-old said.
YANGON (AFP) – Myanmar’s newly freed Aung San Suu Kyi was “ready for dialogue” with the regime, her lawyer said Monday, as the democracy icon knuckled down to the task of rebuilding her weakened party.
The 65-year-old spent several hours at her National League for Democracy (NLD) headquarters in meetings with regional party members, ending her first day back at work in years with a trip to a Yangon monastery.
Suu Kyi was freed from house arrest on Saturday, less than a week after a controversial election that cemented the junta’s decades-long grip on power but was widely criticised by democracy activists and Western leaders as a sham.
DUBLIN (AFP) – Ireland said Monday it was in contact with its international partners over its debt crisis but denied seeking a bailout as the EU warned that Dublin’s woes were a concern for the whole euro area.
Brussels and Dublin both insisted there were no formal talks despite persistent reports that Ireland was facing pressure to ask for help from a special European Union fund set up after the Greek debt crisis six months ago.
But with fears also mounting over the public finances in Greece and Portugal, Ireland said for the first time that it was in contact with international partners over its problems.
ATHENS (AFP) – Greece acknowledged Monday it would breach conditions for a new instalment of a 110-billion-euro bailout as the IMF and European Union began an audit of the country’s austerity measures.
Greece’s Socialist government faced a week of tough talks with its benefactors and although bolstered by sweeping successes in local elections on Sunday, the outlook is still overshadowed by gloom on the economic front.
The Eurostat statistics agency issued its final revision of Greece’s accounts for the past four years, triggering a new forecast by Athens that its public deficit in 2010 would reach 9.4 percent of output, well above the 8.1-percent target.
SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – Facebook launched a next-generation online messaging service on Monday that includes facebook.com email addresses in a move seen as a shot across the bow of Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg unveiled what he called a “convergent” modern messaging system that “handles messages seamlessly across all the ways you want to communicate” in a single inbox.
The messaging service blends online chat, text messages and other real-time conversation tools with traditional email, which Zuckerberg said had lost favor for being too slow for young Internet users.
PORT-AU-PRINCE (AFP) – As Haiti’s cholera toll neared 1,000 Monday, candidates insisted the health crisis should not derail looming presidential polls with the rebuilding of the quake-hit nation at stake.
Less than a month after the emergence of Haiti’s first cholera outbreak in half a century, the confirmed number of fatalities is at 917 and rising by more than 50 each day on average.
At least 27 deaths have been recorded in the teeming capital Port-au-Prince, including its largest slum Cite Soleil.
ARAFAT, Saudi Arabia (AFP) – An estimated two million Muslims descended from Mount Arafat on Monday, concluding the highlight of the hajj and beginning their trip back to Mecca to finish the annual pilgrimage.
White-robed pilgrims struggled after sunset to track back from Arafat, site of the Prophet Mohammed’s last sermon, to their first stop in Muzdalifah, while buses bursting with pilgrims stood at a standstill amid huge crowds of people.
On Tuesday, the Eid al-Adha or Feast of Sacrifice, pilgrims perform the symbolic “stoning of the devil” at Mina, a ritual marked in the past by deadly stampedes before the Saudi authorities expanded the site to several levels.
GUANGZHOU, China (AFP) – Olympic swimming champion Kosuke Kitajima flopped to finish outside the medals on Monday as the Chinese Asian Games goldrush gathered steam.
The Japanese icon, who clinched double breaststroke gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, was widely expected to win over 100m here but faded badly to finish fourth behind teammate Ryo Tateishi.
It was a stunning upset for Kitajima, who was attempting to win the 100-200m double for the third straight Asiad.
YANGON (Reuters) – The release of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is still being celebrated in Myanmar but fears about her safety or re-arrest are running high among her adoring supporters.
The Nobel laureate and daughter of the country’s independence hero was released on Saturday after seven years in detention but many are concerned her freedom could be short-lived if the country’s oppressive army rulers decide to wield their power.
“I’m very worried about her security,” said Soe Myint, a taxi driver in Myanmar’s biggest city, Yangon.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama said on Sunday he was hopeful of working out a deal with Republicans over tax cuts and of winning ratification of a new nuclear weapons treaty with Russia.
On his way back from a 10-day trip to Asia, Obama looked ahead to a dinner he will host on Thursday with leaders of both parties and said he believed opposition Republicans would “engage constructively.”
“There are going to be some disagreements. There may be some need for compromise,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One as he returned to Washington.
SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea should seize its chance to become a leader in the diplomatic arena by capitalizing on its successful staging of the G20 summit, President Lee Myung-bak said on Monday.
South Korea became the first Asian and non-G8 host of the summit of the world’s 20 largest industrialized and emerged economies, winning praise for hosting a trouble-free event.
While last week’s summit failed to produce very much in the way of concrete targets to address ongoing disputes over global exchange rates, it did herald a shift from the old order to the new — whose camp South Korea belongs.
HOUSTON (Reuters) – By the standards of recent financial scandals, Stephanie Rae Roqumore’s alleged $6.8 million natural gas trading scam may be small potatoes, but it raises some big questions.
How could a lone natural gas trader in Houston dupe some of the world’s biggest energy companies for eight years, despite a veritable forest of red flags? After all, the overhaul of trading rules and credit practices in the wake of Enron’s collapse was supposed to make it tougher, if not impossible, to perpetuate such a fraud.
In September, FBI agents raided Roqumore’s suburban Houston home, searching for evidence she scammed at least 11 energy companies. Among the stacks of paperwork seized from the ornate 3,000-square-foot house were bank records for trading firms Roqumore is accused of using to dupe companies including Occidental Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s Coral Energy Resources, Hess Corp and privately-held commodities giant Cargill.
GENEVA (Reuters) – Scientists at the CERN research center say their “Big Bang” project is going beyond all expectations and the first proof of the existence of dimensions beyond the known four could emerge next year.
In surveys of results of nearly 8 months of experiments in their Large Hadron Collider (LHC), they also say they may be able to determine by the end of 2011 whether the mystery Higgs particle, or boson, exists.
Guido Tonelli, spokesman for one of the CERN specialist teams monitoring operations in the vast, subterranean LHC, said probing for extra dimensions — besides length, breadth, height and time — would become easier as the energy of the proton collisions in it is increased in 2011.
MELBOURNE (Reuters) – BHP Billiton scrapped its $39 billion bid for Canada’s Potash Corp and bowed to calls from investors to return cash, a move that came days after regulators blocked the year’s biggest takeover deal.
BHP, conceding defeat for the third straight time on a major proposed merger or acquisition, signaled with its revived $4.2 billion share buyback that it had limited opportunities for other big buys.
The world’s largest miner’s shareholders are eager to hear what further growth prospects the company will chase with its cash pile when BHP Chief Executive Marius Kloppers fronts the group’s annual meeting in Australia on Tuesday.
KABUL (Reuters) – The Taliban in Afghanistan remain utterly opposed to peace talks despite slow progress toward reconciliation, their leader said on Monday after NATO forces suffered their worst losses in months in a spike in violence.
Mullah Mohammad Omar, the secretive, one-eyed leader of the Afghan Taliban, issued a statement just four days before NATO leaders will gather for a summit in Lisbon where Afghanistan will be the top of the agenda.
Violence across Afghanistan was already at its worst since the Taliban were ousted by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in late 2001 but a dramatic increase in attacks in the past four days will be a sobering message for NATO leaders.
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – NATO leaders will recommit the alliance to playing a global military role when they meet to agree a new mission statement this week, despite the bruising and demoralizing experience of the war in Afghanistan.
NATO states have been fighting in Afghanistan since 2001, but 150,000 U.S.-led troops have failed to stem a widening Taliban insurgency and more than 2,200 have been killed.
The Afghan mission has been the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s largest combat role in its 61-year history and the first outside the region it was created to defend. It has also prompted the biggest questions about its future.
KARACHI (Reuters) – If you want to measure the level of political strife in Pakistan’s financial capital Karachi, take the body count at the morgue.
“There are 30 to 40 bodies some weeks,” said morgue worker Miraj Mohsin. “When just one member of a party is killed, I know the other will respond and there could be many more deaths.”
He held up a tag attached to a victim of Karachi’s notorious targeted killings, often blamed on workers from rival political parties.
WASHINGTON – Shortly after veteran Rep. Charles Rangel of New York walked out of his ethics trial in protest, a House panel began closed-door deliberations Monday on 13 counts of alleged financial and fundraising misconduct that could bring formal condemnation.
Only recently one of the most powerful members of Congress, Rangel was reduced to pleading in vain for colleagues to give him time to raise money for a lawyer before taking up the charges. The 80-year-old congressman left even before they said no, and the rare proceeding – only the second for this type of hearing in two decades – went on without him.
An ethics committee panel of four Democrats and four Republicans was sitting as a jury in the case late Monday. The official acting as prosecutor said the facts were so clear there was no need to call witnesses, and panel members agreed.
WASHINGTON – Dejected Democrats and invigorated Republicans returned to the Capitol Monday to face a mountain of unfinished work and greet more than 100 mainly Republican freshmen-elect lawmakers determined to change how they do business.
Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, in line to become speaker when the new Republican-led Congress convenes in January, told GOP newcomers Sunday evening that they may spend their next two years doing just two things: stopping what he called “job-killing policies” and the “spending binge.”
“The American people are sick and tired of the ‘Washington knows best’ mentality. All the power in this town is on loan from the people,” he told the group, which he noted includes seven farmers, six physicians, three car dealers, two funeral home directors, a former FBI agent, a pizzeria owner, an NFL lineman, and an airline pilot.
WASHINGTON – Cementing a significant challenge to the ways of Congress, the top Republican in the Senate on Monday fell into line behind demands by House leaders and tea party activists for a moratorium on pork-barrel projects known as “earmarks.”
Earmarking is the longtime Washington practice in which lawmakers insert money for home-state projects like road and bridge work into spending bills. Critics say that peppering most spending bills with hundreds or even thousands of such projects creates a go-along-get-along mindset that ensures that Washington spending goes unchecked.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who has long defended the practice, said he’s now heeding the message that voters sent in midterm elections that swept Democrats from power in the House. He said he can’t accuse Democrats of ignoring the wishes of the American people and then be guilty of the same thing.
WASHINGTON – Judges who hear Social Security disability cases are facing a growing number of violent threats from claimants angry over being denied benefits or frustrated at lengthy delays in processing claims.
There were at least 80 threats to kill or harm administrative law judges or staff over the past year – an 18 percent increase over the previous reporting period, according to data collected by the Social Security Administration.
The data was released to the Association of Administrative Law Judges and made available to The Associated Press.
PRAGUE – Astronomer Tycho Brahe uncovered some of the mysteries of the universe in the 16th century – and now modern-day scientists are delving into the mystery of his sudden death.
On Monday, an international team of scientists opened his tomb in the Church of Our Lady Before Tyn near Prague’s Old Town Square, where Brahe has been buried since 1601. After eight hours of work, they lifted from the tomb a tin box like a child’s coffin in which Brahe’s remains were placed after the only previous exhumation, in 1901.
Brahe’s extraordinarily accurate stellar and planetary observations, which helped lay the foundations of early modern astronomy, are well documented but the circumstances surrounding his death at age 54 are murky.
PULLMAN, Wash. – It’s always cheaper to fly one way, even to Mars. Two scientists are suggesting that colonization of the red planet could happen faster and more economically if astronauts behaved like the first settlers to come to North America – not expecting to go home.
“The main point is to get Mars exploration moving,” said Dirk Schulze-Makuch, a Washington State University professor who co-authored an article that seriously proposes what sounds like a preposterous idea.
At least one moon-walking astronaut was not impressed.
By MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN and JANE WARDELL, Associated Press
14 mins ago
LONDON – Rolls-Royce will temporarily replace entire engines that have oil leaks on the world’s largest jetliner after one motor suffered a frightening midair disintegration, an aviation regulator told The Associated Press on Monday.
The official said the British engine-maker would take off faulty engines and replace them with new ones. It will then fix the leaking part and swap the engine back again.
The official, who has been briefed by Rolls-Royce and some of the affected airlines, spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. Rolls-Royce declined to comment.
MOUNT ARAFAT, Saudi Arabia – Nearly 3 million Muslims performing the annual hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia climbed the rocky desert Mount Arafat on Monday, chanting that they have come to answer God’s call.
The white-robed pilgrims began their ascent at dawn, covering the Mountain of Mercy at Arafat in an endless sea of white as their chants of “Labyek Allah” – or “Here I am, God, answering your calling” – reverberated.
The climb is one of the cornerstones of the pilgrimage, which is required from every able-bodied Muslim at least once in his life. It is the site where Islam’s Prophet Muhammad delivered his farewell sermon, and Muslims believe on this day the doors of heaven open to answer prayers and grant forgiveness.
NEW YORK – Caterpillar, the world’s largest construction and mining equipment maker, moved aggressively to capitalize on demand in emerging markets Monday with a $7.6 billion buyout of Bucyrus International.
Bucyrus makes surface mining equipment used for coal, copper, iron ore, oil sands and other minerals.
With a grinding economic recovery ongoing in the West, global companies like Caterpillar Inc. have driven further into China, India and Brazil, where the appetite for raw materials used in construction and mining are strong.
YANGON, Myanmar – Myanmar democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi began the nuts and bolts work of reviving her political movement Monday, consulting lawyers about having her now-disbanded party declared legal again.
Suu Kyi was released over the weekend from 7 1/2 years in detention. On Sunday, she told thousands of wildly cheering supporters at the headquarters of her National League for Democracy that she would continue to fight for human rights and the rule of law in the military-controlled nation.
The 65-year-old Nobel Peace laureate must balance the expectations of the country’s pro-democracy movement with the realities of freedom that could be withdrawn any time by the regime. Although her party is officially dissolved, it has continued operating with the same structure. But without official recognition, it is in legal limbo, leaving it – and her – vulnerable to government crackdowns.
WASHINGTON – The U.S. and its NATO allies are close to an agreement to erect a missile shield over Europe, a project that would give the military alliance a fresh purpose while testing President Barack Obama’s campaign to improve relations with Russia.
The deal is likely to be sealed at a two-day NATO summit starting Friday in Lisbon, Portugal, officials say, as part of what the alliance calls its new “strategic concept” – the first overhaul of its basic mission since 1999.
The summit will include Obama and leaders of the 27 other member countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will join a separate NATO-Russia session on Saturday.
CHICAGO – Emergency call centers could be equipped to communicate by text message. Websites might need to be programmed to speak to blind users. Movie theaters might have to install technology to allow the deaf to read captions on small screens mounted at their seats.
These and other proposals will be on the agenda this week as federal officials begin seeking ideas for expanding the Americans with Disabilities Act. Twenty years after the law was adopted, the government wants to move the regulations beyond wheelchair ramps and accessible elevators into cyberspace and personal technology.
The updated regulations could mean sweeping changes across many industries and cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
MARION, Ala. – A former state trooper took a plea deal Monday in the 1965 slaying of a black man that prompted the “Bloody Sunday” march at Selma and helped galvanize America’s civil rights movement.
Indicted for murder more than four decades after the fatal shooting, James Bonard Fowler, 77, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of second-degree manslaughter and was sentenced to six months in jail.
It was a mixed victory for civil rights era prosecutions. The prosecutor and Jackson family members did not get the murder conviction they sought, but the jail time and an apology from Fowler seemed to help close a painful chapter in U.S. history.
PHILADELPHIA – Two middle schoolers filed a free-speech lawsuit Monday against a Pennsylvania school district that suspended them for wearing the popular “I (heart) boobies!” bracelets.
The American Civil Liberties Union believes the lawsuit is the first in the country over a school’s ban on the $4 bracelets, which are designed to raise breast-cancer awareness among young people. The rubber jewelry has become wildly popular among students, prompting bans across the country.
School officials in Easton argue that the slogan is distracting and demeaning, and that some staff feel it trivializes a serious illness.
The club of private college and university presidents earning seven figures is getting less exclusive.
Thirty presidents received more than $1 million in pay and benefits in 2008, according to an analysis of federal tax forms by The Chronicle of Higher Education. More than 1 in 5 chief executives at the 448 institutions surveyed topped $600,000.
Most of the pay packages were negotiated before the full force of the recession. But even if the numbers dip slightly in next year’s survey, executive pay is expected to keep climbing over the long term as colleges compete for top talent. And schools are rewarding executives while raising tuition, exposing themselves to criticism.
SAN FRANCISCO – One is about a fictional opera singer who possesses the secret of eternal youth. The other stars a real-life tenor who merely seems to.
Both examples of improbable longevity were on display at the San Francisco Opera this weekend. On Friday night, Placido Domingo – a few months shy of 70 – gave his final performance in the title role of Franco Alfano’s “Cyrano de Bergerac.” One night later, Karita Mattila sang the second of six performances of Leos Janacek’s “The Makropulos Case,” about a mysterious diva who has lived more than 300 years.
“Cyrano,” adapted from the play by Edmond Rostand, tells of a poet with a grotesque nose who is secretly in love with the fair Roxanne but uses his gifts to help the handsome Christian win her heart. Christian is killed in battle, and only years later, when Cyrano himself is mortally wounded, does he reveal his feelings.
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