Reading the Times report next to its European counterparts is in many ways an illustration in the differences between mainstream American newspaper reporting and that of more partisan presses like Britain’s. Across the pond, the language is stronger, more inflammatory, and the reports plainly more hard-hitting. It’s a style that often doesn’t work for our sensibilities, and a non-partisan, scrupulously fair press is something to applaud.
But it feels that in its presentation of both WikiLeaks war dumps the Times has been tame to a fault; as if afraid of the material that it has been given by a man and organization they’ve sought to greatly distance themselves from, while working with both. As Greenwald says, the reporting seems a bit whitewashed.
Leaked documents on Iraq war contain thousands of allegations of abuse, but a Pentagon order told troops to ignore them.
These are but a few of the headlines and reports about US and coalitions war crimes. Where is the investigation? Where are the NYT and the Washington Post who were so instrumental in exposing the fraud of the Viet Nam War and the crimes of the White House? Not in the US but in Great Britain, the US partner in the crime.
Well, you know I… I never got to bat in the major leagues. I would have liked to have had that chance. Just once. To stare down a big league pitcher. To stare him down, and just as he goes into his windup, wink. Make him think you know something he doesn’t. That’s what I wish for. Chance to squint at a sky so blue that it hurts your eyes just to look at it. To feel the tingling in your arm as you connect with the ball. To run the bases – stretch a double into a triple, and flop face-first into third, wrap your arms around the bag. That’s my wish, Ray Kinsella. That’s my wish. And is there enough magic out there in the moonlight to make this dream come true?
Fifty years ago, for five minutes you came within… y-you came this close. It would KILL some men to get so close to their dream and not touch it. God, they’d consider it a tragedy.
Son, if I’d only gotten to be a doctor for five minutes… now that would have been a tragedy.
PORT-AU-PRINCE (AFP) – Haiti’s cholera toll rose Thursday above 300, as doctors sought desperately to contain the epidemic as victims overwhelmed the quake-hit nation’s crumbling hospitals, spilling into its maternity wards.
One week after cholera was confirmed in Haiti for the first time in decades, the death rate is slowing but almost 5,000 people have now been infected and officials warn it could be years before it is eradicated.
Clinics were beyond capacity with cholera patients on the floor of one radiology department and another five-bed maternity center, not well equipped to treat the virulent diarrheal disease, housing 300 patients.
SAINT MARC, Haiti (AFP) – Officials warned Wednesday that Haiti should prepare for the worst as hundreds more patients packed into hospitals amid a deadly cholera outbreak which has claimed almost 300 lives.
A total of 4,147 people were now being treated in hospitals for cholera, said the head of Haiti’s health department Gabriel Thimote, while eight new fatalities brought the death toll to 292.
The World Health Organization warned the outbreak had yet to reach its peak, and said Haiti should prepare for the disease to hit the capital Port-au-Prince, teeming with squalid tent cities.
BRUSSELS (AFP) – European leaders Thursday agreed the biggest reforms since the creation of the euro while reaching out for a compromise on a German demand for treaty change that aims to avoid new Greek-style crises.
A landmark set of eurozone economic reforms, the biggest since the single currency came into being in 1999, “has been adopted by the leaders”, one diplomatic source told AFP.
Another said the scheme agreed by the bloc’s 27 leaders “effectively” matched conclusions drawn up by EU president Herman Van Rompuy that will be formally signed Friday, the final day of the summit.
BRUSSELS (AFP) – European leaders moved towards a painful compromise Thursday that would open the door to risky treaty change, a German demand to tighten EU budgetary discipline following the Greek debt crisis.
Heads of state and governments opened talks at a two-day summit in Brussels, focused on whether to change the bloc’s Lisbon treaty to introduce a permanent, Greek-style safety net for countries that repeatedly overspend.
Alterations to the hard-fought treaty, a decade in the making and which only came into effect last December, triggered headaches across the 27-nation bloc and sent governments scuttling to seek a compromise.
BRUSSELS (AFP) – European Union leaders scrambled Thursday to settle a sharp row about rewriting the bloc’s ruling treaty as they moved to radically change the way governments manage their finances.
Determined to drive through new rules to avoid a repeat of the economic chaos of this year’s Greek debt crisis, leaders headed for a showdown summit divided on a German and French push to change the hard-fought Lisbon Treaty.
But hours before the 1500 GMT start of the two-day summit, a compromise solution looked in the offing.
NAGOYA, Japan (AFP) – Hopes rose that rich and poor nations will be able to forge a historic treaty to protect the world’s ecosystems after grinding progress was made at a UN summit on Thursday, delegates said.
Representatives of more than 190 countries have been meeting in the central Japanese city of Nagoya for nearly two weeks in an effort to set goals on saving habitats which would help to end the mass extinction of species.
With talks due to wind up Friday, delegates said last-minute negotiations among environment ministers had helped bridge key differences between developed and developing countries that had threatened to derail the event.
PARIS (AFP) – Hundreds of thousands of French strikers took to the streets Thursday in a last ditch bid to stop President Nicolas Sarkozy from raising the pension age, but their movement appeared to be on the wane.
While the crowds marching under a sea of trade union banners presented a united front, both police and unions reported numbers were down dramatically compared with similar protests before lawmakers approved the reform.
Officials said 560,000 took part in the ninth one-day protest, compared with 1.1 million on October 19, while unions said the figure was down from 3.5 to two million and admitted demonstrators were being worn down.
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The International Monetary Fund on Thursday said the dollar was overvalued on currency markets, while the euro, yen and pound were in line with fundamentals.
“The real effective exchange rates of Japan, the euro area, and the UK all appear broadly in line with medium-term fundamentals, while the US dollar is on the strong side of fundamentals,” the IMF said in a report to the Group of 20 economic powers.
The IMF noted that recent government interventions in the foreign-exchange market had contributed to the imbalance, which has sparked fears of “currency wars” to protect exports amid the global economic recovery.
LONDON (AFP) – The head of Britain’s foreign spy service admitted Thursday his organisation faced “dilemmas” to avoid using intelligence obtained through torture but insisted his agents never mistreated suspects.
In an unprecedented public speech, MI6 chief John Sawers also defended the cloak-and-dagger nature of the 101-year-old Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), whose existence was only officially acknowledged in 1992.
He said he read daily reports about people “bent on maiming and murdering people in this country”, many of them operating from the Afghan-Pakistan border but also from Somalia, Yemen and north Africa.
NEW YORK (AFP) – Heard the one about the witch, the brothel madam and the guy in the Nazi suit? The punchline is that they’re not jokes, but candidates in perhaps the zaniest US congressional elections ever.
Just when US politicians seemingly couldn’t find new ways to lose their dignity, they did.
There are serious issues in Tuesday’s congressional and gubernatorial polls: President Barack Obama’s authority and the struggling US economy, for starters.
SAN JOSE/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The Valentine’s Ball thrown by venture capitalist Alan Salzman and his wife Jillian Manus every year is one of Silicon Valley’s hottest tickets. People are still talking about the Bailey’s Irish Cream flowing from the nipples of ice sculptures at the soiree last year.
This year a “barrel full of monkeys” — actually, live performers in monkey suits — greeted guests to the couple’s themed grounds in the swanky Northern California town of Atherton. The black tie and costume benefit for cancer draws CEOs, friends — and up to $750,000 in donations.
Next year, Salzman said, his good friend and neighbor, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, will be invited, possibly attending as the newly elected governor of California.
NEW YORK (Reuters) – For lifelong Republican Joe Errigo, deciding to cross party lines and support a liberal Democrat for New York governor wasn’t nearly as difficult as one might expect.
Republican candidate Carl Paladino — backed by the conservative Tea Party movement — raised such political hackles he spawned a “Republicans for Cuomo” movement supporting Democrat Andrew Cuomo.
Similar groups can be found in heated races elsewhere nationwide, often those featuring Tea Party-endorsed candidates, attacked by Democrats and some moderate Republicans as extreme.
BOSTON (Reuters) – Representative Barney Frank, the outspoken, witty Democrat closely tied to the 2008 U.S. bank bailout, faces a tough re-election battle after 15 terms in office at a time when incumbency itself is a liability.
Challenging the Massachusetts liberal is Republican Sean Bielat, an Iraq war veteran, and opinion polls suggest Frank has an uncomfortably narrow lead over a political unknown.
In the run-up to Tuesday’s congressional elections, Frank has faced a torrent of negative ads and mailings, much of it from groups outside the state who support candidates from the conservative Tea Party movement.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama targeted young voters on Wednesday with a robust defense of his policies and promises in an appearance on the popular comedy program “The Daily Show.”
Obama, whose Democrats are expected to suffer big losses in Tuesday’s congressional elections, was light on jokes but heavy on policy as he said it would take time to fulfill the pledges he made during the 2008 presidential campaign.
“When we promised during the campaign ‘change you can believe in,’ it wasn’t ‘change you can believe in 18 months,'” he told the host, Jon Stewart.
NAGOYA, Japan (Reuters) – The World Bank on Thursday launched a program to help nations put a value on nature just like GDP in a bid to stop the destruction of forests, wetlands and reefs that underpin businesses and economies.
The five-year pilot project backed by India, Mexico and other nations aims to embed nature into national accounts to draw in the full benefits of services such as coastal protection from mangroves or watersheds for rivers that feed cities and crops.
“We’re here today to create something that no one has tried before: a global partnership that can fundamentally change the way governments value their ecosystems,” World Bank President Robert Zoellick told reporters in the Japanese city of Nagoya.
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Most leading economists expect the Federal Reserve to buy between $80 billion and $100 billion worth of assets per month under a new program to bolster the struggling economy, a Reuters poll found on Wednesday.
Estimates for how long the Fed will print money and how much it will eventually spend varied widely, from $250 billion to as high as $2 trillion.
In a similar Reuters poll of primary dealers conducted on October 8, dealers mostly forecast the total size of the new program at $500 billion to $1.5 trillion.
TOKYO (Reuters) – The Bank of Japan held fire on policy on Thursday, but said boosting its 5-trillion-yen ($61 billion) asset buying plan was a “strong option” if the outlook for the economy sharply deteriorated.
The BOJ brought forward its next policy review to November 4-5, right after the U.S. Federal Reserve meets, which markets took as a sign it was ready to act swiftly if the outcome of the Fed’s November 2-3 meeting triggered heavy dollar selling.
Governor Masaaki Shirakawa said, however, the change of the date from the originally planned mid-November had nothing to do with the Fed and aimed at speeding up the roll-out of the bank’s asset buying plan, particularly purchases of less conventional instruments.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – With most Americans ambivalent about President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare overhaul or openly hostile to it, next Tuesday’s elections could have a big impact on the reforms, experts said on Wednesday.
Major Republican gains could mean years of hold-ups on implementing the legislation — but if Democrats manage to prevail against the odds, they may reward their base with even more extensive reforms, Robert Blendon and John Benson of the Harvard School of Public Health said.
They analyzed 17 recent major polls and said they show healthcare is an important but secondary voting issue in this election.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republicans are pouring more last-minute cash into tight Senate races than their rivals as some opinion polls show Democrats may not do as badly as expected in Tuesday’s congressional elections.
Data compiled by a non-partisan election watchdog and Democratic organizers shows substantial late campaign spending by pro-Republican groups on Senate contests in Colorado, Kentucky and California.
Those three states are among the 10 that Republicans must win to gain control of the 100-seat Senate.
DELAWARE COUNTY, Pennsylvania (Reuters) – Jim Schneller is not the type of congressional candidate a political progressive or liberal Democrat would ordinarily support.
A self-avowed Tea Party activist, he opposes abortion even in the cases of rape and incest. He wants to abolish the Federal Reserve, labeling it “unconstitutional.” He vows to “guarantee constitutional rights for home-schooling.” And he is still calling for President Barack Obama to produce his birth certificate or face deportation.
Yet Schneller quite possibly might never have become a candidate for Congress in Pennsylvania’s seventh congressional district were it not for a helping hand from his opponents. As it happens, a dozen Delaware County Democratic Party activists obtained nearly all of the necessary signatures for him to qualify for the ballot, records of the Pennsylvania Secretary of State show.
WASHINGTON – Tests performed before the deadly blowout of BP’s oil well in the Gulf of Mexico should have raised doubts about the cement used to seal the well, but the company and its cementing contractor used it anyway, investigators with the president’s oil spill commission said Thursday.
It’s the first finding from the commission looking into the causes of the April 20 explosion that killed 11 workers and led to the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. And it appears to conflict with statements made by Halliburton Co., which has said its tests showed the cement mix was stable. The company instead has said BP’s well design and operations were responsible for the disaster.
The cement mix’s failure to prevent oil and gas from entering the well has been identified by BP and others as one of the causes of the accident.
WASHINGTON – When a widely publicized poll showed Republican John Kasich with a commanding, 10-point advantage in Ohio’s governor’s race, aides to Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland fought back hard. Against the poll.
“With just two weeks until Election Day, it is our opinion that the Quinnipiac polls are irresponsible, inaccurate and completely removed from the reality of the Ohio governor’s race,” the campaign said in a statement that noted other private and public surveys were showing a much closer contest.
The Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, an organization with an unchallenged reputation for nonpartisanship, responded mildly. “We stand by our numbers and our overall record for reliability,” said Doug Schwartz, the organization’s polling director.
WASHINGTON – House and Senate candidates aren’t the only ones targeted by interest groups in this year’s campaign. While they have spent at least $185 million just since Labor Day to influence voters in close congressional races, outside money is pouring at similar rates into state elections for governors and down the ticket to city councils and even local sewage boards.
In just the past seven weeks, nonparty groups have spent at least $100 million on ads and get-out-the-vote efforts supporting or opposing specific candidates in state and local races, according to a state-by-state review by The Associated Press. The actual total is probably millions higher because there is no way to find out exactly how much was spent.
In California, mass mailings went out to voters in local sanitation district races from an arm of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees in Los Angeles, District Council 36. In Iowa, the Everyday America PAC has been financing automated phone calls urging voters to remove three state Supreme Court justices and two Polk County judges for allowing gay marriage.
DENVER – Tom Tancredo is quick to admit he brings plenty of baggage to the Colorado governor’s race. Like the time he called Miami a “Third World country.” Or when he got thrown out of the White House for suggesting then-President George W. Bush was soft on illegal immigration. Or when he refused to take part in a presidential debate because it was on a Spanish-language network.
But despite all the baggage, the immigration hard-liner is running a solid campaign for governor as a third-party candidate and is within the margin of error in several recent polls.
Tancredo has successfully courted tea party groups, capitalized on anti-incumbent anger and parlayed his trademark blunt talk on the issues to become the de facto Republican candidate. Tancredo has also taken advantage of the collapse of GOP nominee Dan Maes, who is polling in single digits amid a series of character issues and campaign gaffes.
PASADENA, Calif. – It’s hard to turn off Meg Whitman. The most expensive campaign for governor in U.S. history – about $162 million and counting – is inundating California voters with an unprecedented array of TV and radio ads, glossy magazines, smartphone messages, Facebook videos, postcards and phone calls that will test how far a Republican dollar can go in a state Democrats often dominate.
A typical TV viewer in Los Angeles will see 23 of her commercials this week alone, many roughing up Democrat Jerry Brown, according to Democrats tracking her ad buys. The story of the Silicon Valley billionaire is being told in four languages – English, Spanish, Mandarin and Cantonese. There are book-like mailers, billboards and text messages reaching voters and supporters, all while she’s jetting to appearances across the state.
It costs about $3 million for a candidate to blanket California with TV ads for one week, but from October 10-17 her campaign spent $4.6 million, underscoring the urgency of the effort and pushing her message from Spanish-speaking households near Los Angeles to rural areas on the Oregon border.
WASHINGTON – Republican leaders, ever more confident of their chances of winning control of the House and possibly even the Senate, have begun plotting a 2011 agenda topped by a push for more than $100 billion in spending cuts, tax reductions and attempts to undo key parts of President Barack Obama’s health care and financial regulation laws.
The question is how much of the GOP’s government-shrinking, tax-cutting agenda to advance, and how fast.
It’s certain that Republicans want to capitalize quickly on tea party-fueled anger and the antiestablishment fervor that they believe will provide momentum to accomplish an activist to-do list. It’s equally clear, however, that the outsized expectations of a fed-up electorate and a crop of unruly newcomers could complicate the plans. So could Obama and fellow Democrats who will still be around after Tuesday’s elections.
WASHINGTON – There were accusations of an executive slush fund, financial shenanigans and dictatorial management. But it was the $900,000 in secret sexual harassment payments that got the head of the nation’s fourth-largest housing authority fired and had the mayor asking how the housing board missed it all.
Yet Philadelphia’s isn’t even close to the worst of dysfunctional housing agencies across the country that operate with no budgets, untrained staff and shoddy record-keeping, according to a review by The Associated Press of inspection and audit records of 146 housing authorities that the government considered the most troubled.
The documents show the U.S. spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year on housing authorities that don’t follow financial rules or, worse, lack even the most basic policies for spending petty cash or using government credit cards.
Defending national champion Duke was a runaway No. 1 in The Associated Press preseason Top 25 men’s basketball poll.
At the other end of the Top 25 there was big news Thursday with San Diego State entering the rankings for the first time ever.
Duke, on top for a seventh time, has two starters returning to a roster featuring highly touted freshman Kyrie Irving and transfer Seth Curry, Stephen’s little brother.
WASHINGTON – The new Congress that begins in January will confront an economy and a job market that will improve only slightly next year, according to an Associated Press survey of leading economists that found them gloomier than they were three months ago.
Unemployment will dip only a bit from the current 9.6 percent to a still-high 9 percent at the end of 2011, in their view. In fact, some economists now think unemployment won’t drop to a historically normal 5.5 percent to 6 percent until at least 2018 – several years later than previously envisioned.
The latest quarterly AP survey shows economists are pushing back their estimates of when key barometers of health – hiring, spending, economic growth – will signal strength.
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama apparently thinks politics is no laughing matter, even when he’s staring down a comedian.
Obama barely cracked any jokes during an appearance Wednesday on “The Daily Show” despite host Jon Stewart’s attempts to draw out the president’s humorous side with a few of his own snarky wisecracks.
Less than a week before the critical Nov. 2 congressional elections, Obama said he hopes Democratic lawmakers who made tough votes will be rewarded with another term in office. He promised more accomplishments in the two years left on his own term in the Oval Office and urged people to vote – early if they can.
SAN FRANCISCO – All season, the San Francisco Giants counted on power arms to overcome a lack of pop at the plate.
A whole different team showed up in the World Series opener.
Freddy Sanchez hit three doubles, Juan Uribe launched a game-breaking, three-run homer and the Giants more than made up for Tim Lincecum’s troubles, battering the Texas Rangers 11-7 in Game 1 Wednesday night.
LOS ANGELES – The foreclosure crisis intensified across a majority of large U.S. metropolitan areas this summer, with Chicago and Seattle – cities outside of the states that have shouldered the worst of the housing downturn – seeing a sharp increase in foreclosure warnings.
California, Nevada, Florida and Arizona remain the nation’s foreclosure hotbeds, accounting for 19 of the top 20 metropolitan areas with the highest foreclosure rates between July and September, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.
Those states saw housing values surge during the housing boom years. When the boom ended, values collapsed and foreclosures soared.
College tuition costs shot up again this fall, and students and their families are leaning more on the federal government to make higher education more affordable in tough economic times, according to two reports issued Thursday.
At public four-year schools, many of them ravaged by state budget cuts, average in-state tuition and fees this fall rose 7.9 percent, or $555, to $7,605, according to the College Board’s “Trends in College Pricing.” The average sticker price at private nonprofit colleges increased 4.5 percent, or $1,164, to $27,293.
Massive government subsidies and aid from schools helped keep in check the actual price many students pay. But experts caution that federal aid can only do so much and that even higher tuition is likely unless state appropriations rebound or colleges drastically cut costs.
HANOI, Vietnam – Southeast Asia’s top diplomats confronted Myanmar by demanding that democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi be freed before the country’s elections next month, while the U.N. chief warned Thursday that keeping thousands of political prisoners locked up could destroy the vote’s credibility.
Despite persistent pressure, Myanmar officials gave no clear answer about the fate of Suu Kyi, who has spent 15 of the past 21 years imprisoned or under house arrest.
But Myanmar confirmed that its military leader, Than Shwe, will not run in the Nov. 7 elections as the military regime attempted to present a new image to the world at a regional summit that opened Thursday in Vietnam.
WASHINGTON – Some of the country’s largest emitters of heat-trapping gases, including businesses that publicly support efforts to curb global warming, don’t want the public knowing exactly how much they pollute.
Oil producers and refiners, along with manufacturers of steel, aluminum and even home appliances, are fighting a proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency that would make the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that companies release – and the underlying data businesses use to calculate the amounts – available online.
While gross estimates exist for such emissions from transportation and electricity production and manufacturing as a whole, the EPA is requiring companies for the first time to submit information for each individual facility.
HONOLULU – Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday called on China to clarify its policy on the export of exotic metals key to the global high-tech industry.
Opening a two-week Asia-Pacific tour aimed at cementing ties with allies who are wary of Beijing’s increasing assertiveness, Clinton took on a primary point of friction between China and Japan.
She said recent Chinese restrictions on the sale of rare earth minerals served as a “wake-up call” for the industrialized world, including the United States and Europe, which has largely abandoned their production in favor of cheaper exports from China.
NEW YORK – When Meghan McCain said on national TV recently that Senate GOP hopeful Christine O’Donnell “is seen as a nut job,” the reaction from the right was swift and furious, with critics bashing everything from McCain’s lack of experience to her judgment to, well, her anatomy.
So now that she’s had time to reflect – after all, she does call herself “a work in progress” – would she like to tone it down a notch?
NEW YORK – Whistles, catcalls and lewd come-ons from strangers are all too familiar to New York City women, who say they are harassed multiple times a day as they walk down the street. Now lawmakers are examining whether to do something to discourage it.
A City Council committee heard testimony Thursday from women who said men regularly follow them, yell at them and make them feel unsafe and uncomfortable. Advocates told stories of preteens and teenagers being hounded by adult men outside city schools and pleaded for government to address the problem.
“This is not our way of not being able to take a compliment,” said Nefertiti Martin, who testified at the hearing. “This is an issue of safety.”
HONOLULU – Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday recited a series of U.S. grievances with Beijing’s policies, ranging from currency rates to human rights, but said the U.S. is seeking a closer relationship with China, not trying to check its growing power.
In a speech in Hawaii at the start of a two-week tour of the Asian Pacific region, Clinton said the U.S. would remain “forward deployed” in the area and not relinquish its role as a major power there. She called on China to expand its cooperation with the U.S., even as its power and influence expands.
“It is not in anyone’s interest for the United States and China to see each other as adversaries,” she said.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – It’s been nearly 119 years since James Naismith wrote down 13 rules for a new game he devised as a way to give youths at a Springfield, Mass., YMCA an athletic activity to keep them busy in the winter.
On Dec. 10, those rules – considered “the birth certificate of one of the world’s most popular sports” – will be put up for auction in New York and are expected to bring in at least $2 million. The proceeds are to go to the Naismith International Basketball Foundation, which promotes sportsmanship and provides services to underprivileged youths around the world.
Ian Naismith, the foundation’s founder and grandson of James Naismith, said it was a family decision to put the rules on the auction block and give the money to the Naismith charity.
The U.S. Department of Education on Thursday will release finalized regulations targeting for-profit colleges that give the government a stronger hand overseeing the fast-growing sector – including new rules reining in how recruiters are paid and a controversial attempt to define credit hours.
Still to come early next year is the most fought-over proposal: a rule that would cut off federal aid to college vocational programs with high student-debt levels and poor loan repayment rates.
The department put off finalizing those “gainful employment” regulations until early next year, although Thursday’s package of rules includes one scaled-down gainful employment provision that has eased industry worries.
ALBANY, N.Y. – A questionable military service record. An immigrant housekeeper without a visa. A criminal charge from long ago. Sexual indiscretions.
Such private issues thought long buried are the currency of the secretive and growing world where campaigns hire private investigators. PIs dig up dirt on opponents and, increasingly, the candidates who’ve hired them.
“Were they really in the military? Did they actually serve in combat? well, maybe not,” said Randy Torgerson, a PI and president of the United States Association of Professional Investigators based in Montana. “Some of the biggest things, as people move up the ladder, are sexual issues … and then the embellishments.”
INDIANAPOLIS – Indiana’s budget crunch has become so severe that some state workers have suggested leaving severely disabled people at homeless shelters if they can’t be cared for at home, parents and advocates said.
They said workers at Indiana’s Bureau of Developmental Disabilities Services have told parents that’s one option they have when families can no longer care for children at home and haven’t received Medicaid waivers that pay for services that support disabled people living independently.
Marcus Barlow, a spokesman for the Family and Social Services Administration, the umbrella agency that includes the bureau, said suggesting homeless shelters is not the agency’s policy and workers who did so would be disciplined.
MINNEAPOLIS – A former Minnesota nurse charged with aiding the suicides of two people was not covered by free-speech protections when he sought out depressed people online and encouraged them to kill themselves, a prosecutor argued in court documents Wednesday.
William Melchert-Dinkel, 48, of Faribault, is charged with two counts of aiding suicide in the deaths of an English man and a Canadian woman. His attorney has asked that the case be dismissed on free-speech grounds, and argued the state’s aiding suicide law is too vague.
In his response Wednesday, Rice County Attorney Paul Beaumaster wrote there is no case law that says speech is protected if its goal is to obtain someone’s death. He also said Melchert-Dinkel knew what he was doing was wrong.
BOZEMAN, Mont. – Grizzly bear numbers in and around Yellowstone National Park have hit their highest level in decades, driving increased conflicts with humans as some bears push out of deep wilderness and into populated areas.
Scientists from a multi-agency research team announced Wednesday that at least 603 grizzlies now roam the Yellowstone area of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. That’s more than three times the number in 1975, when hunting was outlawed and the species placed on the endangered list.
But more bears also means more run-ins with humans – although bear biologists are quick to point out that visitors to the region are more likely to die in a vehicle crash than a grizzly mauling.
BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. – The family of an 81-year-old Florida grandmother who died waiting for paramedics to arrive at her home has filed a lawsuit against Comcast over its handling of her emergency calls.
Sidell Reiner was preparing for relatives to arrive at her Boynton Beach home to celebrate Thanksgiving last year when a piece of crystal glassware fell on her foot. She began bleeding heavily.
Reiner’s husband had gone to the airport to pick up a grandson and none of their children had yet arrived.
RICHMOND, Va. – Victor Burnette spent eight years in a Virginia prison for a rape he didn’t commit and nearly 30 years trying to clear his name.
Now he says he may not accept $226,000 that the state offered as compensation because, at 57, he’s unhappy the payments will be spread over 25 years and will stop if he’s ever convicted of a felony.
“To me they are treating me like a criminal still, which I’m not,” said Burnette, a housepainter and handyman who has yet to claim a $45,213 check written in August.
SEATTLE – A philanthropic watchdog group is hoping to light a fire under charitable foundations that support education by releasing a report Wednesday that points out how few of them focus enough attention on helping the most needy students.
The study by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy said that only 11 percent of American foundations devoted at least half their grants to programs that benefit vulnerable students. It looked at 672 foundations that gave at least $1 million to educational causes from 2006 to 2008.
It said only 2 percent met the watchdog group’s other main criteria for philanthropic success: spending 25 percent of its grants toward advocating for long-term change, through community building, advocacy and civil engagement.
“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.
The recent Wikileaks release–The Iraq War Logs–has shed important light on the high rate of civilian death and widespread atrocities, including torture, that are endemic to the war in Iraq. As veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we are outraged that the U.S. government sought to hide this information from the U.S. public, instead presenting a sanitized and deceptive version of war, and we think it is vital for this and further information to get out. Members of IVAW have experienced firsthand the realities of war on the ground, and since our inception we have spoken out about similar atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan. We are asking the U.S. public to join us in calling on our government to end the occupations and bring our brothers and sisters home.
The U.S. government has been claiming for years that they do not keep count of civilian death tolls, yet the recent releases show that they do, in fact, keep count. Between 2004 and 2009, according to these newly disclosed records, at least 109,032 Iraqis died, 66,081 of whom were civilians. The Guardian reports that the Iraq War Logs show that the U.S. military and government gave de facto approval for hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape, and murder by Iraqi soldiers and police officers. These recent revelations, along with the Afghan War Diaries and Collateral Murder footage, weave a picture of wars in which the rules of engagement allow for excessive violence, woven into the fabric of daily life with the U.S. military presence acting as a destabilizing and brutalizing force. The Iraq War Logs, while crucial, are reports produced in real time and themselves may be slanted to minimize the culpability of U.S. forces. Still, they represent an important part of evidence in assessing the reality of the Iraq war, evidence that can only be improved by the further release of documents and information and corroboration by individuals involved. To this end, our members are reviewing both Wikileaks’ Afghanistan War Diaries and the Iraq War Logs to identify incidents we were part of and to shed more light on what really happened.
Was the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United naively mistaken — or cynically partisan?
The indisputable idiocy of the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United — leading to a midterm tsunami of what we New Yorkers call “sewer money” — is featured on the front page of today’s Los Angeles Times. Reporter David Savage begins with the salient quotation from the majority opinion written by Justice Anthony Kennedy and then goes on to explain why that opinion is so grossly flawed:
“With the advent of the Internet, prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in January. “This transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages.”
But Kennedy and the high court majority were wrong. Because of loopholes in tax laws and a weak enforcement policy at the Federal Election Commission, corporations and wealthy donors have been able to spend huge sums on campaign ads, confident the public will not know who they are, election law experts say.
This isn’t just about gender, though it’s clear that women understand aspects of issues like health care more deeply than many men, particularly when the males in question are Blue Dogs. As one of the lone liberal voices out here that supported Pres. Obama’s Afghanistan strategy (which stopped when McChrystal imploded, likely because of this issue), even in foreign policy this is true. After all, it was
But let’s face it, Speaker Pelosi was not a friend to women during the health care debate, and neither was Pres. Obama; you don’t sacrifice overall rights of women’s freedom and then codify it in law, even if you’re giving wider access to others. A Democratic principle is not to sacrifice one person’s fundamental rights over another. This is about choosing female candidates who are stronger on Democratic principles than Blue Dog Dems in Republican districts that will continue the Democratic Party’s slide to the right, while aiding the tilt of the right in general.
Anyone who’s ever spent extended time with very young children will know what I’m talking about here. Whenever a particularly spazzy kid who’s perhaps a little too hepped up on sugary snacks can’t articulate what he or she wants, they tend to act out. Sometimes violently. Spitting, biting, screeching, hitting.
I think you know where I’m going with this.
Despite the fact that they’re probably going to win a considerable number of congressional seats on Tuesday, the far right appears to be unsatisfied with a significant electoral victory and is supplementing its would-be success by physically accosting anyone who isn’t sporting an array of teabags erotically dangled from the brim of a tri-cornered hat.
The government’s star witness in the sentencing hearing of Omar Khadr continued to talk for hours on the stand today, explaining his view of why he believes that the Canadian captured in 2002 at the age of 15 is “highly dangerous.”
But it turns out that much of the information Dr. Michael Welner relied upon, including the judgments that informed the bulk of his opinions about the future dangerousness of Omar Khadr, was based on the highly suspect opinions of a Danish psychologist, Nicolai Sennels, whose work Welner had barely read and to whom he spoke only once on the telephone. Although those opinions were easily retrievable online, Welner said he’d never come across them before.
But it’s not just the Danish psychologist’s opinions that cast doubt on the objectivity of the government’s expert. In fact, although not raised on cross-examination, Dr. Welner himself has stated opinions in an online magazine that reflect a deep-seated fear and mistrust of Muslims, calling into question the reliability of his assessment of Omar Khadr as a dangerous “radical Islamist.”
The devastating outbreak of cholera in Haiti has brought the small, impoverished country back into the international spotlight. After the tragic earthquakes that shook Port-Au-Prince and surrounding cities in the beginning of the year, millions of people from around the world responded by donating money, medicine and other relief resources.
Despite the initial overwhelming support, there has been too little follow through. Our inability to turn from emergency relief to long-term reconstruction has left Haitian citizens susceptible to disease, further disaster, and despair.
The cholera epidemic compounds the state of emergency and requires international mobilization, led by the United States, now. Many donors have not honored their commitment to Haiti, and the crisis is deepening. We need a full time czar and a plan for reconstruction.
Campaign cash-we’re drowning in a flood of it. As Katrina vanden Heuvel noted yesterday on GRITtv, this is on track to be a $5 billion election-and it’s not over.
We used to have words for spending like that on politicians: bribery. Remember all that quaint anti-colonial talk about “Independence”? As Zephyr Teachout commented in a meeting I was part of, hosted by the Coffee Party, those founding fathers were all about independence from corruption and prosecuting bribery. Remember the phrase “anti-Trust”?
Now it seems the most we can hope for is “transparency.” Well, Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index is out now, and it’s pretty transparent: The U.S. has dropped in the world rankings to 22nd, below Chile and just above Uruguay. “The world’s most peaceful countries score the best” reports The UK Guardian-places like Denmark and New Zealand-hmm. Maybe there’s a connection. (You’ll be relieved to know we’re above Somalia.)
Just think how far we’ve come. Once tea partiers fought corporate power. Now they live off it. Once corruption and bribery were the Axis of Evil. Today they’re Supreme Court-confirmed law. It’s trust-busting that the courts can’t stand.
President Barack Obama and CIA Director Leon Panetta have managed to accomplish what the Bush administration and three CIA directors failed to do over a five-year period – significantly compromise the position of the CIA’s statutory Inspector General (IG) and its Office of the Inspector General (OIG). In announcing the completion of the CIA’s internal review of the tragic suicide bombing at an agency base in Afghanistan in late December, Panetta acknowledged that the review was prepared by senior officers of the CIA’s counterintelligence division, that the report would be provided to the OIG in “keeping with past practice,” and that – despite the deaths of seven agency operatives and contractors – no one would be held accountable.
Even before the review was undertaken, it was obvious that gross negligence had taken place and that basic operational tradecraft had been observed in the breach. The review, however, concluded that the failure was “systemic,” and Panetta ascribed the failure to too much zeal. This is the same Leon Panetta who told agency employees after his confirmation last year that the CIA’s task was to “tell it like it is, even if that’s not what people always want to hear. Keep it up. Our national security depends on it.”
I’ve been writing about the war in Iraq for going on ten years now. My first words on the subject were published eight months before the invasion was undertaken, and the war has been a grim drumbeat in my work ever since. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about those writers who were tasked to cover the war in Vietnam. After ten years chronicling the same grim topic, did they wish for a day when they could write about something else, finally? I know I do. Iraq has been like a tumor in my mind, always there, always growing, and by all appearances totally inoperable and incurable.
My job over this last decade was to hammer home the fact that the rhetorical preamble to the invasion, the invasion itself, and the occupation were and remain bullshit of the purest ray serene. George W. Bush and his pack of thugs used September 11 against the American people to frighten them into supporting an unnecessary, costly and ultimately criminal war. They lied about weapons of mass destruction, they lied about al Qaeda working with Iraq, they lied about virtually every aspect of the conflict, and they got what they wanted: a big, fat payday and an excuse to bulldoze our constitutional rights.
A Connecticut judge has ruled that voters who desire to dress up as their favorite WWE wrestler can do so and will be allowed to vote. It seems that WWE CEO Vince McMahon whose wife Linda is the Republican candidate for the Senate, was concerned that voters wearing WWE themed clothing would be barred from voting because the clothing might be considered electioneering. So, Vince did what all red-blooded Tea Baggers do – he sued and No, we’re not making this up.
On Wednesday US District Judge Janet Bond Arterton ruled that Nutmeg State election officials must allow voters to wear World Wrestling Entertainment-themed clothing to the polls.
Such garb cannot be considered political advertising for former WWE CEO and current Connecticut GOP Senate candidate Linda McMahon, said Judge Arterton
Connecticut Voters Allowed To Dress Like Idiots At the Polls
In other “November is our N word” election news: CEO of fake wrestling and also Linda McMahon’s husband “Mr. McMahon” filed a very serious lawsuit because he was worried that teenagers wearing WWE spandex thongs wouldn’t be allowed to vote – you know, since people dressed like idiots might be considered “political advertising” for Linda McMahon. Anyway, Vince McMahon won his frivolous and pointless lawsuit. Yippee, feel free to dress up as the “The Ass Demolisher” or whatever those silly WWE spandex men are called. Clearly this is just another example of activist judges legislating from the bench. What’s next? Do the gay people in New York get to wear their assless chaps to the polls, even though this would obviously be illegal political advertising for Carl Paladino? Of course. In Barack Obama’s America, No means Yes and Yes means Assless Chaps.
So all you Nutmeggers can re-use those Halloween costumes on Tuesday but I want pictures.
As you’ve no doubt read by now, yesterday Obama was interviewed by 5 “Progressive” bloggers- BarbinMD (Daily Kos), Atrios (Eschaton), Joe Sudbay (Americablog), John Amato (Crooks and Liars), and Oliver Willis (Umm… his blog is eponymous).
They weren’t allowed to record the session independently so there is only the official White House transcript.
Mine is an easy question. Will you rule out raising the retirement age to 70?
THE PRESIDENT: We are awaiting a report from the deficit commission, or deficit reduction commission, so I have been adamant about not prejudging their work until we get it.
But I think you can look at the statements that I’ve made in the past, including when I was campaigning for the presidency, that Social Security is something that can be fixed with some modest modifications that don’t impose hardships on beneficiaries who are counting on it.
And so the example that I used during the campaign was an increase in the payroll tax, not an increase — let me scratch that. Not an increase in the payroll tax but an increase in the income level at which it is excluded.
And so what I’ve been clear about is, is that I’ve got a set of preferences, but I want the commission to go ahead and do its work. When it issues its report, I’m not automatically going to assume that it’s the right way to do things. I’ll study it and examine it and see what makes sense.
But I’ve said in the past, I’ll say here now, it doesn’t strike me that a steep hike in the retirement age is in fact the best way to fix Social Security.
But you’ll probably want to read the whole thing and make up your own mind.
Also Obama was on Jon Stewart last night, took up the whole half hour. A snip from that interview-
We have done things that some folks don’t even know about.
What have you done that we don’t know about? Are you planning a surprise party for us, filled with jobs and health care?
On this day in 1893, Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Pathetique, the last symphony written by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is premiered in St. Petersburg. Nine day s later, Tchaikovsky died suddenly at age 53 possibly from cholera but others have theorized that he might have committed suicide. Tchaikovsky was homosexual and often suffered from bouts of depression and doubts about his creative talents throughout his life. At one point while composing the 6th, he tore up the manuscript and discarded it.
Tchaikovsky dedicated the Pathetique to Vladimir “Bob” Davydov, his nephew While the relationship was apparently never consummated, Davydov was reportedly one of the great loves of Tchaikovsky’s life.
The theme in this first movement is most familiar since it has been frequently used in movies and songs.
The second theme of the first movement formed the basis of a popular song in the 1940s, “(This is) The Story of a Starry Night” (by Mann Curtis, Al Hoffman and Jerry Livingston) which was popularized by Glenn Miller. This same theme is the music behind “Where,” a 1959 hit for Tony Williams and the Platters as well as “In Time,” by Steve Lawrence in 1961. All three of these songs have completely different lyrics.
British progressive rock band The Nice covered Symphony No. 6 on their album Five Bridges.
Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony has proved a popular choice with filmmakers, with extracts featuring in (amongst others) Now, Voyager, the 1997 version of Anna Karenina, Minority Report, Sweet Bird of Youth,Soylent Green and The Aviator.
Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony has also been featured during the 2010 Winter Olympics closing ceremony, being danced by Russia’s national ballet team.
97 – Emperor Nerva is forced by the Praetorian Guard, to adopt general Marcus Ulpius Trajanus as his heir and successor.
306 – Maxentius is proclaimed Roman Emperor.
312 – Battle of Milvian Bridge: Constantine I defeats Maxentius, becoming the sole Roman Emperor.
1061 – Empress Agnes, acting as Regent for her son, brings about the election of Bishop Cadalus, the Antipope Honorius II.
1516 – Battle of Yaunis Khan: Turkish forces under the Grand Vizier Sinan Pasha defeat the Mameluks near Gaza.
1531 – Battle of Amba Sel: Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi again defeats the army of Lebna Dengel, Emperor of Ethiopia. The southern part of Ethiopia falls under Imam Ahmad’s control.
1538 – The first university in the New World, the Universidad Santo Tomas de Aquino, is established.
1628 – The Siege of La Rochelle, which had lasted for 14 months, ends with the surrender of the Huguenots.
1636 – A vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony establishes the first college in what would become the United States, today known as Harvard University.
1664 – The Duke of York and Albany’s Maritime Regiment of Foot, later to be known as the Royal Marines, is established.
1707 – The 1707 Hoei earthquake causes more than 5,000 deaths in Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu, Japan
1775 – American Revolutionary War: A British proclamation forbids residents from leaving Boston.
1776 – American Revolutionary War: Battle of White Plains – British Army forces arrive at White Plains, attack and capture Chatterton Hill from the Americans.
1834 – The Battle of Pinjarra is fought in the Swan River Colony in present-day Pinjarra, Western Australia. Between 14 and 40 Aborigines are killed by British colonists.
1848 – The first railroad in Spain – between Barcelona and Mataro – is opened.
1864 – American Civil War: Second Battle of Fair Oaks ends – Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant withdraw from Fair Oaks, Virginia, after failing to breach the Confederate defenses around Richmond, Virginia.
1885 – First porcelain toilet is built
1886 – In New York Harbor, President Grover Cleveland dedicates the Statue of Liberty.
1891 – The Mino-Owari Earthquake, the largest earthquake in Japan’s history, strikes Gifu Prefecture.
1893 – Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Pathetique, receives its premiere performance in St. Petersburg, only nine days before the composer’s death.
1918 – World War I: Czechoslovakia is granted independence from Austria-Hungary marking the beginning of independent Czechoslovak state, after 300 years.
1918 – New Polish government in Western Galicia is established.
1919 – The U.S. Congress passes the Volstead Act over President Woodrow Wilson’s veto, paving the way for Prohibition to begin the following January.
1922 – March on Rome: Italian fascists led by Benito Mussolini march on Rome and take over the Italian government.
1929 – Black Monday, a day in the Wall Street Crash of 1929, which also saw major stock market upheaval.
1936 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt rededicates the Statue of Liberty on its 50th anniversary.
1940 – World War II: Greece rejects Italy’s ultimatum. Italy invades Greece through Albania, marking Greece’s entry into World War II.
1942 – The Alaska Highway (Alcan Highway) is completed through Canada to Fairbanks, Alaska.
1948 – Swiss chemist Paul Müller is awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the insecticidal properties of DDT.
1954 – The modern Kingdom of the Netherlands is re-founded as a federal monarchy.
1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis: Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev announces that he had ordered the removal of Soviet missile bases in Cuba.
1964 – Vietnam War: U.S. officials deny any involvement in bombing North Vietnam.
1965 – Nostra Aetate, the “Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions” of the Second Vatican Council, is promulgated by Pope Paul VI; it absolves the Jews of responsibility for the death of Jesus, reversing Innocent III’s 760 year-old declaration.
1965 – Construction on the St. Louis Arch is completed.
1970 – Gary Gabelich sets a land speed record in a rocket-powered automobile called the Blue Flame, fueled with natural gas.
1971 – Britain launches its first satellite, Prospero, into low Earth orbit atop a Black Arrow carrier rocket.
1982 – Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party wins elections, leading to first Socialist government in Spain after death of Franco. Felipe Gonzalez becomes Prime Minister-elect.
1985 – Sandinista Daniel Ortega becomes president of Nicaragua and vows to continue the transformation to socialism and alliance with the Soviet Union and Cuba; American policy continues to support the Contras in their revolt against the Nicaraguan government.
1986 – The centenary of the dedication of the Statue of Liberty is celebrated in New York Harbor.
1995 – 289 people are killed and 265 injured in Baku Metro fire, the deadliest subway disaster.
1998 – An Air China jetliner is hijacked by disgruntled pilot Yuan Bin and flown to Taiwan.
2005 – Plame affair: Lewis Libby, Vice-president Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, is indicted in the Valerie Plame case. Libby resigns later that day.
2006 – Funeral service takes place for those executed at Bykivnia forest, outside Kiev, Ukraine. 817 Ukrainian civilians (out of some 100,000) executed by Bolsheviks at Bykivnia in 1930s – early 1940s are reburied.
2007 – Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner becomes the first woman elected President of Argentina.
2009 – The 28 October 2009 Peshawar bombing kills 117 and wounds 213.
2009 – NASA successfully launches the Ares I-X mission, the only rocket launch for its later-cancelled Constellation program.
Aerial images from the tsunami-hit Mentawai Islands in Indonesia have revealed the extent of destruction, as officials raised the death toll to 311.
The BBC 28 October 2010
Flattened villages are plainly visible on the images, taken from helicopters circling the islands.
Rescuers have finally reached the area where 13 villages were washed away by the 3m (10ft) wave, but 11 more settlements have not yet been reached.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has arrived in the region.
He cut short a trip to Vietnam to oversee the rescue effort, and has been briefed by officials in the port city of Padang on Sumatra.
A 7.7-magnitude undersea earthquake triggered the tsunami two days ago.
But the BBC’s Karishma Vaswani, in Jakarta, says rescue teams have still not arrived at the worst-affected communities, where the scale of the damage is still unclear.
Freedom in Kashmir
he Irish Times – Thursday, October 28, 2010
Comment
REPORTS THAT police in New Delhi are weighing sedition charges against Booker Prize-winning author and human rights campaigner Arundhati Roy are alarming. Her weekend comments on Kashmir independence have brought calls from the Hindu-nationalist BJP for vigorous prosecution, and Indias justice minister, M Veerappa Moily, has insisted that while “Yes, there is freedom of speech … it cant violate the patriotic sentiments of the people.”
Even the suggestion of prosecution, however, reflects again the heavy-handed approach taken by Indian authorities to Kashmir where, since June, more than 100 demonstrators, many of them children, have died. Largely it has been at the hands of the out-of-control, 500,000-strong Indian army faced by rolling protests demanding an end to military rule and independence.
USA
Treasury Sees Escalating Risk to Home Prices
By SEWELL CHAN
Published: October 27, 2010
WASHINGTON – The uncertainty over the legal status of foreclosed homes in the nation could further depress home prices and delay the recovery of the housing market, the Obama administration said on Wednesday.
The warning came at the first Congressional hearing since the magnitude of the problem gained wide attention. Distressed properties make up one quarter of all home sales.
Revelations about paperwork shortcuts and so-called robo-signed affidavits, as well as the likelihood of protracted legal battles by homeowners and inquiries by state and federal officials, will hinder foreclosure proceedings and discourage prospective buyers, a Treasury Department official said.
New poll shows Obama helping Dems, but is it too late?
By Steven Thomma | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama has improved his standing among voters, and Democrats finally have started to energize their base, but it might be too little and too late to change the course of Tuesday’s elections, according to a new McClatchy-Marist poll.
The national survey found that Obama’s weeks of campaigning across the country have paid off with higher approval ratings for him, particularly among independents and the young and in the Northeast
Europe
French union chiefs signal plan to shelve strikes and pursue talks
The Irish Times – Thursday, October 28, 2010
RUADHÁN Mac CORMAIC in Paris
FRENCH STUDENTS protested over pension reform in cities across the country yesterday, but union leaders gave the first indication they planned to wind down their strikes and seek negotiations with government.
With parliament expected to definitively approve the final version of the controversial pensions Bill today, François Chérèque, the leader of the large CFDT union, hinted at a change in tactics when he said the campaign would enter a “new phase”.
“The parliamentary debate will come to an end, and we’ll be looking at it from another perspective, obviously,” Mr Chérèque said. “We’re not calling into question the legitimacy of parliament . . . but a law is always perfectible.””
Al-Qaida Said To Be Planning European Hostage-Takings
‘Euro Plot’
By Yassin Musharbash
Berlin — On Sept 17, 1974, in the evening, four terrorists with the Japanese Red Army (JRA) boarded an aircraft made available by the French government at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport and ordered Dutch pilot Pim Siericks to take off — the destination was initially unknown.
The flight of the Boeing 707 marked the end of a successful terrorist operation. Three JRA members had occupied the French embassy in The Hague for four days and had held the staff hostage. The French government gave in to their demand to hand over a fourth JRA man, Yutuka Furuya, who had been in prison in France, in return for the hostages.
Top terrorist Carlos the Jackal had helped JRA by supplying the M26 grenades with which they were armed in The Hague. One day after they took the hostages, Carlos himself used one of the grenades to cause a bloodbath in a Paris café in order to press home JRA’s demands.
Middle East
Why Sharif Mobley is to be tried in Yemen – and what it means for American Muslims
US interest in the case of Sharif Mobley, who was set to be tried today, illustrates broader concern about American Muslims going abroad to train with militants.
By Laura Kasinof, Correspondent / October 27, 2010
Sanaa, Yemen
It’s like the plot of an international thriller: American man sentenced to death by firing squad in an authoritarian country on the other side of the world. But for 26-year-old New Jersey native Sharif Mobley, this plotline is far from fiction.
A Muslim living with his American wife and their two children in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, Mr. Mobley was set to be tried today on charges of killing a state security officer – a crime for which he could be sentenced to death. But due to the fact that no one arranged translation services for Mobley, who does not speak Arabic, the trial was postponed two weeks.
Mobley was arrested in a January security operation targeting suspected Al Qaeda operatives, during which the Yemeni police shot him in the leg.
Dubai Faces Environmental Problems After Growth
By LIZ ALDERMAN
Published: October 27, 2010
DUBAI – Dubai’s skyline is the most sparkling in the Middle East. But down on the ground, the environmental problems of a quickly erected city built on sand look a lot less alluring.
In the last year, tourists have swum amid raw sewage in Dubai’s slice of the Persian Gulf. The purifying of seawater to feed taps and fountains is raising salinity levels. And despite sitting on vast oil reserves, the region is running out of energy sources to support its rich lifestyle.
The simple basics of waste treatment and providing fresh water, in addition to running major industrial projects, require so much electricity that the region is turning to a nuclear future, raising questions about the risks, both environmental and political, of relying in part on a technology vulnerable to accidents and terrorist attacks.
Asia
Indonesia quake death toll over 300
October 28, 2010 – 6:06AM
Helicopters with emergency supplies finally landed on the remote Indonesian islands slammed by a tsunami that killed more than 300 people, while elsewhere in the archipelago the toll from a volcanic eruption rose to 30, including the mountain’s spiritual caretaker.
Indonesia is prone to such disasters, and installed a tsunami warning system after a catastrophic wave killed hundreds of thousands of people in 2004. An official said, however, that the system stopped working a month ago because of poor maintenance.
Another entrant for North Korea succession: Kim’s oldest son?
Some analysts believe that Kim Jong-il’s exiled oldest son is just waiting to see if his younger half-brother Kim Jong-un can do the job – but could return to rule North Korea.
By Donald Kirk, Correspondent / October 27, 2010
Seoul, South Korea
The oldest son of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-il appears to harbor secret ambitions of his own to succeed his father – despite the fact that his youngest half-brother has already been chosen as successor.
That’s the impression Kim Jong-nam is creating here on the basis of remarks that his father would likely view as blasphemous. First there was his surprisingly frank interview with a Japanese televsion network, and then there are comments that he reportedly made to a contact in the gambling enclave of Macao, the one time Portuguese colony on the south China coast wherehe’s been living.
Africa
Nigeria building development could leave 200,000 homeless, says Amnesty
Nigerian authorities urged to suspend demolitions and ensure evictions are carried out according to human rights law
David Smith, Africa correspondent
The Guardian, Thursday 28 October 2010
More than 200,000 people will be left homeless if Nigeria goes ahead with a theme park, shopping mall and hotel development in its oil-rich delta region, Amnesty International has warned.
Thousands have already been forcibly evicted to make way for an eight-screen cinema on the waterfront in Port Harcourt, the human rights group added.
Amnesty’s Just Move Them report urges authorities to suspend planned demolitions and ensure that evictions are carried out according to international human rights law, guaranteeing that adequate alternative housing be found.
Ugandan anti-gay measure will be law soon, lawmaker says
By David McKenzie, CNN
The member of the Ugandan Parliament behind a controversial “anti-gay” bill that would call for stiff penalties against homosexuality — including life imprisonment and the death penalty — says that the bill will become law “soon.”
“We are very confident,” David Bahati told CNN, “because this is a piece of legislation that is needed in this country to protect the traditional family here in Africa, and also protect the future of our children.”
Governments that have donated aid to Uganda and human rights groups applied massive pressure since the bill was proposed a year ago, and most believed that the bill had been since shelved.
Latin America
Hitmen kill fifteen in massacre at Mexican carwash
Third massacre in just a few days renews pressure on President Felipe Calderón to stop violence
Reuters
The Guardian, Thursday 28 October 2010
Suspected drug hitmen shot dead 15 people at a carwash in western Mexico yesterday, the third massacre in just a few days, putting new pressure on President Felipe Calderón to stop the growing violence.
The gunmen, in three SUVs, opened fire on staff and customers in the carwash on the outskirts of the city of Tepic in Nayarit state, provoking panic as the victims collapsed to the ground.
“The workers were all men; they were washing cars when the gunmen, probably members of organized crime, drove up in SUVs and started opening fire,” said a spokeswoman at the Nayarit state attorney general’s office.
Photographs in local media showed bodies slumped on the roadside with pools of blood around their heads..
GABROVO, Bulgaria – The sign leading into town, faded but still readable in Bulgarian, was as I remembered it. “Welcome and good riddance,” it said. Gabrovians, like Borscht Belt comedians or Delaware Republicans, pride themselves on their sense of humor. Before the Wall fell, this hard-luck but endearing city at the foot of the central Balkans was regarded as the Communist capital of humor.
Seriously.
…
Officials at the House of Humor and Satire, a relic of a vanished regime, on more or less the margins of Central Europe, talk wistfully about becoming a more popular destination once again, if only they could come up with the money and a good plan. If only. Across the former Communist world museums like the House have been repurposed as ironic attractions for tourists often too young to remember much if anything about the Soviet era. Funnily, the House of Humor and Satire isn’t one of these. It lacks irony.
I may just vote for this man who has become a Célébrité Internationale for his appearance st the NY Gubernatorial Debate on Octber 18 where he stole the show from the angry man, Carl Paladino and workingman sellout, Andrew Cuomo. He has an Op-Ed in the Guardian today that really hits home:
The bank bailout cost each of us $5,000 – no wonder ordinary working Americans can’t make ends meet. You know what I say
Banks have seized thousands of homes. What can we do?
First, reverse each and every foreclosure where bankers filed false documents. Arrest those bankers, right now. Filing false documents in court is illegal. Treat the banks like any other racketeering organisation that schemes to make millions by breaking the law. Bring the paddywagon, and give all these homes back to the families.
Second, nationalise the banks. If they say they are “too big to fail”, and hate the free market when it applies to them, then make them a government organisation. Cut the average top banker salary from $20m a year to $45,000 a year. Bankers do not deserve big money. The free market has spoken: their businesses collapsed.
Third, use eminent domain to seize all of the other thousands of foreclosed properties that blight the urban landscape, and transfer them to families needing homes. The supreme court of the United States says that eminent domain can be used to transfer land from one private owner to another in order to further economic development (Kelo v. City of New London).
Finally, if we believe the free market theory, that putting cash into people’s hands is the best way to boost the economy, then how about a rent freeze? High rent is the cancer and low rent the cure to this economic crisis. The rolling back of rent would give people money they can spend.
Grandmothers can’t afford their medication; or, if they can afford it, they can’t eat. You work 40 hours a week and you give all your money to the landlord. You’ve got no money for clothes. You’ve got no money to go on vacation. Even if you live in a homeless shelter, you have to pay $350 a month for rent.
In other “November is our N word” election news: CEO of fake wrestling and also Linda McMahon’s husband “Mr. McMahon” filed a very serious lawsuit because he was worried that teenagers wearing WWE spandex thongs wouldn’t be allowed to vote – you know, since people dressed like idiots might be considered “political advertising” for Linda McMahon. Anyway, Vince McMahon won his frivolous and pointless lawsuit. Yippee, feel free to dress up as the “The Ass Demolisher” or whatever those silly WWE spandex men are called. Clearly this is just another example of activist judges legislating from the bench. What’s next? Do the gay people in New York get to wear their assless chaps to the polls, even though this would obviously be illegal political advertising for Carl Paladino? Of course. In Barack Obama’s America, No means Yes and Yes means Assless Chaps.
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