Overnight News Digest: Bush's Big New Prison in Afghanistan
Fri May 16, 2008 at 08:52:11 PM PDT
USA
LA Times - Obama scorches Bush on appeasement remark
| Sen. Barack Obama today slammed President Bush and Republican presidential candidate John McCain for suggesting that Democrats were willing to negotiate with terrorists... "They're trying to scare you and trying to keep you from seeing the truth," Obama told a cheering crowd, "and the reason is they can't win a foreign policy argument on the merits." Obama today continued to link McCain to the Bush administration, a key theme the Democrats have loudly sounded as the political battles have focused more on the general elections in November. Both men "have a lot to answer for" in foreign policy, Obama said. "Our Iran policy is a complete failure right now. I'm running for president to change course, not to continue George Bush's," he said. |
NYT - Obama Links Bush and McCain on ‘Failed Policies’
| Senator Barack Obama responded sharply Friday to a recent spate of attacks on his foreign policy, linking President Bush and Senator John McCain as partners in "the failed policies" of the past seven years and criticizing them for "hypocrisy, fear-peddling, fear-mongering." Confronting a major challenge to his foreign policy and world view, Mr. Obama attempted to turn the tables on his Republican critics, saying that they were guilty of "bluster" and "dishonest, divisive" tactics. He also cited a litany of what he called foreign policy blunders by the Bush administration and accused Mr. McCain, the presumed Republican nominee, of "doubling down" on them. |
WaPo - Clean-Air Rules Protecting Parks Set to Be Eased
| The Bush administration is on the verge of implementing new air quality rules that will make it easier to build power plants near national parks and wilderness areas, according to rank-and-file agency scientists and park managers who oppose the plan. The new regulations, which are likely to be finalized this summer, rewrite a provision of the Clean Air Act that applies to "Class 1 areas," federal lands that currently have the highest level of protection under the law. Opponents predict the changes will worsen visibility at many of the nation's most prized tourist destinations, including Virginia's Shenandoah, Colorado's Mesa Verde and North Dakota's Theodore Roosevelt national parks. |
Seattle Times - Blackwater shooting probe shifts to Baghdad
| Federal prosecutors and FBI agents from Seattle are in Baghdad this week interviewing witnesses and reviewing evidence in the investigation of a former Blackwater USA security operator suspected of the December 2006 slaying of the Iraqi vice president's bodyguard. U.S. Attorney Jeff Sullivan said Thursday that his office should decide whether to indict former Army paratrooper Andrew Moonen of Seattle in connection with the killing by the end of summer or, "hopefully, sooner." |
NYT - Defying Bush, Senate Passes Farm Bill
| The Senate voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to approve a five-year, "07 billion farm bill, sending it to President Bush for what is expected to be his futile veto. The 81-to-15 Senate vote, like the 318-to-106 House vote on Wednesday, attracted broad bipartisan support and received far more than the two-thirds that would be needed to override Mr. Bush’s veto, should he keep his pledge to wield his pen. |
WaPo - Small Chance Bush May Have Lost Wealth During Presidency
| Bush's financial fortunes appear to have declined over the past seven years, with his family assets dropping as low as $6.5 million, according to disclosure forms released yesterday. Bush and his wife, Laura, were worth at least $9 million and as much as $24 million at the start of his term. The Bushes could still be worth as much as $20 million now, according to the financial documents filed with the Office of Government Ethics, which requires assets to be reported only within broad ranges. Vice President Cheney and his wife, Lynne, have fared better, reporting assets of at least $21 million and as much as $99 million, the forms show. The Cheneys are at least as wealthy as they were when the vice president entered office, and may have added as much as $29 million to their net worth during his tenure. |
WaPo - Contested Nominee To FEC Drops Out
| A controversial Bush administration nominee to the Federal Election Commission withdrew from consideration yesterday, providing a likely breakthrough to an impasse that has sidelined the political watchdog agency at the height of the primary season. Hans von Spakovsky, a former Justice Department lawyer whose nomination became entangled in allegations that political considerations influenced decisions by the agency's Civil Rights Division, sent President Bush a letter withdrawing his name. Senate Democrats had refused for a year to confirm von Spakovsky, torpedoing the nominations of three other nominees and denying the FEC a quorum. Since Jan. 1, only two of the agency's six commissioner slots have been filled. Bush, supported by GOP Senate leaders, had refused to withdraw von Spakovsky's name. |
McClatchy - California bill would repeal laws targeting communists
| The California Senate yesterday passed legislation that would delete membership in the Communist party as a reason for firing a public employee, a Cold War-era prohibition intended to root out communists... California is the only state that allows public employees to be dismissed for membership in a political party. |
Oregonian - Big ball of Columbia River sturgeon baffles experts
| When sonar surveys spotted a vast pile of rubble in the Columbia River below Bonneville Dam late last winter, officials suddenly worried that part of the dam structure was eroding into the river. "Everybody said, 'Oh my gosh, we need to get divers out there right away,' " recalled Dennis Schwartz, a fisheries biologist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which oversees the dam. What they found below the spillways in February was not a giant pile of rock at all, but a humongous pile of thousands upon thousands of sturgeon -- some of them 14 feet long or longer -- lounging together in frigid water at the bottom of the river... The mountain of white sturgeon contained around 60,000 fish, according to a rough estimate by Michael Parsley, a research fisheries biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey's Columbia River Research Laboratory in Cook, Wash. He described that estimate as "probably conservative." |
Europe
CS Monitor - Barcelona floats creative solution to water crisis
| With Spain’s average rainfall down 40 percent last year, many cities have restricted residents from filling their swimming pools or watering their lawns. But perhaps no municipality has developed such diverse and creative solutions as hard-hit Barcelona, which this week began a €44 million ($68 million) operation to bring in drinking water by ship. On Tuesday, the first vessel – from the southern city of Tarragona – arrived in Barcelona’s port, where firemen discharged the ship’s 20 tanks into a pipeline linked to the city’s water distribution network. The next day, Barcelona residents were drinking Tarragona water from their taps. The measure is designed to stave off a water crisis that has been building for some time and has reduced Barcelona’s reservoirs to 20 percent of their capacity. |
NYT - Italy Arrests Hundreds of Immigrants
| Underscoring the new Italian government’s determination to crack down on illegal immigration and what the government contends is associated crime... Nearly 400 people were arrested, including more than 100 who were immediately expelled... The widely publicized raids were a strong signal from Italy’s new right-wing government, which is led by Silvio Berlusconi and includes the anti-immigrant Northern League Party, that it will keep its promises to pursue tougher policies toward immigrants. |
Independent - Italian tolerance goes up in smoke as Gypsy camp is burnt to ground
| In cruel and unusual concert, Italy's new government, its police and paramilitary carabinieri, and even its gangsters, have turned their joint might against the nation's enemy number one: the Gypsies. Yesterday Pope Benedict XVI and a small number of left-wingers raised lonely voices in central Naples against the national hardening of hearts towards Europe's perennial outsiders. |
AP - Russia detains alleged spy working for Georgia
| Russia's security service reportedly said Friday that it detained a man accused of spying for Georgia in the restive North Caucasus, adding to escalating tension between the former Soviet republics. A Georgian official denied the allegation and denounced it as part of a Russian "policy of provocation" aimed against Georgia. Tensions are high over growing Russian support for Georgia's breakaway Abkhazia province, a linchpin in Russia's efforts to thwart Georgia's drive for NATO membership. An unidentified Russian Federal Security Service official identified the alleged agent as Ramzan Turkoshvili, a Georgian-born Russian citizen, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. |
Independent - EU may force car makers to reveal emissions in adverts
| The European Union is preparing to introduce tough new rules on car advertising, forcing manufacturers to include conspicuous and easily understood information about petrol consumption and emissions... Details of the proposal to compel car manufacturers to own up to the carbon footprint of their vehicles will be unveiled by the end of the month, after which the politicians and car industry representatives will discuss them for the first time. |
Guardian - UK demands repayment of climate aid to poor nations
| Britain's £800m international project to help the poorest countries in the world adapt to climate change was under fire last night after it emerged that almost all the money offered by Gordon Brown will have to be repaid with interest. |
Independent - Scotland: one year closer to breaking away as SNP momentum continues
| When Gordon Brown addresses the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in Edinburgh today, no doubt some in the audience will privately reflect on the widely differing fortunes of the Prime Minister and Alex Salmond, Scotland's First Minister. The two rivals both enjoyed a honeymoon when they came to power last year. Mr Brown's came to a sudden halt in October when he dithered over whether to call an election. Mr Salmond's honeymoon is still going strong, one year into his Scottish National Party administration. Mr Brown hoped devolution would neuter demands for independence and keep Labour in power in the new Scottish Parliament for ever. After two four-year terms, Labour is in the uncomfortable position of being in opposition in its own heartland. |
Telegraph - Monty Python's dead parrot did exist
| The fictional Norwegian Blue parrot - famed as the star of Monty Python’s iconic dead parrot comedy sketch - appears to have once really existed. A fossil expert has established for the first time that parrots lived in Scandinavia about 55 million years ago when the area was covered in tropical forest. |
Africa
WaPo - Zimbabwe Presidential Runoff Vote Set for June 27
| Zimbabwe's long-awaited runoff election between President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has been scheduled for June 27, election officials announced Friday. The date is nearly three months after the March 29 vote, in which Tsvangirai came in first but did not win the clear majority necessary to avoid a runoff, according to election officials. The second-round of voting was, by law, supposed to happen within 21 days. Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change, which has maintained that the electoral commission rigged results to prevent it from winning a majority, confirmed Friday that it plans to participate in the runoff despite widespread political violence in Zimbabwe and unexplained delays in releasing results and in scheduling the runoff vote. |
NYT - Food Crisis Meets Chaos in Horn of Africa
| Somalia — and much of the volatile Horn of Africa, for that matter — was about the last place on earth that needed a food crisis. Even before commodity prices started shooting up around the globe, civil war, displacement and imperiled aid operations had pushed many people here to the brink of famine. But now with food costs spiraling out of reach and the livestock people live off of dropping dead in the sand, villagers across this sun-blasted landscape say hundreds of people are dying of hunger and thirst. This is what happens, economists say, when the global food crisis meets local chaos. |
BBC News - Charges urged for Kenya 'torture'
| Kenya's defence minister and army chiefs should face prosecution over the alleged torture of civilians, the state-funded human rights body says. The Kenya National Commission for Human Rights (KNCHR) says medical reports back up complaints of torture. The military was deployed to the Mt Elgon area in March, in a crackdown on the Sabaot Land Defence Force (SLDF). The government denied the allegations, in turn accusing the militia of committing atrocities. |
WaPo - Women Rise in Rwanda's Economic Revival
| Sun-kissed plantations ring this village, renowned in recent years for growing the rich arabica beans brewed and served in some of the world's finest coffee houses. But the secret to success here has had far less to do with the idyllic climate and volcanic soil than with a group of people who have emerged as Maraba's -- and Rwanda's -- most potent economic force: women... The march of female entrepreneurialism, playing out here and across Rwanda in industries from agribusiness to tourism, has proved to be a windfall for efforts to rebuild the nation and fight poverty. Women more than men invest profits in the family, renovate homes, improve nutrition, increase savings rates and spend on children's education, officials here said. It speaks to a seismic shift in gender economics in Rwanda's post-genocide society, one that is altering the way younger generations of males view their mothers and sisters while offering a powerful lesson for other developing nations struggling to rebuild from the ashes of conflict. |
Middle East
VoA - Bush in Saudi Arabia for Nuclear Deal
| Bush and King Abdullah... will discuss a deal to help the kingdom develop civilian nuclear power for medical and industrial uses as well as generating electricity. The agreement provides access to safe, reliable fuel sources for nuclear reactors and demonstrates what the Bush Administration calls Saudi leadership as a non-proliferation model for the region. |
WaPo - Saudis to Increase Oil Output by Roughly 300,000 Barrels a Day
| Saudi Arabia announced Friday that it will boost oil production by about 300,000 barrels a day to meet increased demand from customers next month. The announcement came after President Bush met with Saudi King Abdullah to appeal for help in bringing down oil prices that are hitting record highs. The Saudi increase is a modest one and appeared unlikely to have much effect on crude oil prices. But with the president under pressure at home to show he is fighting to lower gas prices, the gesture gave Bush a face-saving benefit from a day-long meeting with Saudi leaders. |
NYT - Feuding Political Camps in Lebanon Agree to Talk to End Impasse
| The warring political camps in Lebanon agreed Thursday to hold renewed talks in a deal negotiated by Arab diplomats that reopened the country’s airport and appeared to end a week of bloody political crisis. The deal was a victory for the Hezbollah-led opposition, which won concessions from the governing coalition on how to end the 18-month political stalemate here — after showing its military superiority during fighting last week. The government, supported by the West and Saudi Arabia, had already backed down from two decisions it issued last week that singled out Hezbollah’s communications network and its control over the airport. |
LA Times - Iraq offers amnesty to militants in Mosul
| Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki on Friday offered amnesty to Sunni Arab militants in the northern city of Mosul who turn in their weapons in exchange for unspecified financial compensation. The offer comes as government troops press an offensive in the city, which the U.S. military has called the last urban stronghold of militants loyal to Al Qaeda in Iraq. A statement issued by Maliki's office gave militants 10 days to hand over their heavy- and medium-grade weapons to Iraqi security forces or local tribal leaders. |
LA Times - 4 Iranian Embassy workers hurt in Baghdad shooting
| Four Iranian Embassy employees were shot and wounded, two of them seriously, as they drove in northwest Baghdad on Thursday night, Iranian and Iraqi officials said. The reason for the shooting was unclear. It came as the Iraqi and Iranian governments spar over allegations of Iranian aid to Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq. A spokesman for the embassy, Manouchehr Tasleem, played down the possibility of diplomatic repercussions from the incident. However, he suggested that the Iranians, all of them administrative employees, might have been targeted for political purposes. |
Guardian - Shifting sands: Kuwaitis go to the polls
| Over lavish buffets in giant air-conditioned tents whose generators battle with the searing summer heat, Kuwaitis have been arguing over an election that is being watched for signs that one of the freest countries in the Arab world is disillusioned with its political system. Voters in the oil-rich emirate are choosing today between groupings (parties are still formally banned) of Islamists, independents, nationalists and liberals, against a background of turbulence that has included the dissolution of parliament and controversial cabinet resignations. The 50-seat national assembly has a history of defying the government, unusual in a region dominated by Saudi Arabia and the smaller hereditary monarchies along the Gulf. |
South Asia
AFP - Pakistan says coalition in Afghanistan launched missile strike
| Pakistan on Friday said that coalition forces in Afghanistan earlier this week launched a missile strike into Pakistan's tribal region, killing 14 people. "We confirm that the two missiles were fired from a drone which belongs to coalition forces deployed in Afghanistan," Pakistan's chief military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told AFP, referring to Wednesday's strike. "We have conveyed our protest and waiting for response by the coalition forces," Abbas added. He said the attack killed 14 people but gave no further details on exactly who launched the strike. There is a US-led coalition in Afghanistan, and a separate NATO coalition. |
Reuters - Police suspect Bangladeshi hand in Jaipur blasts
| Police probing bombings in Jaipur that killed 63 people said on Friday that new evidence pointed increasingly towards Indian Islamists backed by a Bangladeshi militant group as being behind the blasts. Nine bombs, all strapped to bicycles, ripped through a crowded shopping area in the popular tourist city on Tuesday evening. Another 216 people were wounded. Investigators said the attack bore hallmarks of the Bangladeshi militant group Harkat-ul-Jihad al Islami (HuJI), suspected to be behind several previous blasts in India. |
Times of India - India in China's nuke crosshairs
| China has more worrying news for us. Latest satellite pictures have identified a large area in central China with 58 launch pads for nuclear-capable ballistic missiles which apparently target north India and south Russia. Coming soon after the discovery of the sheer extent of China's underground nuclear submarine base at Hainan Island in South China Sea, it's yet another reality check for the Indian defence establishment... The new satellite pictures show 58 launch pads and command and control facilities spread over a 2,000 sq km deployment area near Delingha and Da Qaidam in the northern parts of Qinghai province. |
Asia-Pacific
NYT - Moments of Hope and Survival, Miraculous and Few
| Four days after a powerful earthquake turned this picturesque mountain town into a jumble of beams and brick and gray roof tiles, villagers stood on a knoll to watch rescue workers pick through the remains of a six-story apartment block. At one point came a hush, and then a burst of applause, as a man emerged from a slit in the rubble, his body draped in a floral blanket... But for every survivor, it seemed, there were hundreds died in the ruins of the country’s worst natural disaster in 30 years. The toll passed 22,000 on Friday afternoon, and could climb as high as 50,000, the government said. |
LA Times - China aftershock triggers landslides
| A strong aftershock hit China's battered Sichuan region today, causing landslides, knocking out telephone lines and burying vehicles, according to state media. The magnitude 5.5 tremor struck at 1:25 p.m. in Lixian, further complicating the job of getting aid into nearby Wenchuan, the epicenter of Monday's massive quake. The aftershock, the latest in a series this week, could be felt in Chengdu, a major city 75 miles to the southeast. There were no immediate reports of deaths. |
NYT - Rescued Tourists Tell of Survival at Panda Reserve
| The birds suddenly disappeared from the sky. Something also was wrong with the pandas. They were strangely skittish. And then, within minutes, the isolated, verdant mountains above China’s most famous panda reserve exploded as if hit by a megaton bomb. "The pandas were agitated and pacing," recalled Pamela Capito, 60, a member of a 12-person American tour group visiting the reserve. "When the earthquake hit, we realized they had sensed it coming." ... They say their ordeal was made manageable because of the kindness, and heroism, of panda keepers and other workers who helped save people and pandas, including 13 baby cubs. |
Telegraph - Myanmar cyclone: Burma death toll jumps to 78,000
| The official death toll of the cyclone disaster in Burma has risen to 78,000, as the country's military regime continues block aid from reaching 2.5 million survivors. The new figure is nearly double the official estimate of 43,000 dead or missing given on Wednesday. According to state television, as of May 15 more than 55,000 people were missing and almost 20,000 have been injured in the worst disaster in the country's history, which hit two weeks ago. Independent experts have said the actual number is probably far higher, with British officials saying the total dead and missing could be more than 200,000. |
LA Times - Myanmar declares new constitution ratified after partial vote
| Myanmar's ruling generals announced Thursday that a new constitution viewed by critics as a pro-government sham had been overwhelming approved by voters. The commission in charge of the Saturday referendum said 92.4% of voters approved the constitution, state-run media reported. The pro-democracy opposition says the new constitution will enshrine military rule. |
NYT - High-Tech Japanese, Running Out of Engineers
| Japan is running out of engineers. After years of fretting over coming shortages, the country is actually facing a dwindling number of young people entering engineering and technology-related fields. Universities call it "rikei banare," or "flight from science." The decline is growing so drastic that industry has begun advertising campaigns intended to make engineering look sexy and cool, and companies are slowly starting to import foreign workers, or sending jobs to where the engineers are, in Vietnam and India. |
The Age - Madam or slave owner?
| An appeal before the High Court will decide how Australia defines slavery, giving the legal system a platform to deal with cases of exploitation of migrant sex workers... Welcome to the landmark legal case of the Queen against Wei Tang. This case will decide how Australia legally defines slavery and "possession" of one person by another. It will decide how Australian anti-slavery laws in the 21st century should respond to the nimble evolution of human wickedness into new forms of human exploitation. |
The Age - Epic journey of the comeback humpbacks
| Australia's largest single wild animal migration, the coastal trek of the humpback whale, is expanding yearly into a major spectacle. This week's sporadic first sightings in Victoria, NSW and Tasmania show the lead animals in the yearly passage between Antarctica and the tropics are on their way north again. Up the coast, humpback season has started... The migration has been cast into sharp relief this year by Japan's decision to suspend, for now, plans for "scientific" whaling from these humpback stocks. |
The Age - Is desalination the solution?
| Australians are among the one-third of the world's population that the United Nations Environment Program says are living with moderate to high water stress. With population growth, industrial development and the expansion of irrigated agriculture in the next two decades, rising water demand will only make quenching humanity's water needs more difficult. Global water usage has increased sixfold in a century, and will double again by 2050, according to an analysis led by the International Water Management Institute, the work of 700 scientists. This against a backdrop of diminishing rainfall and vanishing mountain glaciers. For rich nations, it depicts scarcity challenging lifestyles and the economies that underpin them; for poor ones, it further erodes the prospects of escape from impoverishment and disease. The problem is not, the report concludes, the lack of water, but the choices about how it is used. "People and their governments will face some tough decisions on how to allocate and manage water." But increasingly for nations around the world — and for states around the dry continent of Australia — the answer to the water challenge lies not so much in rethinking water use but in the alchemy of making more through desalination. |
Americas
NYT - ‘Stagnation’ Made Brazil’s Environment Chief Resign
| Marina Silva, the environmental minister who resigned this week, blamed "stagnation" in the government for her decision at a news conference on Thursday and acknowledged that governors in frontline Amazon states were pressing the president to rescind measures intended to check deforestation... Ms. Silva has said she will return to the Brazilian senate, a decision likely to complicate matters for Mr. da Silva, who has struggled to react to the political fallout over a recent spike in Amazon deforestation, the first such increase in three years. In response, the government has restricted credit to those businesses involved in illegal deforestation and initiated a multiagency police operation to crack down on illegal logging. |
Miami Herald - Venezuela's Chávez rejects FARC report
| A defiant President Hugo Chávez is dismissing Interpol's confirmation of the validity of FARC guerrilla computers and threatening to ratchet up the already tense relations with Colombia. Chávez called the Interpol finding "a new act of aggression" by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe during a four-hour press conference in Caracas and added: "Once again I am required to put relations with Colombia in deep review." The Interpol findings deal a blow to Venezuela's assertions that the files were forged as part of a campaign to accuse Caracas of supporting terrorism in the region, but may not be enough for Washington to impose sanctions on Venezuela, even as one U.S. official called the evidence "highly disturbing." |
MercoPress - Argentine farmers’ conflict becoming an attrition process
| Striking Argentine farmers opposed to a hike in export taxes decided on Thursday to extend the stoppage for another week but also sent a letter to President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner requesting an "urgent meeting" following on her Wednesday appeal for a national dialogue. Farmers in Argentina, a leading world exporter of soy, wheat and corn, are locked in a two months standoff with the government over a new sliding-scale export tax that farmers say effectively cuts the profitability of their business. The tax increase links grain levies to international prices, replacing a fixed levy with a variable rate. |
NYT - Dominicans Expected to Reelect President
| Dominicans who went to the polls on Friday had been given chickens, poured beer, promised new homes and even handed cash during a spirited frenzy of campaigning. But President Leonel Fernández appeared headed for a third term in office largely as a result of a campaign gift to the populace that dwarfed those of his six opponents: a shiny new subway system. |
BBC News - Mexican tortilla prices 'up 18%'
| The price of tortillas, a staple food in Mexico, are set to rise 18% in the next few weeks, an industry group says. Thousands of people protested against tortilla price rises in Mexico last year and they have become a big political issue. The National Chamber for the Tortilla and Dough Industry told Reuters that prices would rise from 8.5 pesos (42 pence) a kilo now to 10 pesos in June. The government said it would work to make sure that did not happen. Tortilla prices are not state-controlled in Mexico, but the economy minister Eduardo Sojo said the government would use measures such as offering subsidies for transport and warehousing to stop them rising. |
Globe and Mail - Canada's greenhouse-gas emissions decrease for second year
| Greenhouse-gas emissions in Canada declined for a second year in a row during 2006, falling to 721 million tonnes, or by 1.9 per cent from a year earlier, according to figures released Friday by Environment Canada. The back-to-back reduction was attributed to a drop in the amount of coal used to produce electricity, warmer winters leading to reduced fuel consumption for space heating, and less fossil fuel use in the oil refining industry. Emissions haven't fallen for consecutive years since modern record keeping started in 1990... The drop still leaves Canada well behind its target for reducing greenhouse emissions under the Kyoto Protocol... |
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