NATIONAL & WORLD DIGEST - January 06, 2009

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New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/
Go to the links for the following articles:

-Panetta Is Chosen as C.I.A. Chief, in a Surprise Step
By MARK MAZZETTI and CARL HULSE
Leon E. Panetta, a former congressman and White House chief of staff, has been selected by President-elect Barack Obama to head the Central Intelligence Agency. The choice, disclosed Monday by Democratic officials, immediately revealed divisions in the party as two senior lawmakers questioned why Mr. Obama would nominate a candidate with limited experience in intelligence matters.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/06/us/politics/06cia.html?_r=1&hp

-Ex-Detainee of U.S. Describes a 6-Year Ordeal
By JANE PERLEZ, RAYMOND BONNER and SALMAN MASOOD
LAHORE, Pakistan - When Muhammad Saad Iqbal arrived home here in August after more than six years in American custody, including five at the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, he had difficulty walking, his left ear was severely infected, and he was dependent on a cocktail of antibiotics and antidepressants.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/06/world/asia/06iqbal.html?hp

-Gazprom Dispute With Ukraine Entangles Europe
By DAVID JOLLY and JULIA WERDIGIER
PARIS - Russia's gas price dispute with Ukraine escalated Tuesday, disrupting deliveries to the European Union in the midst of a bitter cold spell, with a number of countries reporting that gas supplies had been suspended or reduced, and Germany predicting a possible shortage. Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, the Czech Republic, Austria and other countries including Croatia, Macedonia and Turkey reported that gas supplies had been suspended or reduced after Gazprom, the Russian gas monopoly, reduced gas shipments through Ukraine.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/world/europe/07gazprom.html?hp

-Bid to Revoke Madoff's Bail Cites His Gifts
By ALEX BERENSON
Contending that Bernard L. Madoff sent at least a million dollars worth of jewelry as gifts to family members and friends last month, federal prosecutors asked a judge on Monday to revoke his bail and send him to jail.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/06/business/06madoff.html?hp

-Toyota to Shut Factories for 11 Days
By MARTIN FACKLER
TOKYO - Toyota Motor will idle its plants in Japan for 11 days in February and March to reduce output in the face of steeply declining global vehicle sales, the company said Tuesday. The Japanese auto giant said the suspension will affect production at all 12 of its directly operated domestic plants, which include 4 vehicle assembly plants and also factories that make transmissions, engines and other parts. The stoppages are in addition to a three-day shutdown this month at these plants that Toyota had already announced.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/business/worldbusiness/07toyota.html?hp

-For Vatican, Spain Is a Key Front in Church-State Battle
By RACHEL DONADIO
VALLADOLID, Spain - The Macías Picavea primary school hardly looks like the seat of revolution. But this unassuming brick building in a sleepy industrial town has become a battleground in an intensifying war between church and state in Spain.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/06/world/europe/06church.html

-Obama Names 4 for Justice Jobs in Break From Bush Path
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
President-elect Barack Obama reached back to the Clinton administration again Monday to fill four top Justice Department posts with lawyers whose records signal a sharp break from the legal policies of the last eight years.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/06/us/politics/06justice.html


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Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Go to the links for the following articles:

-A Monumental Decision
George W. Bush becomes the conservation president, at least at sea. YES, YOU READ that right. A man whose administration doesn't exactly have a green seal of approval from environmentalists will grant monument status today to three vast and breathtaking areas teeming with marine life in the South Pacific. Combined with other designations over the past eight years, including the creation of a 138,000-square-mile marine national monument in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands two years ago, Mr. Bush has now protected more ocean habitat (333,000 square miles) than any of his predecessors.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/05/AR2009010502406.html

-Alaska trooper says politics slowed drug arrest
The Associated Press
ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- A drug investigator says authorities delayed the arrest of a woman tied to Gov. Sarah Palin's family until after the November election, in which Palin was the Republican vice presidential candidate, a newspaper reported. Sherry Johnston, whose son Levi Johnston is engaged to Palin's daughter, Bristol, was arrested Dec. 18 on six felony drug counts. She is accused of selling Oxycontin, a strong prescription painkiller, and pleaded not guilty Monday.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/05/AR2009010501632.html?hpid=sec-nation

-Obama Pitches Stimulus Plan
GOP Asked to Help Design Bill; $300 Billion in Tax Cuts Sought
By Paul Kane, Lori Montgomery and Shailagh Murray
President-elect Barack Obama arrived on Capitol Hill yesterday and immediately set to work reassuring skeptical Republicans about his massive economic stimulus package -- part of a campaign that earned him praise for seeking their input but questions from those averse to hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/05/AR2009010502752.html?hpid=topnews


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Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/public/us

-Tuition Ammunition: a Happy Lesson on Lending
The U.S. Government's Effort to Save Student Loans Has Been One Bright Spot in a Season of Crises and Bailouts
By ROBERT TOMSHO
Despite a massive federal effort to aid banks and boost the economy, lending has plunged in the last year. Home-mortgage volume and bank loans to big companies are down dramatically.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123119963504555547.html

-India Gives Terror Evidence to Pakistan
By PETER WONACOTT and ZAHID HUSSAIN
India said it handed Pakistan for the first time a detailed body of evidence tying Pakistan-based terrorists to November's attacks in Mumbai, in a bid to increase pressure on Islamabad to clamp down harder on militants targeting India.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123114423294853469.html

-What Congress Knew About 'Torture'
Barack Obama's choice of former Congressman Leon Panetta to lead the CIA at least puts a grownup, if also an intelligence rookie, in that crucial job.
It also means that Mr. Panetta and Director of National Intelligence-designate Dennis Blair will soon have to decide if they want to join the left-wing crusade to purge their agencies of anyone who had anything to do with "torture."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123120464870255997.html

-How the U.N. Perpetuates the 'Refugee' Problem
By NATAN SHARANSKY
Nowhere on earth do terrorists get so much help from the Free World.
Israel's assault on Hamas is just the latest in a long chain of military clashes, the scripts of which are always the same. On one side, there is the Israeli army. Technologically and militarily superior, its soldiers are motivated by a powerful commitment to their country's security. On the other, there are Palestinian terrorists whose aim is to kill as many innocent Israelis as possible by unleashing missiles and suicide bombers on civilian centers. Then, when Israel retaliates, they appeal to the world with gruesome images of Palestinian suffering as part of a global campaign to prevent Israel from defending itself.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123120586642556073.html


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