NATIONAL & WORLD DIGEST October 24, 2007

**IF YOU CAN'T ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE, CONTACT US AT rays.list@comcast.net and we'll be happy to send the full article.

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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com

http://www.charlotte.com/205/story/329658.html

Prosecutor says change needed in state's homicide laws

Posted on Mon, Oct. 22, 2007

A prosecutor said changes are needed in the state's homicide laws becausethey give prosecutors few choices in cases where the evidence doesn't leadto a murder charge.

Bob Ariail said he had almost no alternative but to pursue an involuntary manslaughter charge against a man accused of punching an openly gay man inMay outside a Greenville bar, causing the victim to fall to the pavement andsuffer a fatal head injury.

A grand jury decided last week to indict Stephen Andrew Moller, 19, on thelesser charge of involuntary manslaughter, instead of murder.

"Realizing the possibility of no indictment on the murder charge which wouldresult in Moller's release, my office prepared, in advance, an alternatecharge," Arial said in a statement released Monday.

Murder carries a sentence of 30 years to life in prison, while someoneconvicted of involuntary manslaughter faces anywhere from no jail time tofive years behind bars.

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Forwarded from Victoria Lavin
Daily Queer News
dailyqueernews@yahoo.com

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-5824.html

Brazilian senator uses paedophilia to condemn gay rights

22nd October 2007 18:53
Maryam Omidi

A Brazilian politician has caused outrage by comparing homosexuality to
paedophilia.

Senator Magno Malta made the comment during a speech opposing a proposed newlaw which will classify homophobia as a criminal offence.

Mr Malta said that allowing homosexuals to be openly affectionate in publicwould be the same as legalising paedophilia.

"[Homosexuals] may be having sex under your window, and you won't be able totell them that there are children around and that that is not appropriatebehaviour, because then it will be considered discrimination, and you may goto jail for it," he said.

"You are giving homosexuals more freedom and rights than those given toblacks and native Brazilians in the past.

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Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-fire24oct24,1,4570192.story

1,155 homes -- and counting
Criticism is mounting that the region was unprepared.

By Christine Hanley, Janet Wilson and Mitchell Landsberg
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
October 24, 2007

Exhausted and sometimes discouraged, firefighters struggled for a third dayTuesday to wrest control of more than a dozen wildfires in SouthernCalifornia that threatened such familiar landmarks as the Mt. PalomarObservatory and the resort communities around Lake Arrowhead.

Fire crews threw everything they had at the fires, but though there werenotable successes, the toll of acreage, homes and lives lost continued torise -- as did the volume of criticism from those who said the region waswoefully unprepared for the cataclysm.

By late Tuesday, the blazes had burned 420,424 acres -- about 656 squaremiles -- and destroyed 1,155 homes, making them nearly as large as the firesin October 2003 that are considered the biggest in California history.Although only one death has been directly attributed to the fires, fiveothers have been linked to them.

"If we had more air resources, we would have been able to control thisfire," said a frustrated Orange County Fire Authority Chief Chip Prather."Instead we've been stuck in this initial attack mode on the ground where wehopscotch through neighborhoods as best we can trying to control things."

Prather spoke at a news briefing Tuesday morning less than a mile from whathad been an idyllic residential enclave at Modjeska Canyon, near El Toro ineastern Orange County. As he spoke, the canyon was erupting in an infernothat forced firefighters to retreat and destroyed an undetermined number ofhomes.

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Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-arrowheadfires24oct24,1,5394948.story

2 blazes are still raging in the mountains
Firefighters worry that the wind could blow the fires together, a scenariothat a U.S. Forest Service official says 'could be catastrophic.'

By Louis Sahagun, Maeve Reston and Christopher Goffard
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

October 24, 2007

While thousands of neighbors fled the burning mountains around him, ScottGarrett ignored a mandatory evacuation order to try to save his6,000-square-foot home on a hillside west of Lake Arrowhead. Inside: a stashof movie memorabilia, including a large winged angel statue from the BenAffleck movie "Daredevil" and a costume from "Planet of the Apes."

Garrett, 48, a semiretired movie studio art department technician, filledlarge buckets with water and sprayed his wood deck with fire retardant. Asembers pelted the deck of his Grass Valley home, he swept them away beforethey could take hold. Using a garden hose, he battled smoldering trees andbushes.

He was ready to leave when "all the houses started burning and exploding,all the ammunition and propane going off," he said. "I saw my neighbor, andwe decided to stay. I'm glad I did."

Garrett was doing battle with one of two fires that continued to rageTuesday near Lake Arrowhead, burning 5,000 acres total, with more than 300homes destroyed, more than 15,000 people forced to evacuate and 10,000 homesthreatened.

In the west, the Grass Valley fire had burned 1,000 acres and destroyed 113homes and businesses, but fire officials said it was 30% contained. About 10miles east, the Slide fire had burned 4,000 acres and more than 200 homes.Firefighters worried that the wind could blow the fires together, a scenariothat U.S. Forest Service Battalion Chief Steve Seltzner said "could becatastrophic."

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The New York Times

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/23/AR2007102301804.html

Wall Street Democrats vs. Main Street Democrats

By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, October 24, 2007; A19

Never let it be said that there's no difference between the two parties. Onmatters economic, the Republicans are almost invariably the party of majorbanks and corporations (though the current backlash against immigration isone of the rare instances in which the party's voting base has triumphedover its financial base). The Democrats, by contrast, are on matters ofeconomics the party of -- well, not labor, as such. Not consumers, as such.The younger masters of the universe who work on Wall Street like as not areliberal on cultural issues and appalled at Republican foreign policy, thoughthey're no fans of regulating capitalism. They give big-time to suchDemocrats as Barack Obama (who voted for the bank-backed legislation makingit harder for people of modest means to declare bankruptcy) and ChuckSchumer (who has opposed a fairer tax rate for hedge fund operators). TheDemocratic Party is their political home -- just as it is labor's.

The Democrats, in short, are the party of class conflict. Nowhere is thatconflict clearer these days than in the efforts of Senate Democrats todesignate the two new Democratic members of the Securities and ExchangeCommission (the SEC has five members nominated by the president, three fromthe president's party, two from the opposition). One of two Democratic-heldseats is newly vacant, and the other is expected to be vacant by year's end.

Largely behind the scenes, a battle has been raging between those Democraticgroups that want to see the seats go to investors' advocates and the WallStreet Democrats who prefer new members who would keep the banks' andbrokerages' concerns uppermost in mind.

Until the past few days, the two front-runners for the slots were LuisAguilar and Yoon-Young Lee, both attorneys at Washington law firms.

Aguilar came to the United States from Cuba as a child and worked in a staffposition at the Atlanta office of the SEC before becoming a private-sectorsecurities lawyer. He has criticized the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which stiffenedfinancial reporting requirements on businesses in the wake of the Enrondebacle, for what he termed its "burdensome cost imposed on corporateAmerica."

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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/24/opinion/24wed1.html?ref=opinion

Tilting the Scales of Justice

Editorial
October 24, 2007

Every time we take a look at the United States attorney scandal, moreevidence emerges that Alberto Gonzales politicized the Justice Department tothe point where it sometimes seems like a branch of the Republican NationalCommittee.

Yesterday, for example, Richard Thornburgh, a former Republican attorneygeneral, told a Congressional hearing that his client, Dr. Cyril Wecht, aDemocratic officeholder in Pennsylvania, was indicted on federal chargesthat should not be federal charges by a United States attorney who targetedDemocrats.

At the same hearing, more evidence emerged that the prosecutions of DonSiegelman, the former Alabama governor, and Paul Minor, a prominentMississippi Democrat, may have been political hits. And a University ofMissouri professor testified that his statistical analysis showed that theJustice Department engaged in "political profiling."

Dr. Wecht's case has gotten little attention, but that may change. Mr.Thornburgh said prosecutors are using "unprecedented" legal theories to turnmostly "nickel and dime transgressions" into major federal felonies. Hecharged that while United States Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan went after Dr.Wecht and other Democrats, she ignored the offenses of Republican officials,including a congressman whose staff accused him of using governmentemployees in his election campaign.

Mr. Siegelman's lawyer, Doug Jones, said the investigation of the formergovernor was very limited until it turned around "180 degrees" in late 2004,after Washington officials told local prosecutors "to go back and look atthe case, review the case top to bottom." That is consistent with theaccount of Dana Jill Simpson, a Republican lawyer who says she was on aphone call in which Republican operatives said Karl Rove was involved in theprosecution.

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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/24/opinion/24friedman.html?ref=opinion

Remember Iraq

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Op-Ed Columnist
October 24, 2007

Boy, am I glad we finally got out of Iraq. It was so painful waking up everymorning and reading the news from there. It's just such a relief to have itout of mind and behind us.

Huh? Say what? You say we're still there? But how could that be - nobody inWashington is talking about it anymore?

I don't know whether it was the sheer agony of the debate over Gen. DavidPetraeus's testimony, or the fact that the surge really has dampenedcasualties, or the failure by Democrats to force an Iraq withdrawal throughCongress, or the fact that all the leading Democratic presidentialcontenders have signaled that they will not precipitously withdraw U.S.forces from Iraq, but the air has gone out of the Iraq debate.

That is too bad. Neglect is not benign when it comes to Iraq - because Iraqis not healthy. Iraq is like a cancer patient who was also running a highfever from an infection (Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia). The military surge hasbrought down the fever, but the patient still has cancer (civil war). And westill don't know how to treat it. Surgery? Chemotherapy? Natural healers?Euthanasia?

To the extent that the surge has worked militarily, it is largely because ofwhat Iraqis have done by themselves for themselves - Iraqi Sunni triballeaders rising up against pro-Qaeda Sunni elements, taking back control oftheir villages and towns, and aligning themselves with U.S. forces to do so.Some Shiites are now doing the same.

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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/24/opinion/24caldiera.html?ref=opinion

How to Cool the Globe

By KEN CALDEIRA
Op-Ed Contributor
October 24, 2007

DESPITE growing interest in clean energy technology, it looks as if we arenot going to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide anytime soon. The amount inthe atmosphere today exceeds the most pessimistic forecasts made just a fewyears ago, and it is increasing faster than anybody had foreseen.

Even if we could stop adding to greenhouse gases tomorrow, the earth wouldcontinue warming for decades - and remain hot for centuries. We would stillface the threat of water from melting glaciers lapping at our doorsteps.

What can be done? One idea is to counteract warming by tossing smallparticles into the stratosphere (above where jets fly). This strategy maysound far-fetched, but it has the potential to cool the earth within months.

Mount Pinatubo, a volcano in the Philippines that erupted in 1991, showedhow it works. The eruption resulted in sulfate particles in the stratospherethat reflected the sun's rays back to space, and as a consequence the earthbriefly cooled.

If we could pour a five-gallon bucket's worth of sulfate particles persecond into the stratosphere, it might be enough to keep the earth fromwarming for 50 years. Tossing twice as much up there could protect us intothe next century.

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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/24/washington/24contractor.html?hp

Use of Contractors by State Dept. Has Soared

By JOHN M. BRODER and DAVID ROHDE
October 24, 2007

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 - Over the past four years, the amount of money theState Department pays to private security and law enforcement contractorshas soared to nearly $4 billion a year from $1 billion, administrationofficials said Tuesday, but they said that the department had added few newofficials to oversee the contracts.

It was the first time that the administration had outlined the ballooningscope of the contracts, and it provided a new indication of how the StateDepartment's efforts to monitor private companies had not kept pace.

Auditors and outside exerts say the results have been vast cost overruns,poor contract performance and, in some cases, violence that has so far goneunpunished.

A vast majority of the money goes to companies like DynCorp Internationaland Blackwater USA to protect diplomats overseas, train foreign policeforces and assist in drug eradication programs. There are only 17 contractcompliance officers at the State Department's management bureau overseeingspending of the billions of dollars on these programs, officials said.

Two new reports have delivered harsh judgments about the State Department'shandling of the contracts, including the protective services contract thatemploys Blackwater guards whose involvement in a Sept. 16 shooting inBaghdad has raised questions about their role in guarding American diplomatsin Iraq.

In a report made public on Tuesday, a review panel found that there were toofew American officials in Iraq to enforce the rules that apply to Blackwaterand other security contractors. It also found that the conduct of thecontractors had undermined the broader mission of ending the insurgency andestablishing a democratic government in Iraq.

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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-palestinians-rights-amnesty.html

Amnesty Criticizes Hamas, Fatah Over Rights Abuses

By REUTERS
Filed at 8:52 a.m. ET
October 24, 2007

LONDON (Reuters) - Human rights violations in both the Gaza Strip and theWest Bank have become widespread since fighting in June between thePalestinian factions saw Hamas seize control of Gaza, Amnesty Internationalsaid on Wednesday.

Islamist Hamas and its secular rival Fatah each claims to represent thePalestinian national struggle, but their violent schism was widely seen asan unprecedented setback to hopes for a state in lands occupied by Israel inthe 1967 Middle East war.

In a 57-page report, Amnesty International noted that the June civil war inGaza in which some 160 people were killed had led to the creation,effectively, of separate Palestinian administrations in the Gaza Strip andthe West Bank where political opponents have routinely been subject toabuse.

"Arbitrary detentions and torture or other ill treatment of detainees byHamas forces are now widespread and the initial improvements in the securitysituation which followed Hamas' takeover are fast being eroded," theLondon-based group said.

Amnesty further criticized Hamas for entrusting its gunmen, who were trainedto fight Israel and led the bloody rout of Fatah forces from Gaza, withlaw-enforcement duties.

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The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/24/washington/24mukasey.html

Panel Pushes for Nominee to Denounce Technique

By PHILIP SHENON
October 24, 2007

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 - All 10 Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committeepressed Michael B. Mukasey, President Bush's nominee for attorney general,on Tuesday for a clear-cut statement that the interrogation technique knownas waterboarding, which simulates drowning and has been used by the C.I.A.against terrorism suspects, is illegal.

In his confirmation hearings last week, Mr. Mukasey, a retired federal judgefrom New York, declined to say if waterboarding was torture or was otherwiseillegal; he insisted he was not aware of how the technique was carried out.

In their letter to Mr. Mukasey on Tuesday, the committee's chairman, SenatorPatrick J. Leahy of Vermont, and the panel's other nine Democrats said theyfound it "surprising that you are unfamiliar with waterboarding since it hasbeen the subject of much public discussion" and asserted that "yourunwillingness to state that waterboarding is illegal may place Americans atrisk of being subject to this abusive technique."

The letter continued, "Please respond to the following question: Is the useof waterboarding, or inducing the misperception of drowning, as aninterrogation technique illegal under U.S. law, including treatyobligations?" The senators requested a "prompt response" since Mr. Mukasey'snomination is still before the committee.

A White House spokesman, Tony Fratto, said Mr. Mukasey could not comment ondetails of interrogation techniques because "he has not been read intoclassified intelligence programs, and he won't be read in until he isconfirmed as attorney general."

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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/23/AR2007102300347.html?hpid=topnews

California Fires Continue to Rage
Evacuation May Be Largest, Officials Say

By Karl Vick and Sonya Geis
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, October 24, 2007; A01

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 23 -- Fires raged across Southern California on an epicscale for a third day Tuesday, with flames as high as 100 feet stoked byextremes of wind, heat, dryness and -- on the suburban frontier where someof the worst blazes roared -- the human impulse to live just a littlefarther out.

Brush fires still beyond the control of firefighters forced the largestevacuation in modern times, officials estimated. The orders called forvacating 350,000 homes, affecting 950,000 people. In San Diego County alone,where the largest fire more than tripled in size over 24 hours, evacuationorders went to more than half a million people without reports of majorhardships.

"It's going very smoothly," said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), touring thearea with federal officials, who dispatched military cargo planes andhelicopters to bolster the fleet dropping fire retardant on the blazes.

President Bush, who was sharply criticized for his sluggish response toHurricane Katrina in 2005, declared a federal emergency in seven SouthernCalifornia counties on Tuesday, a move that will speed disaster relief. Hesaid he will visit the region on Thursday.

From north of Los Angeles to the Mexican border, intense and unpredictablewinds kept 6,000 firefighters scrambling not to defeat fires but to pushthem away from homes. Officials said that 1,300 dwellings were destroyedthrough midday Tuesday, in a burned area totaling 600 square miles.

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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/23/AR2007102301802.html

A Villain To Our Rescue

By Robert J. Samuelson
Wednesday, October 24, 2007; A19

It's our versatile villain. Globalization has served as a whipping boy forpoliticians of both parties and legions of pundits. We blame it for allmanner of grievances: lost jobs, greater inequality, shoddy goods. But takethis quiz as a reality check. What explains the resilience of the U.S.economy in the face of the deepening housing collapse? (a) Ben Bernanke'sdeft management of the Federal Reserve; (b) the tireless spending ofconsumers; (c) low inflation; or (d) foreign trade.

The best answer is (d).

The trade deficit has been rising for so long that people forget that it canalso fall. Well, it has -- to good effect. Through August, the deficit in2007 was $472 billion, down $46 billion (9 percent) from the same period in2006. In the second quarter, the U.S. economy expanded at an annual rate of3.8 percent, even though housing subtracted 0.6 percentage points fromgrowth. But the improved trade balance added 1.3 percentage points, noteseconomist Edward Yardeni.

Caterpillar, a mega-exporter, exemplifies the turnaround. From 2004 to 2006,its exports rose 44 percent, to $10.5 billion. Since the start of 2006,Caterpillar says, it has hired more than 11,000 new U.S. production workers.None of this guarantees that a U.S. export boom will prevent an Americanrecession. But the mere possibility suggests that we need to be smarterabout globalization -- and not simply parrot popular stereotypes.

Contrary to popular opinion, the trade balance (deficit or surplus) barelyaffects total U.S. employment over long periods. Domestic job creation anddestruction ultimately overwhelm trade's effects. From 1991 to 2006, thetrade deficit rose from $31 billion to $759 billion. In the same period,payroll jobs increased by 28 million and the unemployment rate fell from 6.8percent to 4.6 percent.

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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/23/AR2007102301806.html

Daughter Knows Best

By Ruth Marcus
Wednesday, October 24, 2007; A19

Last week President Bush named yet another person to oversee the federallyfunded family planning program who doesn't seem especially keen on federallyfunded family planning. He might have done better to pick his daughterJenna.

Her book, "Ana's Story," about a Central American teenage mother who isHIV-positive, is refreshingly reality-based about sexual behavior -- in away that her father's administration resists.

President Bush pushes funding for abstinence-only sex education, withstudents given no information about birth control or safe sex. Jenna Bush,who met Ana while working as a UNICEF intern in Latin America, understandsthat abstinence isn't always the chosen path.

"If you decide abstinence is right for you, don't let anyone tell youotherwise," she writes. "But if you decide that you're ready for a sexualrelationship, the best way to protect yourself from HIV and other [sexuallytransmitted infections] is to be faithful to your partner and use a condomevery time."

Good advice -- if only the federal government wanted American children ofAna's age to hear it. Instead, abstinence-only programs are riddled withmisstatements that exaggerate the failure rate of condoms and minimize theirability to protect against disease.

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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/23/AR2007102301803.html

The Eugenics Temptation

By Michael Gerson
Wednesday, October 24, 2007; A19

James Watson, the Nobel Prize-winning scientist who helped discover thestructure of DNA in 1953, recently pronounced the entire population ofAfrica genetically inferior when it comes to intelligence. And while hehopes that everyone is equal, "people who have to deal with black employeesfind this not true."

Watson's colleagues at the Federation of American Scientists found hiscomments "racist, vicious and unsupported by science" -- all true. But theycould not have found those views surprising. In 2003, Watson spoke in favorof genetic selection to eliminate ugly women: "People say it would beterrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great." In 2000,he suggested that people with darker skin have stronger libidos. In 1997,Watson contended that parents should be allowed to abort fetuses they foundto be gay: "If you could find the gene which determines sexuality and awoman decides she doesn't want a homosexual child, well, let her." In thesame interview, he said, "We already accept that most couples don't want aDown child. You would have to be crazy to say you wanted one, because thatchild has no future."

When it comes to the parents of disabled children, Watson has somehowconfused "loving" and "courageous" with "crazy" -- the sign of a heartclearly inferior to the gentle hearts of children with Down syndrome. Andmost of us have met women who don't look like models and gay people whoprefer being alive to the preferences of their parents.

"If you really are stupid," Watson once contended, "I would call that adisease." What is the name for the disease of a missing conscience?

Watson is not typical of the scientific community when it comes to hisextreme social application of genetics. But this controversy illustrates atemptation within science -- and a tension between some scientific views andliberalism.

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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/23/AR2007102301986.html

Seize the Opportunity with Russia on Kosovo

By Janusz Bugajski and Edward P. Joseph
Spceial to washingtonpost.com's Think Tank Town
Wednesday, October 24, 2007; 12:00 AM

They tried to put a good face on it, but the truth is that Russian PresidentVladimir Putin publicly humiliated Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice andSecretary of Defense Robert Gates during their recent meeting in Moscow.Before even hearing the Administration's latest pitch on missile defense,Putin heaped scorn, even raising serious new objections.

Whatever one thinks of missile defense, the dressing down of Rice and Gatesmarks a new low in U.S.-Russian relations. Appeals to shared values-- andthose aimed at shared interests -- are falling on deaf Russian ears.

It is now unmistakably clear that getting Russia's attention on the Iranianthreat and a host of other issues will require action, not talk.

Fortunately, Putin has created an ideal opportunity for Washington to scorea victory and re-orient Moscow toward cooperation. The opportunity isKosovo.

President Putin has seized the dispute over Kosovo's final status as onemore means of reasserting Russia's global authority. But he has overplayedhis hand, snubbing not only the U.S., but the UN, whose Secretary Generalhas endorsed a compromise plan for supervised independence of the formerSerbian province, along with near-autonomy for Kosovo's Serbian minority. Sofar, Putin has exploited perennial European divisions over the Balkans thatput strong U.S. allies such as Britain and France against those Europeancapitals who are either sympathetic to the Serb position or worried about amessy situation that would ensue without a UN blessing for independence.

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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/23/AR2007102301975.html

Countries Buying Companies
The rise of sovereign wealth funds is nothing to fear -- if they operate outin the open.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007; A18

THERE WAS relatively little alarm in Washington last month when agovernment-owned corporation from Dubai bought almost 20 percent of Nasdaq,the New York-based stock exchange. That was a contrast to the hysteria in2006 that doomed Dubai's purchase of a British firm that manages U.S. portoperations. In part, the mild reaction reflected the fact that the deal wasclearly sound economically -- and that Dubai gets only 5 percent of thevoting rights in Nasdaq. The prospect of foreign ownership of a stockexchange was intuitively less scary to some than the prospect of foreignownership, even by a moderate, pro-U.S. Arab state, of "criticalinfrastructure." Nasdaq has submitted the deal for a national security checkunder the toughened terms of a foreign investment review law enacted inJuly.

But what if it had been communist-run China, instead of Dubai, buying into amajor financial exchange? Hugo Ch¿vez's Venezuela? Or Vladimir Putin'sRussia? Such questions are no longer purely hypothetical because of the riseof "sovereign wealth" funds: huge piles of investment capital beingassembled in Beijing, Caracas, Moscow -- and many other capitals around theglobe. Morgan Stanley projects that sovereign wealth funds could grow fromtheir current total of $2.5 trillion to $12 trillion by 2015. As it happens,China, which has an estimated $300 billion to invest, has already bought a10 percent share in Blackstone, the private equity company.

There is nothing new about foreign investors "recycling" their earnings fromtrade or oil production through the machinery of international capitalism.We saw it with Arab oil exporters in the 1970s and Japanese real estatebuyers in the 1980s. Norway's government has long used its proceeds fromNorth Sea oil to purchase assets around the globe. Even the oil-rich stateof Alaska has a sovereign wealth fund, of sorts: the Alaska Permanent Fund.

Still, sovereign wealth funds pose tough issues for advocates offree-flowing international capital, which is why they were a major topic atthe recently concluded annual meetings sponsored by the InternationalMonetary Fund and World Bank in Washington. The case for foreign investmentin the United States, which we have made many times, assumes that companiesand individuals have an interest in deploying their resources where theywill be most productive economically -- and that they should be free topursue profit around the world. Sovereign wealth funds, however, offergovernments a way to take over businesses for political as well as economicpurposes. That's a benign prospect if the buyer is Norway, a member of NATO.It is more troubling, though, if the government behind the money is that ofChina, Russia or Venezuela -- none of which actually believes 100 percent incapitalism, and none of which is necessarily friendly to the West.

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The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/23/AR2007102302302.html?hpid=topnews

Citizens Wait, Worry in Junta's Climate of Fear

By Jill Drew
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, October 24, 2007; A01

RANGOON, Burma, Oct. 23 -- She does not know if the police have her picture.But that uncertainty has not eased her fear.

Twice soldiers have entered this woman's Rangoon neighborhood. They came atnight, with photos taken during pro-democracy demonstrations. "They look ateveryone and then they take you," she said in a low voice, speaking oncondition she not be identified. "I don't sleep."

The nighttime raids began last month, after Burma's military junta violentlyput down the country's largest protests in nearly 20 years, led by Buddhistmonks. At least 10 people were killed in the crackdown, the government hasacknowledged, and thousands were arrested. The arrests have continued evenafter an 8 p.m. curfew was lifted last week. This woman joined the protests,and now she waits to be taken next.

Those active in Burmese politics say the arrests have succeeded in capturingmany key organizers of the protests while injecting new fear into people whohave lived for more than 40 years under a military dictatorship known forits brutality.

As U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari jets across Asia, pressing for an activedialogue to bring democracy to Burma, people in the country's two largestcities, Rangoon and Mandalay, watch and wait. Many private homes, no matterhow ramshackle, have satellite dishes to catch Western news. And though fewpeople can afford their own computers or even their own telephones, loggingin to international news sites is easy at Internet cafes, so many here haveaccess to the latest information.

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The Miami Herald

http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/story/280948.html

No immunity for secret wiretapping

Posted on Tue, Oct. 23, 2007

Anyone who expected that the change in political control of Congress toDemocrats from Republicans would bode well for the protection of civilliberties should be dismayed by last week's action in the SenateIntelligence Committee. The panel voted to grant telecommunicationscompanies retroactive immunity from lawsuits alleging they violatedAmericans' privacy rights by aiding the government's secret warrantlesssurveillance program.

Spying on Americans

This is nothing less than a cover-up designed to keep the public in the dark
about how seriously their constitutional rights were violated. The committeeacted after the telecommunications companies admitted that they had assistedthe Bush administration in warrantless spying on Americans, a program whoselegality has been challenged. This admission was accompanied by a fiercelobbying effort by company executives arguing that they were merely making agood-faith effort to assist the government.

That may sound good on its face, but there are several things wrong with it.In this case, neither the public nor, apparently, lawmakers know exactlywhat it is they are immunizing. How many Americans have had theirexpectation of confidentiality violated by the ''data mining'' and otherprocedures involved in this program?

At least one telecommunications executive -- whose company refused tocooperate with the government -- claims the program was initiated prior to9/11. Is this true, and, if so, why?

The only way to find out is to allow these lawsuits to proceed because theadministration has prohibited congressional testimony by telecommunications executives on the grounds that it would reveal national-security secrets.This doctrine has been abused by the White House to quash inconvenientlawsuits. Now, its extension to testimony before Congress sets a dangerousprecedent that would undermine the separation of powers.

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The Miami Herald

http://www.miamiherald.com/851/story/280956.html

Why Putin is hostile

Posted on Tue, Oct. 23, 2007
By PATRICK J. BUCHANAN

Putin's hostile course, the lead editorial in The Washington Times of Oct.18, began thus: ``Russian President Vladimir Putin's invitation to IranianPresident Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to visit Moscow is just the latest sign that,more than 16 years after the collapse of Soviet communism, Moscow isgravitating toward Cold War behavior. The old Soviet obsession -- fightingAmerican imperialism -- remains undiluted. . . .

``(A)t virtually every turn, Mr. Putin and the Russian leadership appear tobe doing their best in ways large and small to marginalize and embarrass theUnited States and undercut U.S. foreign policy interests.''

The Washington Times pointed to Putin's snub of Robert Gates and Condi Riceby having them cool their heels for 40 minutes before a meeting. Then came apress briefing where Putin implied that Russia may renounce theReagan-Gorbachev INF treaty, which removed all U.S. and Soviet medium-rangemissiles from Europe, and threatened to pull out of the Conventional Forcesin Europe Treaty, whereby Russia moved its tanks and troops far from theborders of Eastern Europe.

Mending fences with China, Iran

On and on The Times indictment went. Russia was blocking new sanctions onIran. Russia was selling anti-aircraft missiles to Iran. Russia was sellingweapons to Syria that found their way to Hezbollah and Hamas. Russia andIran were talking up an OPEC-style natural gas cartel. All this, said theTimes, calls to mind ``Soviet-era behavior.''

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The Miami Herald

http://www.miamiherald.com/456/v-print/story/280951.html

Republicans debate

Posted on Tue, Oct. 23, 2007

I am neither Republican nor Democrat. I vote for the best person. Watchingthe Republican debate made me want to put my foot through the screen. Thecandidates spent most of their time bashing Hillary Clinton.

This moronic tactic worked for the Bush campaign, when they ripped JohnKerry, and we wound up with the worst presidency this country has ever had.

Clinton will inherit thousands of votes because this country loved BillClinton, who left us with a huge surplus. We were respected and admiredaround the world.

The Bush administration has destroyed our credibility, left us with a largedeficit and has us stuck in Iraq, based on lies and deception.

The GOP candidates should be apologizing for this administration, explaininghow they will fix the problems it created. Instead they choose to bashHillary Clinton. I only hope the American ''sheep'' do not follow thisgroup.

Sunny Isles Beach


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Chicago Tribune

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-romney-obama,1,4331561.story

Romney Slip: Another Osama-Obama Mix-Up

By GLEN JOHNSON
Associated Press Writer
7:49 PM CDT, October 23, 2007

GREENWOOD, S.C.

In a slip of the tongue, Republican Mitt Romney accused Democraticpresidential contender Barack Obama of urging terrorists to congregate inIraq.

In the midst of criticizing Obama and other Democrats on foreign andeconomic policy Tuesday, the GOP presidential hopeful said:

"Actually, just look at what Osam -- Barack Obama -- said just yesterday.Barack Obama, calling on radicals, jihadists of all different types, to cometogether in Iraq. That is the battlefield. ... It's almost as if theDemocratic contenders for president are living in fantasyland. Their ideafor jihad is to retreat, and their idea for the economy is to also retreat.And in my view, both efforts are wrongheaded."

Romney apparently was referring to an audiotape aired Monday in which aspeaker believed to be terrorist Osama bin Laden called for insurgents inIraq to unite and avoid divisions. The authenticity of the tape aired onAl-Jazeera television could not be immediately confirmed.

Romney was addressing a Chamber of Commerce meeting. Spokesman Kevin Maddensaid: "He misspoke. He was referring to the audiotape of Osama bin Laden andmisspoke. It was just a mix-up."

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The Boston Globe

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/10/24/huckabee_outrunning_his_gop_companions/?rss_id=Boston+Globe+--+Editorial%2FOp-ed+pages

Huckabee outrunning his GOP companions

By Scot Lehigh, Globe Columnist
October 24, 2007

Concord, N.H.

THE BEST description of what's happening with Mike Huckabee may just be theold joke about the two lawyers who are out on a hike when they startle alarge bear. The first lawyer whips open his briefcase, removes a pair ofrunning shoes, and puts them on.

"Do you really think you can outrun the bear?" the second asks.

His companion offers this, ah, grizzly reply: "I don't have to outrun thebear. I just have to outrun you."

Outrunning one's companions has long been the challenge for the second-tierpresidential candidates in this large Republican field. It's a challengeHuckabee has steadily met. Consider the way things are breaking for thislatest aspirant from Hope, Ark.

Last week, the campaign bear, having already devoured Jim Gilmore and TommyThompson, pounced upon Sam Brownback.

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