In the News Thursday, February 5

[MacBeth]

Steve Weissman | Afghanistan: Losing a No-Win War
www.truthout.org/020509J
Steve Weissman, Truthout: "I could go on, but it all boils down to the one lesson of Vietnam that Robert Gates and his Pentagon brass do not want to accept - that Afghans, Pakistanis, Iraqis and other people in Asia, Africa and Latin America will no longer accept the United States and Europe occupying and running their countries. Counter-insurgency can prolong the pain, but it will never overcome the anti-colonial dynamic, as the British Empire, the French Empire and others all learned before us."

Dispute Mounts Over Key US Base in Kyrgyzstan
www.truthout.org/020509K
Ellen Barry and Michael Schwirtz, The New York Times: "The Kyrgyz Parliament will vote Friday on a measure that will close a key United States military base, potentially jeopardizing NATO supply lines to Afghanistan, the Kyrgyz government said Wednesday. But American diplomats and military officials in the region said negotiations on the base's future were continuing. A Kyrgyz statement released Wednesday argued that the American mission in Afghanistan had outlasted its original goals, saying that the terrorist threat had 'been removed,' and that NATO airstrikes in Afghanistan had caused an unacceptable rise in civilian casualties."

Salazar Scraps Sale of Oil and Gas Leases in Utah
www.truthout.org/020509L
Paul Foy, The Associated Press: "In a high-profile reversal of the Bush administration, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Wednesday the government is scrapping the lease of 77 parcels of federal land for oil and gas drilling in Utah's redrock country. 'In the last weeks in office, the Bush administration rushed ahead to sell oil and gas leases near some of our nation's most precious landscapes in Utah,' Salazar said from Washington in a teleconference call with reporters. He ordered the Bureau of Land Management, which is part of the Interior Department, to not cash checks from winning bidders for parcels at issue in a lawsuit filed by environmental groups."

Robert Scheer | Runaway Wall Street
www.truthout.org/020509M
Robert Scheer, Truthdig: "It is instructional that only one of the three tax-challenged Obama appointees has survived public scorn to claim a high position in the new administration. Oddly enough, it is Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the man who will collect our taxes, whose career has not been stunted by his failure to pay them. What makes Geithner so special? The answer, provided by everyone from the president to the media pundits, is that his services are indispensable because he has the expertise in regulating markets needed to preside over the most massive government intervention in the economy. Are they kidding?"

Gary J. Aguirre | SEC's Madoff Miss Fits Pattern Set With Pequot
www.truthout.org/020509N
Gary J. Aguirre, Bloomberg: "Errant Wall Street elite, such as Madoff, go up against the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Congress created the SEC in 1934 after Wall Street titans -- the Madoffs of 1929 --took the capital markets over a cliff with the economy in tow. The SEC was supposed to keep a watchful eye on Wall Street, especially its elite. So far, the SEC's six investigations of Madoff read more like Keystone Cops than Sherlock Holmes. The SEC didn't merely fail to spot and connect the clues. Someone else -- Harry Markopolos, a former money manager - did that work for it."

UN Says Cluster Bombs Being Used in Sri Lanka
www.truthout.org/020509O
Ravi Nessman, The Associated Press: "Unrelenting battles between Tamil rebels and Sri Lankan troops killed at least 52 civilians over the past day and cluster munitions were fired Wednesday just outside a hospital that has been battered by artillery strikes, the UN said. After days of shelling sent patients fleeing the Puthukkudiyiruppu hospital, the Red Cross evacuated the staff and wounded Wednesday, effectively closing the last remaining medical facility in the war zone, the aid group said."

Obama Views Children's Health Bill as Step One
www.truthout.org/020509P
Kevin Freking, The Associated Press: "President Barack Obama signed a bill Wednesday extending health coverage to 4 million uninsured children, a much-needed win a day after he lost his nominee to lead his drive for sweeping health care reform. 'This is good. This is good,' a smiling Obama said as he entered the East Room for the packed, ebullient signing ceremony. The bill went to the White House fresh from passage in the Democratic-controlled House, on a vote of 290-135. Forty Republicans joined in approval."

[MacBeth]

Ginsburg has surgery for pancreatic cancer
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29036143/

[MacBeth]

Ginsburg Has Pancreatic Cancer
www.truthout.org/020509G
The Associated Press: "Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had surgery Thursday after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, the court said."

Barack Obama | The Action Americans Need
www.truthout.org/020509A
Barack Obama, The Washington Post: "By now, it's clear to everyone that we have inherited an economic crisis as deep and dire as any since the days of the Great Depression. Millions of jobs that Americans relied on just a year ago are gone; millions more of the nest eggs families worked so hard to build have vanished. People everywhere are worried about what tomorrow will bring. What Americans expect from Washington is action that matches the urgency they feel in their daily lives - action that's swift, bold and wise enough for us to climb out of this crisis."

Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III | RNC Chairman Michael Steele: Old Republican Wine in New Bottles?
www.truthout.org/020509B
Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III, Truthout: "RNC Chairman Steele's failure to articulate any substantive policy changes, his dishonesty during his failed 2006 Senate race, and his failure to condemn obvious sophomoric, ignorant if not bigoted actions and statements by fellow powerful Republicans indicate that going forward it will be the same ole' GOP. You can laugh at the Republican political minstrelsy if you like, but there's not a damn thing funny; the joke's on you. Again, it's just old wine in new bottles."

Evidence of Torture "Buried by Ministers"
www.truthout.org/020509C
Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian UK: "The government was accused last night of hiding behind claims of a threat to national security to suppress evidence of torture by the CIA on a prisoner still held in Guantanamo Bay. An unprecedented high court ruling yesterday blamed the US, with British connivance, for keeping the 'powerful evidence' secret, sparking criticism from lawyers, campaigners and MPs, who claimed the government had capitulated to American bullying."

Deluge Is Holding Up Benefits to Unemployed
www.truthout.org/020509D
Chris L. Jenkins, The Washington Post: "Thousands of people in the Washington area and hundreds of thousands more across the country are waiting longer than they should for unemployment benefits at a time when they need the money the most because rising joblessness is overwhelming claims offices, records show. The problem is compounded by a simultaneous decrease in federal funding, which has reduced staffing at some local government offices. The result is that the District and many states, including Maryland and Virginia, are failing to meet federal guidelines that require timely processing of unemployment claims, appeals and benefit payments, the records show."

Deadly Bombing at Iraq Restaurant
www.truthout.org/020509E
BBC News: "At least 12 people have been killed in a suicide bomb attack on a restaurant in north-eastern Iraq. The attack took place in Khanaqin, Diyala province, a town close to the semi-autonomous Kurdish region and near the border with Iran."

The Chronicles of Favilla | At the End of One America
www.truthout.org/020509F
Authors writing as the Chronicles of Favilla for France's premier business paper, Les Echos: "The world still only has eyes for Obama. This fascination may irritate, but it is understandable ... it's a question of the immense challenge posed by the crisis and the ruins his predecessor left him. In other words, people are fixated on whether the United States will be able to continue to play the role it has held for decades. And, in all likelihood, the answer is no."

[MacBeth]

Yahoo! Alerts Yahoo! News
Thursday, February 5, 2009, 5:32 AM PST


WASHINGTON (AP) Productivity surges ahead while labor costs slow in fourth quarter as inflation threat recedes.