NY TIMES 11/29/05 FRONT
PAGE NEWS - The toppled dictator, Saddam Hussein, alternated Monday between throwing temper tantrums and writing poems, arrogantly shouting "orders" to American military guards in an Iraqi courtroom where is in on trial for the torture and killing of 148 men and teenage boys after an assassination attempt against him in 1982.
The complaints that he does not like the prison food and that he does not appreciate being watched 24 hours a day probably didn't elicit much sympathy from Iraqis, especially those Iraqi soldiers pictured on the front page who, seated on cardboard boxes or on metal grating over the dirt floor of their bunker, watched the trial on a 12" TV screen.
Hussein's poem, written in the courtroom and read aloud at recess, emphatically denies any personal wrongdoing during his 24-
year reign, claiming that "truth is our characteristic," and that "lying is theirs." His poem does not explain just who is responsible for the 2 million or so deaths that are attributed to him, but he does make odd, incomprehensible references to Napoleon Bonaparte and Mussolini. What a surprise.
In
NEW Orleans, there is concern that the installation of a
storm protection system capable of withstanding a Category 5 storm would be much more expensive and time-consuming than originally thought: "the work would easily cost more than $32 billion, state officials say, and could take decades to complete."
Some say that the chances of a Category 5 storm hitting the region again are so small that it would not make sense to spend the money on such an extensive system: "Herbert Saffir, a co-creator of the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale, said he would not recommend designing a Category 5 protection system because such a storm would be unlikely to hit any particular spot more than once in 500 years." It was also pointed out that Hurricane Katrina was actually a Category 4 hurricane by the time it landed east of New Orleans near Buras, La.
It is reported that experts say that New Orleans needs restrictions on where
people can build, with greater emphasis on evacuation and safety plans as well. While at present there is no indication that Washington will pay the $32 billion or more for full protection, Scott A. Angelle, the secretary of the Department of Natural Resources for Louisiana says: "We can fix anything that we focus on. We, as a people, and we, as Americans."
A tragedy occured in East Flatbush, Brooklyn early Tuesday morning when
Police Officer Dillon Stewart was fatally shot just above his bullet-proof vest under his left arm by the driver he had been pursuing for speeding through a red light. Even after the five-year veteran of the police force had been shot, he chased the shooter into a parking garage, drawing praise from Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly: "Officer Stewart showed remarkable tenacity and courage in pursuing his assailant...despite his horrific wounds he continued to drive his police car, keeping the shooter in sight." Officer Stewart was pronounced dead at 8:40am.
Randy Cunningham, Republican Representative from San Diego, has learned that in the US, taking bribes is one thing, but not paying tax on them is quite another. Cunningham resigned from Congress Monday on charges of tax evasion. He faces 10 years in prison and will have to give up his $2.55 million home and nearly $2 million in cash and home furnishings because he did not report income to the Internal Revenue Service that came from bribes he took in order to help friends and campaign contributors win military contracts.
"This offense is just the latest example of the culture of corruption that pervades the Republican-controlled Congress, which ignores the needs of the American people to serve wealthy special interests and their cronies," according to Representative Nancy Pelosi of California.
Mr Cunningham said, "In my life, I have known great joy and great sorrow. And now I know great shame."
The front page story about Nigeia's long history of rampant corruption led by powerful handbag-carrying men in tights (read it for yourself), says that Nigeria's "kleptocratic government... has, year in and year out, gotten one of the worst scores in Transparency International's world corruption perception index, though this year its rating improved slightly." Very interesting. (Does anybody know what "Transparency International" is?)
Kayode Fayemi of the Center for Democracy and Development, an advocacy group, had words for Nigerian leader Diepreye Alamieyeseigha that could as easily have been directed at US RepresentativeRandy Cunningham: "Looting form the people is not a new thing...we are used to that. But for people who claim to be representatives of their own people to commit this barefaced robbery is shameful."
Other front page news includes an article about hundreds of killings and abductions of Sunnis in Iraq: "American officials, who are over-seeing the training of the Iraqi Army and the police, acknowledge that police officers and Iraqi soldiers, and the militias with which they are associated, may indeed be carrying out killings and abductions in Sunni communities, without direct American knowledge."
Will it ever end?
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