September 1, 2007
The Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the fundraising activities of Norman Hsu, the man who put over a million dollars into Democratic coffers while remaining a fugitive con man. They want to find out whether more than just coincidence linked heavy donation activity between Hsu and at least two households of more modest means -- and the answers could prove very embarrassing for top Democrats: The U.S. Justice Department is investigating possible campaign-finance violations by top Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu, according to people familiar with the probe. On Friday, Mr. Hsu surrendered to California officials on an unrelated grand-theft charge dating to the early 1990s. Mr. Hsu, who, until earlier this week was one of the biggest fundraisers for Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Rodham Clinton, was booked at the San Mateo County jail, where he was handcuffed and later released on $2 million bail. Wearing a black...
Hamas has found governance significantly more difficult than agitation, now that it owns the Gaza Strip. When confronted with unrest, they resorted to beating protestors, armed and unarmed, and threatened the Associated Press if they took pictures of the proceedings: A protest against Hamas rule by thousands of Fatah supporters turned violent yesterday when Hamas forces began dispersing the crowd, firing in the air and beating demonstrators. The clashes broke out after worshipers held a Friday prayer meeting outside a mosque in a Gaza City public square. Fatah has urged its backers to stay out of mosques, which it says are being used by Hamas to provoke factional fighting among Palestinians. About 20 people were injured in the clashes, including children, according to doctors and witnesses. Two journalists were beaten by Hamas supporters, although neither was seriously hurt. Two other French journalists suffered minor injuries from a small explosion. Fatah...
Fred Thompson will officially announce his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday, September 6th, which means he won't take an official role in the previous night's debate in New Hampshire. However, Thompson has decided to take another role for that event instead -- sponsor: Fred D. Thompson, the soon-to-be-official presidential contender, has come under a good deal of criticism in New Hampshire this week for scheduling his formal announcement for next Thursday morning and thus skipping the Republican debate in Manchester on Wednesday night. But that does not mean that television viewers watching the debate will not see him. Campaign officials said Friday that Mr. Thompson had bought a 30-second spot that would be televised nationally on the Fox News Channel, the network carrying the debate, just as viewers are tuning in at the onset. One campaign official familiar with the decision said the spot would be a...
We're almost exactly a year out from the Republican National Convention, and we're already seeing agitators arrive in the Twin Cities. Yesterday, a bicycle rally turned into a melee when police attempted to arrest a rider who had reportedly acted provocatively (via Power Line): Police arrested 19 bicyclists, including three juveniles, after a protest ride took an ugly turn in downtown Minneapolis Friday night. About 200 bicyclists were riding on La Salle Avenue, with two officers monitoring the protest that called for reduced reliance on automobile transportation. The ride was also linked with weekend protests of next year's Republican National Convention in the Twin Cities. When officers tried to arrest a rider they felt had been trying to provoke them, a scuffle broke out, said Minneapolis Police Lt. Marie Przynski. "When the officer went to arrest him, his buddy came up, and they started to struggle with the officer," Przynski...
The Northern Alliance Radio Network will be on the air today, with our six-hour-long broadcast schedule starting at 11 am CT. The first two hours features Power Line's John Hinderaker and Chad and Brian from Fraters Libertas. Mitch and I hit the airwaves for the second shift from 1-3 pm CT, and King Banaian and Michael Broadkorb have The Final Word from 3-5. If you're in the Twin Cities, you can hear us on AM 1280 The Patriot, or on the station's Internet stream if you're outside of the broadcast area. Today, we're holding our last State Fair appearance, and it's been a blast. Tune in to see what mischief we cook up at the Patriot's booth, south of the Horticulture building on Judson. Be sure to call 651-289-4488 to join the conversation!...
Earlier today, I noted Fred Thompson's sponsorship of the Fox broadcast of the next Republican debate, and called it a "shrewd move", which resulted in some, ahem, mixed reviews from CQ readers. It occurred to me that I hadn't explained why I found Thompson's tweak of the debate such a sound move, or at least not in quite a while. Put simply, presidential debates are disasters waiting to happen to candidates. Good things almost never happen at them, and the format is calculated to play gotcha games with candidates in both parties. It forces a "lightning round" mentality onto complex policy issues that rewards simpletons and punishes the thoughtful. What candidate in his or her right mind would want to participate in that exercise? As an example of this, I've spent my afternoon racking my brain trying to find one debate appearance for any Republican candidate that actually resulted in...
So far, so good -- it looks like the last fix applied last night has really solved the commenting issue. I've timed the process at my home, with high-speed Internet access, and it looks like conmments are still executing in 5 seconds, perhaps less. A few commenters have posted their approval; hopefully we will no longer have any issues with comments....
September 2, 2007
The Lebanese Army finally defeated an al-Qaeda affiliate in the Palestinian refugee camp at Nahr el-Bared, a battle which started three months ago. Locals threw rice at the soldiers in celebration as the army occupied the camp: Lebanese troops took control on Sunday of a Palestinian refugee camp where they had been battling militants for more than three months, killing at least 31 fighters who tried to flee, security sources said. Twenty-three more fighters from the Fatah al-Islam group were captured, 12 of them wounded militants detained after the army took over the Nahr al-Bared camp in north Lebanon, a security source said. "The battle is over. The Lebanese army has seized the last positions of Fatah al-Islam in the camp," a senior security source told Reuters. "Most of the terrorists were killed today. The others have been captured. A few might have escaped but the army is hunting them...
On Friday, three also-ran Democractic presidential candidates vowed to skip campaigning in Michigan and Florida after the DNC sanctioned the states for breaking rules on primary schedules. The impact of that pledge seemed marginal at best. It would take the top three candidates signing the pledge for it to have any effect -- and surprisingly, they have signed it: The Democratic candidates have signed a pledge that would forbid them from campaigning in states such as Michigan and Florida that have sought to move their presidential primaries into January 2008. The move ended weeks-long jockeying over which states get to hold early primaries. Democratic leaders in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, the four states that had been designated by the Democratic National Committee to hold early primaries, demanded in letters Friday that the candidates not participate in the early primaries of other states. The candidates either had to...
The Taliban just released 19 South Korean missionaries that they abducted in Afghanistan weeks ago. While Seoul and NATO have remained quiet about the nature of the negotiations that resulted in their release, the Taliban have proudly proclaimed that they got over $20 million in exchange for the hostages. Guess what they want to do with the cash? SOUTH Korea paid Afghanistan's Taliban more than $20m (£10m) to release 19 missionaries they were holding hostage, a senior insurgent leader said yesterday, vowing to use the funds to buy arms and mount suicide attacks. The freed hostages flew out of Afghanistan on Friday to Dubai en route to South Korea. ... "We deny any payment for the release of South Korean hostages," an official at South Korea's presidential Blue House said in response to the Taliban claim. But the Taliban disagreed. "We got more than $20m from them [the Seoul government],"...
It's doubtful that any newspaper outside of New York City could raise this question, but the Times asks whether we should set aside the anniversaries of 9/11 as a collective mourning date for the nation. How long should the remembrances dominate the day, and how many years should the city and nation conduct the familiar ceremonies of grief? Each year, murmuring about Sept. 11 fatigue arises, a weariness of reliving a day that everyone wishes had never happened. It began before the first anniversary of the terrorist attack. By now, though, many people feel that the collective commemorations, publicly staged, are excessive and vacant, even annoying. “I may sound callous, but doesn’t grieving have a shelf life?” said Charlene Correia, 57, a nursing supervisor from Acushnet, Mass. “We’re very sorry and mournful that people died, but there are living people. Let’s wind it down.” Some people prefer to see things...
Talks in Geneva between North Korea and the US have produced a breakthrough on nuclear disarmament. Pyongyang has declared that it will end all nuclear-weapons efforts by the end of 2007, agreeing for the first time to account for its complete list of programs: North Korea agreed in weekend talks with the United States to fully account for and disable its nuclear programs by the end of this year, negotiators said on Sunday. "We had very good, very substantive talks," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill told reporters. "One thing that we agreed on is that (North Korea) will provide a full declaration of all of their nuclear programs and will disable their nuclear programs by the end of this year, 2007." North Korea's top nuclear envoy said separately his delegation was pleased with the outcome of the talks, held to hasten the end of Pyongyang's nuclear programme, a...
September 3, 2007
George Bush decided to kick-start the September debate on Iraq by getting his own feet on the ground in Anbar. He'll visit the troops, but more importantly meet directly with Nouri al-Maliki to determine how well the newly-announced political reform agreement is faring -- and talk with a few tribal leaders as well (via Memeorandum): Air Force One touched down under the blazing sun at Al Asad Air Base in Anbar province. The White House said the base was chosen because of the "remarkable turnaround" in the province. Bush has hailed Anbar -- a Sunni province west of Baghdad -- as a success, citing the U.S. military's alliance with tribal leaders in fighting al Qaeda in Iraq. Marine commanders on the ground told Bush that "morale is high," despite long troop rotations. Bush stayed primarily in Baghdad the last two trips he took to Iraq, but today he will stay...
Slate will serialize the latest biography of Ronald Reagan this week -- a "graphic" biography that will appear in five installments. After reading the first installment, I can report that it's everything one would expect from a comic book. It lacks insight, fresh perspective, and any kind of context -- and that's just the text. In the first 19 pages of what appears to be a biography of less than 100 pages, Andrew Helfer provides nothing but the same anecdotes that everyone who has read any Reagan biography already knows. We get the "lose the glasses" advice from a co-worker who made it to Hollywood, the ad-libbed baseball announcing, the alcoholic father -- all de riguer material for any Reagan biographer. In fact, that's all we get -- the stories we know married to comic-book representations of the anecdotes. The art, by Steve Buccellato and Joe Staton, hardly qualifies as...
The Janjaweed have had so much success in Darfur that they have decided to go into overtime by attacking each other. The Arab tribes that have pushed out the Christians and the animists from Darfur have started a civil war amongst themselves -- and the latest victims have headed for the same refugee camps as the people they earlier victimized themselves: Some of the same Arab tribes accused of massacring civilians in the Darfur region of Sudan are now unleashing their considerable firepower against one another in a battle over the spoils of war that is killing hundreds of people and displacing tens of thousands. In the past several months, the Terjem and the Mahria, heavily armed Arab tribes that United Nations officials said raped and pillaged together as part of the region’s notorious janjaweed militias, have squared off in South Darfur, fighting from pickup trucks and the backs of...
Certain words and phrases tip off listeners to abject stupidity. "I think I'll buy another vowel" is one of them, as is "What this world is missing is a comic-book, er, graphic biography of Ronald Reagan." One phrase that tops them all has to be "Marxism has never really been tried," the mind-boggling assertion written by James Carroll and printed by the Boston Globe for its Labor Day opinion section (via Harry Forbes): The 19th-century dream of a workers' vanguard leading to a better world was both betrayed and realized, and in each case, labor was undercut. The betrayal occurred when tyrants, in advancing the cause of "the people," actually advanced themselves. The "dictatorship of the proletariat" turned out to be mere dictatorship. Yet the discrediting of the vision of Karl Marx by the 20th-century communisms that claimed him does not vitiate the original vision. Echoing what Mahatma Gandhi once...
McClatchy Newspapers note that despite the new aggressive strategy and tactics taken by the American forces in Iraq, combat deaths have dropped to half of their peak since the start of the surge. Or, perhaps, the decline may not come in spite of the new tactics after all (via QandO): American combat deaths in Iraq have dropped by half in the three months since the buildup of 28,000 additional U.S. troops reached full strength, surprising analysts and dividing them as to why. U.S. officials had predicted that the increase would lead to higher American casualties as the troops "took the fight to the enemy." But that hasn't happened, even though U.S. forces have launched major offensives involving thousands of troops north and south of Baghdad. American combat casualties have dropped to their lowest levels this year, even as violence involving Iraqis remains high. In fact, the combat death rate hit...
Here's a lesson for those prospective Irish speakers among you -- all two or three of you, anyway. It's a joke sent to me via the Admiral Emeritus from my aunt in central California, but it gives readers a chance to learn a little Gaeilge for themselves, a particular passion of mine. An Irishman walking through a field in Ireland sees a man drinking water from a pond with his hand. The Irishman shouts "Na ól an t-uisce, tá sé lán de chac bo!" The man yells back "I'm English, speak English, I don't understand you". The Irishman shouts back "Use both hands, you'll get more in." So what did the Irishman say as Gaeilge? I'll answer in the comments later, but let's see if any CQ commenters can figure this one out....
The Washington Post previews an upcoming book that may change a few minds about Karl Rove and his supposed puppetmaster role in the Bush administration. Rove's advice did not always get followed as most imagine, but rather George Bush mostly kept his own counsel on larger policy and personnel decisions: Karl Rove told George W. Bush before the 2000 election that it was a bad idea to name Richard B. Cheney as his running mate, and Rove later raised objections to the nomination of Harriet E. Miers to the Supreme Court, according to a new book on the Bush presidency. In "Dead Certain: The Presidency of George Bush," journalist Robert Draper writes that Rove told Bush he should not tap Cheney for the Republican ticket: "Selecting Daddy's top foreign-policy guru ran counter to message. It was worse than a safe pick -- it was needy." But Bush did not care...
John Edwards has a strange way of distilling foolishness to its essence, and he showed that talent yesterday when talking about his vision of health care. In remarks curiously ignored by newspapers today, Edwards insisted that his plan would force people to seek health evaluations, whether they desire one or not. It reveals the arrogance and the authoritarianism that waits around the corner when government-run healthcare gets imposed on a free society: Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards said on Sunday that his universal health care proposal would require that Americans go to the doctor for preventive care. "It requires that everybody be covered. It requires that everybody get preventive care," he told a crowd sitting in lawn chairs in front of the Cedar County Courthouse. "If you are going to be in the system, you can't choose not to go to the doctor for 20 years. You have to go...
Having one major contributor with a criminal history of fraud can just be bad luck. Having two of them starts looking like a pattern. The Washington Post reports that Norman Hsu has some company with the Hillary Clinton campaign in Sant Charwal, who fled India ahead of the law but still has plenty of cash to throw at Hillary's campaign: Sant S. Chatwal, an Indian American businessman, has helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaigns, even as he battled governments on two continents to escape bankruptcy and millions of dollars in tax liens. The founder of the Bombay Palace restaurant chain, Chatwal is one of a growing number of fundraisers in the 2008 presidential campaign whose backgrounds have prompted questions about how much screening the candidates devote to their "bundlers" while they press to raise record amounts. Chatwal's case reached from his native India...
September 4, 2007
Police in Denmark have arrested eight suspected al-Qaeda terrorists in Copenhagen as they have apparently foiled a terrorist attack. The men, ages 18 to 29, were found in raids at eleven addresses -- and authorities found more than just the men: Danish police have arrested eight people with alleged links to al-Qaeda on suspicion of planning a bomb attack. The eight suspects arrested late on Monday in Copenhagen form part of a terror cell with links to a senior al-Qaeda figure, police said. The suspects, aged between 19 and 29, were of Afghan, Pakistani, Somali and Turkish origin, police said. Police report that the men had been under surveillance for quite some time. They had begun producing an "unstable explosive" in a densely-populated area in preparation for an attack. They had lived in immigrant neighborhoods, but six of the eight have Danish citizenship. It's not the first time Denmark has...
Ali Hassan al-Majeed, the man responsible for ordering the chemical weapons attacks on Kurdish villages, will face execution within 30 days. "Chemical Ali" just began his latest trial in Baghdad, but like Saddam Hussein, he could shortly turn up absent from the proceedings: An Iraqi appeals court on Tuesday upheld the death sentence against Saddam Hussein's cousin, widely known as "Chemical Ali," for masterminding a genocidal campaign against Iraq's Kurds in the 1980s. "The nine appeal judges have upheld the death sentence against Ali Hassan al-Majeed, and according to the law of the court, the sentence must be carried out within 30 days," the chief prosecutor in the trial, Munkith al-Fatlawi, told Reuters. He said the court also upheld the death sentences against two other accused, Sultan Hashim, Saddam's former defense minister, and Hussein Rashid, the former deputy head of operations for the Iraqi military. Majeed, once one of the...
Kimberly Kagan makes a powerful case for a substantial change in fortunes in Iraq, and not just in the west. In today's Wall Street Journal, Kagan argues that the metrics and the momentum have shifted to the American and Iraqi security forces throughout the country as commanders ended the whack-a-mole campaign for good with the surge: The initial concept of the "surge" strategy in Iraq was to secure Baghdad and its immediate environs, which is why its proper name was the "Baghdad Security Plan." But as President Bush pointed out during his surprise trip to Iraq, operations and events on the ground are already showing successes well beyond Baghdad in Anbar, Diyala and Salahaddin provinces -- formerly al Qaeda strongholds and hotbeds of the Sunni insurgency. Considering the speed with which these successes have developed, and the rapidly growing grass-roots movement among Iraqis to support the effort, there is every...
Former president and relative moderate Hashemi Rafsanjani defied hardliners to win control of a key body in Iranian leadership. Rafsanjani will head the Expediency Council and become chair of the Assembly of Experts, which acts as liaison between the parliament and the Guardian Council, the real power in Iran: Former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani was picked Tuesday to head a key clerical body empowered with choosing or dismissing the country's supreme leader, state media reported, in a vote seen as a setback for hard-liners in Iran's ruling establishment. Rafsanjani, long a major player in Iran's complex political scene who already heads a powerful government body called the Expediency Council, received 41 votes to become the chairman of the Assembly of Experts. The assembly is a group of 86 senior clerics charged with monitoring Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and choosing his successor. The Expediency Council arbitrates between legislators and another...
Straw polls have dominated the news of late, what with the Ames poll in Iowa resulting in a boomlet for Mike Huckabee and the Texas poll giving Duncan Hunter a much needed, and much deserved, second wind. Two polls in Minnesota have shown surprising strength for Fred Thompson, one all the more so because he wasn't even listed as a candidate. On August 22nd, the state GOP held a straw poll designed to help boost party donations at the River Center in St. Paul, emceed by local radio host Jason Lewis. Campaign activists for most candidates produced video presentations for poll attendees, but none for Thompson, who was at the time (as now) a non-candidate. His name did not appear on the ballot. On the strength of write-ins, though Thompson won the poll. Exact percentages were not given, nor could I get candidate totals after a phone call to the...
Guess who said this in Sioux City over the weekend as a reason to bolster Iowa's pre-eminent place in the primary structure (via Instapundit): “Iowa, for good reason, for constitutional reasons, for reasons related to the Lord should be the first caucus and primary." I'll give you a hint: it's not Pat Robertson or George Bush -- but if it was, can you imagine the outcry? At Heading Right, I reveal the identity of the prophet and wonder whether the usual suspects will start clamoring about the separation of church and state. For that matter, will Constitutional scholars be able to dissect the reference? UPDATE: Was this a joke? The attendees didn't think so, and the next line from the candidate reminded the audience that he signed the pledge to protect Iowa's position. Michael van der Galien has more: We also see a double standard at work, although the people...
A pair of bombs killed two dozen people in Rawalpindi today, striking at the heart of military power in Pakistan. The terrorist attack comes at the same time as Pervez Musharraf began rounding up political dissidents supporting an exile who plans to return soon: A pair of explosions during rush hour early Tuesday killed at least 24 people and injured scores more in the city of Rawalpindi, home to Pakistan's military. One of the bombs struck a bus apparently carrying government employees, and the other exploded in a busy market area near the nation's military headquarters. Such attacks are highly unusual in Rawalpindi, which is one of Pakistan's largest cities, and also one of its most secure because of the heavy presence of security personnel. The bus blast seemed to be the more deadly of the two, with the vehicle all but destroyed, according to witnesses. Officials said the bus...
Today on Captain's Quarters Radio (2 pm CT), Jim Geraghty from The Campaign Spot joins us to talk about Fred's launch, as well as the upcoming battle in Congress over Iraq. Call 646-652-4889 to join the conversation! Did you know that you can listen to Captain's Quarters Radio through your TiVo service? Click here for the instructions. Also, you can subscribe to Captain's Quarters Radio through iTunes now by clicking this link:...
We have a couple of announcements for my BlogTalkRadio show. We have a new name, Heading Right Radio with Ed Morrissey. BTR and I have decided that we want to brand the talk show name with the BTR blog brand, but that doesn't imply any shift from my blogging here at Captain's Quarters. It's designed to strengthen the brand at BTR, and since we rarely used the entire Captain's Quarters name before today, it allows for a fairly simple transition. We have some exciting guests booked for the show in the next couple of weeks. First, on Thursday we will have Michael Ledeen on tape introducing his new book, The Iranian Time Bomb: The Mullah Zealots' Quest for Destruction. It comes out this month and may have no better relevance than now. I'm also happy to announce that Laura Ingraham will appear on Monday, September 17th to talk about...
The commander of the military forces in Iraq and the man in charge of American diplomacy in Baghdad have urged him to continue on the present course. The AP reports that both General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker see real progress as a result of the strategic and tactical changes and want to build on their successes: President Bush's senior advisers on Iraq have recommended he stand by his current war strategy, and he is unlikely to order more than a symbolic cut in troops before the end of the year, administration officials told The Associated Press Tuesday. The recommendations from the military commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker come despite independent government findings Tuesday that Baghdad has not met most of the political, military and economic markers set by Congress. Bush appears set on maintaining the central elements of the policy he announced...
Flip Pidot at Suitably Flip has done a marvelous job in ferreting out the financial contributions of Norman Hsu to the Democratic Party and dozens of its candidates over the last few years. Whether bundling the donations of others or contributing directly, the convicted con man has made himself indispensable to high-powered Democrats such as Hillary Clinton, Andrew Cuomo, Ed Rendell, and Eliot Spitzer. In fact, Hsu has raised over $1.5 million for Democrats in one way or another, and his modest-means associates have donated some eye-popping amounts as well: Hillary Clinton took by far the most money from Hsu and his suspect donor network - $174,000 net of refunds. Clinton has agreed to turn over only Hsu's direct contributions (just 13% of the total) to charity. Tied for the biggest windfall from Hsu directly were New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and New York Governor (and former Attorney General)...
Hillary Clinton has an interesting view of the American economy, if her remarks to the AARP serve as any sort of guide. She told its legislative conference that Social Security is the "most successful domestic program" in American history, and that only government can make the necessary decisions for its beneficiaries (via reader Online Analyst): "This is the most successful domestic program in the history of the United States," Clinton said to applause from seniors gathered in Washington to push their policy agenda. "When I'm president, privatization is off the table because it's not the answer to anything." She also said she does not support cutting benefits or increasing the retirement age. Seniors can begin collecting partial benefits at age 62, with full benefits available at age 67 for those born in 1960 or later. Clinton said instead she will protect the program through fiscal responsibility and criticized President Bush's...
September 5, 2007
Larry Craig pleads guilty. Larry Craig proclaims his innocence. Larry Craig announces his resignation. Larry Craig says he may not resign. Larry Craig has a serious problem in making decisions: Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho) is reconsidering his announced intention to resign, if he can clear his name of criminal and ethics charges before the end of the month, a spokesman said last night. Other Craig aides, however, sent mixed signals yesterday about the strength of the senator's desire to remain in the chamber as he pursues a legal challenge to his guilty plea stemming from an undercover sex sting in an airport restroom, as well as an investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee. ... Dan Whiting, Craig's Washington spokesman, told The Washington Post in an e-mailed statement last night: "As he stated on Saturday, Senator Craig intends to resign on September 30th. However, he is fighting these charges, and...
German security forces arrested three terrorists this morning in an apparent plot to attack an American military base. The cell had acquired a large amount of bomb-making materials and had trained in Pakistan to carry out their mission: Three suspected Islamic militants were arrested for allegedly plotting "imminent" and "massive" attacks on the Ramstein Air Base, a major U.S. and NATO military hub, and Frankfurt's busy international airport, German authorities said Wednesday. German federal prosecutor Monika Harms said the three — two of whom were German converts to Islam — had trained at terror camps in Pakistan and procured some 1,500 pounds of hydrogen peroxide for making explosives. And a top legislator said the group could have struck "in a few days," noting a "sensitive period" that includes the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. ... The three suspects — two Germans, aged 22 and 28, and a 29-year-old Turk...
A senior law lord in the UK has proposed that the government take DNA samples from the entire population and store the records in a national database. Not only would that order apply to every British subject and resident, but it would also apply to tourists as well: The whole population and every UK visitor should be added to the national DNA database, a senior judge has said. Lord Justice Sedley said the Wales and England system, under which 4m people's DNA is held whether guilty or cleared of a crime, was "indefensible". He added it would be fairer to include "everybody, guilty or innocent", as it was biased against ethnic minorities. This isn't a passing bit of lunacy from an isolated judge, either. Tories have called for a Parliamentary debate on making the DNA database compulsory. The president of the Black Police Association claims that only through compulsory and...
The New York Times editorial board takes up the case of Norman Hsu and Sant Chatwal today, but not to excoriate their Senator, Governor, and state Democratic Party for their dealings with the pair. Instead, the Gray Lady claims Hsu and Chantwal as exhibits A and B for their argument to push for public financing of elections: The presidential candidates’ gross money marathon is leaving them increasingly open to shady backslappers securing privileged access with big bags of campaign cash on the barrelhead. Senator Hillary Clinton has been burned twice lately by so-called bundlers — aspiring power brokers who harvest large amounts of smaller donations and bundle them into irresistibly giant packages. One Clinton bundler turned out to have an outstanding arrest warrant for business fraud; the other has a history of tax liens, fraud charges and bankruptcy proceedings on two continents. Other candidates in both parties have been similarly...
Germany has an export ban on transfers of technologies associated with nuclear reactors to Iran, in accordance with UN sanctions and its own security policies. However, German systems have been found in the new nuclear reactor at Bushehr, much to the consternation of German authorities. Der Spiegel traces the transactions back to Russia, and Vladimir Putin: A deal involving industrial equipment attracted the attention of prosecutors and customs investigators to S., who has been doing business in German for more than a decade. The electromagnetic brakes, switchgear, spring elements and special cables that the 46-year-old businessman bought up in Germany between 2001 and 2004 were bound for the Iranian nuclear power plant in Bushehr -- a central project in the nuclear program of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. ... The case's true political explosiveness lies in the structure of the business relationships it involved. The Potsdam prosecutor