New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/
Secret Iraqi Deal Shows Problems in Arms Orders. An $833 million Iraqi arms deal secretly negotiated with Serbia has underscored Iraq’s continuing problems equipping its armed forces, a process that has long been plagued by corruption and inefficiency. The deal was struck in September without competitive bidding and it sidestepped anticorruption safeguards, including the approval of senior uniformed Iraqi Army officers and an Iraqi contract approval committee. Instead, it was negotiated by a delegation of 22 high-ranking Iraqi officials, without the knowledge of American commanders or many senior Iraqi leaders.
On the Defensive, Obama Calls His Words Ill-Chosen. Senator Barack Obama fought back Saturday against accusations from his rivals that he had displayed a profound misunderstanding of small-town values, in a flare-up that left him on the defensive before a series of primaries that could test his ability to win over white voters in economically distressed communities.
Secret Iraqi Deal Shows Problems in Arms Orders. An $833 million Iraqi arms deal secretly negotiated with Serbia has underscored Iraq’s continuing problems equipping its armed forces, a process that has long been plagued by corruption and inefficiency. The deal was struck in September without competitive bidding and it sidestepped anticorruption safeguards, including the approval of senior uniformed Iraqi Army officers and an Iraqi contract approval committee. Instead, it was negotiated by a delegation of 22 high-ranking Iraqi officials, without the knowledge of American commanders or many senior Iraqi leaders.
On the Defensive, Obama Calls His Words Ill-Chosen. Senator Barack Obama fought back Saturday against accusations from his rivals that he had displayed a profound misunderstanding of small-town values, in a flare-up that left him on the defensive before a series of primaries that could test his ability to win over white voters in economically distressed communities.
La France veut une force de l'ONU contre la piraterie. Au lendemain de la libération des otages du Ponant, dont le retour est prévu lundi soir, c'est François Fillon qui a fait cette annonce au cours de sa visite au Japon.
Rencontre historique pour la Chine et Taïwan. Une poignée de main entre le numéro un chinois et le vice-président taïwanais marque le contact diplomatique le plus important depuis la guerre civile en 1949. La Chine et Taïwan ont noué samedi des contacts au plus haut niveau avec une rencontre historique entre le numéro un chinois Hu Jintao et le vice-président élu de Taïwan Vincent Siew.
Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/ Child Rape Tests Limits Of Death Penalty. In the intervening years, they have employed their interpretations of society's "evolving standards of decency" to remove juvenile and mentally retarded killers from death row. Before that, they excluded kidnappers who did not kill and even some accomplices to murder. In 1977 the court also concluded that a state could not execute a man who raped an adult woman. But on Wednesday the court will consider whether a person who rapes a child is different. Louisiana prosecutors will argue that the same societal mores that have persuaded justices to spare certain categories of criminals lead in the opposite direction when it comes to child rapists, demanding an expansion of capital punishment, not a retrenchment...
For Obama, Unexpected Support. As firmly as Casey (Pa.) and Roemer (Ind.) have adhered to their opposition, Obama has never supported a single measure that would curtail access to abortion -- even under controversial circumstances. But Casey and Roemer have chosen to ignore Obama's legislative record, and are promoting the Democratic presidential candidate to their antiabortion allies as someone who could achieve a new consensus on the issue. "He has the unique skills to try to lower the temperature and foster a sense of common ground, and try to figure out ways that people can agree," Casey said, although the freshman senator added, "On this issue, it's particularly hard."
Herald Tribune http://www.iht.com/
U.S. housing collapse spreads overseas. The collapse of the housing bubble in the United States is mutating into a global phenomenon, with real estate prices down from the Irish countryside and the Spanish coast to Baltic seaports and even in parts of India. This synchronized global slowdown, which has become increasingly stark in recent months, is hobbling economic growth worldwide, affecting not just homes, but also jobs...
J.K. Rowling to testify over Potter encyclopedia. J. K. Rowling's public appearances usually take place in bookstores and theaters, before thousands of her fans. But on Monday, Rowling, the author of the wildly popular Harry Potter series, is expected to turn up in a much different place: on the witness stand in a U.S. federal courtroom, testifying against a small publisher looking to bring out an encyclopedia based on her work.
U.S. Justice Department uses phone records to track leaks to reporter. Former government officials have recently been called before a federal grand jury and confronted with phone records documenting calls with a reporter who covers intelligence issues at The New York Times, according to people with detailed knowledge of the investigation. A former official who was called before the grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, said that he was shown extensive phone records that documented the date and duration of conversations with James Risen, a Times reporter in Washington, and that prosecutors were trying to identify Risen's sources. Risen is fighting a grand jury subpoena for testimony about his sources for a 2006 book on the CIA.
U.S. agency is under pressure to develop disaster housing. After the U.S. government announced in February that it would no longer use travel trailers to house the victims of future disasters, there was an initial sense of relief along the hurricane-scarred Gulf Coast. The flimsy little white boxes are unpleasant to live in and tainted with toxic formaldehyde fumes. And they cost the U.S. government billions of dollars.
U.S. housing collapse spreads overseas. The collapse of the housing bubble in the United States is mutating into a global phenomenon, with real estate prices down from the Irish countryside and the Spanish coast to Baltic seaports and even in parts of India. This synchronized global slowdown, which has become increasingly stark in recent months, is hobbling economic growth worldwide, affecting not just homes, but also jobs...
J.K. Rowling to testify over Potter encyclopedia. J. K. Rowling's public appearances usually take place in bookstores and theaters, before thousands of her fans. But on Monday, Rowling, the author of the wildly popular Harry Potter series, is expected to turn up in a much different place: on the witness stand in a U.S. federal courtroom, testifying against a small publisher looking to bring out an encyclopedia based on her work.
U.S. Justice Department uses phone records to track leaks to reporter. Former government officials have recently been called before a federal grand jury and confronted with phone records documenting calls with a reporter who covers intelligence issues at The New York Times, according to people with detailed knowledge of the investigation. A former official who was called before the grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, said that he was shown extensive phone records that documented the date and duration of conversations with James Risen, a Times reporter in Washington, and that prosecutors were trying to identify Risen's sources. Risen is fighting a grand jury subpoena for testimony about his sources for a 2006 book on the CIA.
U.S. agency is under pressure to develop disaster housing. After the U.S. government announced in February that it would no longer use travel trailers to house the victims of future disasters, there was an initial sense of relief along the hurricane-scarred Gulf Coast. The flimsy little white boxes are unpleasant to live in and tainted with toxic formaldehyde fumes. And they cost the U.S. government billions of dollars.
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