Monday, February 28, 2005
Suicide Blast in Iraq Kills at Least 115
37 minutes ago
By ALI AL-FATLAWI, Associated Press Writer
HILLAH, Iraq - A suicide car bomber blasted a crowd of police and national guard recruits Monday as they gathered for physicals outside a medical clinic south of Baghdad, killing at least 115 people and wounding 132 ? the single deadliest attack in the two-year insurgency.
Torn limbs and other body parts littered the street outside the clinic in Hillah, a predominantly Shiite area about 60 miles south of Baghdad.
Monday's blast outside the clinic was so powerful it nearly vaporized the suicide bomber's car, leaving only its engine partially intact. The injured were piled into pickup trucks and ambulances and taken to nearby hospitals.
The deadliest previous single attack occurred Aug. 29, 2003, when a car bomb exploded outside a mosque in Najaf, killing more than 85 people, including Shiite leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim. Although officials never gave a final death toll, there were suspicions it may have been higher.
On March 2, 2004, at least 181 people were killed and 573 were wounded in multiple bombings at Shiite Muslim shrines in Baghdad and Karbala, although those were from a combination of suicide bombers, mortars and planted explosives.
Outside the concrete and brick building in Hillah, people gingerly walked around small lakes of blood pooling on the street. Scorch marks infused with blood covered the clinic's walls and dozens of people helped pile body parts, including arms, feet and limbs, into blankets. Piles of shoes and tattered clothes were thrown into a corner.
Angry crowds gathered outside the hospital chanting "Allah akbar!" ? Arabic for "God is great!" ? and demanded to know the fate of their relatives.
"I was lined up near the medical center, waiting for my turn for the medical exam in order to apply for work in the police," Abdullah Salih, 22, said. "Suddenly I heard a very big explosion. I was thrown several meters away and I had burns in my legs and hands, then I was taken to the hospital."
Babil province police headquarters said "several people" were arrested in connection with the blast, the biggest confirmed death toll in a single attack since the fall of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites ). Insurgents have repeatedly targeted recruits for Iraq (news - web sites )'s security forces, and the attack comes at a time when Iraqi politicians are trying to form a new government following landmark Jan. 30 elections.
Iraq's interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi wrote in The Wall Street Journal on Monday that Iraq still needed international forces on the ground while the effort was under way to rebuild Iraqi security forces.
"But we will continue to need and to seek assistance for some time to come," he wrote.
Maj. Gen. Osman Ali, an Iraqi National Guard commander in Hillah, put the toll at 115 dead and 132 wounded. A health official in Babil province said the death toll could rise.
Dia Mohammed, the director of Hillah General Hospital, said most of the victims were recruits waiting to take physicals as part of the application process to join the Iraqi police and national guard.
"I was lucky because I was the last person in line when the explosion took place. Suddenly there was panic, and many frightened people stepped on me. I lost consciousness and the next thing I was aware of was being in the hospital," said recruit Muhsin Hadi, 29. One of his legs was broken in the blast.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites ) condemned the attack and pledged to help the Iraqi government track down those responsible.
"All civilized people should feel nothing but revulsion for the terrorists who can kill innocent Iraqis who only want to help build a new democracy and a better society," he said.
A second car bomb exploded Monday at a police checkpoint in Musayyib, about 20 miles north of Hillah, killing at least one policeman and wounding several others, police said on condition of anonymity.
In Baghdad, the U.S. military said it was investigating the death of a U.S. soldier who was shot while manning a traffic checkpoint in the capital a day earlier. Nearly 1,500 U.S. troops have died since the war began in March 2003.
Iraqi troops blocked main avenues leading to and from Firdous Square, the roundabout in central Baghdad where Iraqis toppled a statue of Saddam on April 9, 2003. Occasional shots and bursts of automatic weapons fire could be heard during the sweep of the Battaween area, know locally as the Sudanese district.
Several people believed to be Sudanese were seen being arrested by police. Some of Baghdad's past suicide bombers have in the past been identified as Sudanese.
In al-Mashahda, 25 miles north of Baghdad, police found three unidentified corpses with their hands tied together with plastic cuffs, police commissioner Abbas Abdul Ridha said.
The Hillah suicide bombing came one day after Iraqi officials announced that Syria had captured and handed over Saddam Hussein's half brother, a most-wanted leader in the Sunni-based insurgency, in the latest in a series of arrests of important insurgent figures that the Iraqi government hopes will deal a crushing blow to violent opposition forces.
The arrest of Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan also ended months of Syrian denials it was harboring fugitives from the ousted Saddam regime. Iraq authorities said Damascus acted in a gesture of goodwill.
Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan, who shared a mother with Saddam, was arrested along with 29 other fugitive members of the former dictator's Baath Party in Hasakah in northeastern Syria, 30 miles from the Iraqi border, officials said Sunday on condition of anonymity. The U.S. military in Iraq had no comment.
In an interview published Monday in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Syrian President Bashar Assad denied U.S. accusations his regime lets militants slip across the Iraqi border. He said Washington blames Damascus in order to cover for its strategic mistakes in Iraq.
"Washington accuses us of failing to cooperate, of nurturing the guerrilla," he said. "But in reality they are asking us to remedy to their mistakes: the dissolution of the state, of military forces."
Syria is under intense pressure from the United States, the United Nations (news - web sites ), France and Israel to drop its support for radical groups in the Middle East, to stop harboring Iraqi fugitives and to remove its troops from Lebanon.
A week ago, authorities grabbed a key associate and the driver of Jordanian-born terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaida in Iraq and believed to be the inspiration of the ongoing bombings, beheadings and attacks on Iraqi and American forces. Iraqi officials said they expect to take al-Zarqawi soon
OP-ED COLUMNIST
W.'s Stiletto Democracy
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON
It was remarkable to see President Bush lecture Vladimir Putin on the importance of checks and balances in a democratic society.
Remarkably brazen, given that the only checks Mr. Bush seems to believe in are those written to the "journalists" Armstrong Williams, Maggie Gallagher and Karen Ryan, the fake TV anchor, to help promote his policies. The administration has given a whole new meaning to checkbook journalism, paying a stupendous $97 million to an outside P.R. firm to buy columnists and produce propaganda, including faux video news releases.
The only balance W. likes is the slavering, Pravda-like "Fair and Balanced" coverage Fox News provides. Mr. Bush pledges to spread democracy while his officials strive to create a Potemkin press village at home. This White House seems to prefer softball questions from a self-advertised male escort with a fake name to hardball questions from journalists with real names; it prefers tossing journalists who protect their sources into the gulag to giving up the officials who broke the law by leaking the name of their own C.I.A. agent.
W., who once looked into Mr. Putin's soul and liked what he saw, did not demand the end of tyranny, as he did in his second Inaugural Address. His upper lip sweating a bit, he did not rise to the level of his hero Ronald Reagan's "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." Instead, he said that "the common ground is a lot more than those areas where we disagree." The Russians were happy to stress the common ground as well.
An irritated Mr. Putin compared the Russian system to the American Electoral College, perhaps reminding the man preaching to him about democracy that he had come in second in 2000 according to the popular vote, the standard most democracies use.
Certainly the autocratic former K.G.B. agent needs to be upbraided by someone - Tony Blair, maybe? - for eviscerating the meager steps toward democracy that Russia had made before Mr. Putin came to power. But Mr. Bush is on shaky ground if he wants to hold up his administration as a paragon of safeguarding liberty - considering it has trampled civil liberties in the name of the war on terror and outsourced the torture of prisoners to bastions of democracy like Syria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. (The secretary of state canceled a trip to Egypt this week after Egypt's arrest of a leading opposition politician.)
"I live in a transparent country," Mr. Bush protested to a Russian reporter who implicitly criticized the Patriot Act by noting that the private lives of American citizens "are now being monitored by the state."
Dick Cheney's secret meetings with energy lobbyists were certainly a model of transparency. As was the buildup to the Iraq war, when the Bush hawks did their best to cloak the real reasons they wanted to go to war and trumpet the trumped-up reasons.
The Bush administration wields maximum secrecy with minimal opposition. The White House press is timid. The poor, limp Democrats don't have enough power to convene Congressional hearings on any Republican outrages and are reduced to writing whining letters of protest that are tossed in the Oval Office trash.
When nearly $9 billion allotted for Iraqi reconstruction during Paul Bremer's tenure went up in smoke, Democratic lawmakers vainly pleaded with Republicans to open a Congressional investigation.
Even the near absence of checks and balances is not enough for W. Not content with controlling the White House, Congress, the Supreme Court and a good chunk of the Fourth Estate, he goes to even more ludicrous lengths to avoid being challenged.
The White House wants its Republican allies in the Senate to stamp out the filibuster, one of the few weapons the handcuffed Democrats have left. They want to invoke the so-called nuclear option and get rid of the 150-year-old tradition in order to ram through more right-wing judges.
Mr. Bush and Condi Rice strut in their speeches - the secretary of state also strutted in Wiesbaden in her foxy "Matrix"-dominatrix black leather stiletto boots - but they shy away from taking questions from the public unless they get to vet the questions and audiences in advance.
Administration officials went so far as to cancel a town hall meeting during Mr. Bush's visit to Germany last week after deciding an unscripted setting would be too risky, opting for a round-table talk in Mainz with preselected Germans and Americans.
The president loves democracy - as long as democracy means he's always right.
E-mail:
Copyright 2005
Suicide Blast in Iraq Kills at Least 115
37 minutes ago
By ALI AL-FATLAWI, Associated Press Writer
HILLAH, Iraq - A suicide car bomber blasted a crowd of police and national guard recruits Monday as they gathered for physicals outside a medical clinic south of Baghdad, killing at least 115 people and wounding 132 — the single deadliest attack in the two-year insurgency.
Torn limbs and other body parts littered the street outside the clinic in Hillah, a predominantly Shiite area about 60 miles south of Baghdad.
Monday's blast outside the clinic was so powerful it nearly vaporized the suicide bomber's car, leaving only its engine partially intact. The injured were piled into pickup trucks and ambulances and taken to nearby hospitals.
The deadliest previous single attack occurred Aug. 29, 2003, when a car bomb exploded outside a mosque in Najaf, killing more than 85 people, including Shiite leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim. Although officials never gave a final death toll, there were suspicions it may have been higher.
On March 2, 2004, at least 181 people were killed and 573 were wounded in multiple bombings at Shiite Muslim shrines in Baghdad and Karbala, although those were from a combination of suicide bombers, mortars and planted explosives.
Outside the concrete and brick building in Hillah, people gingerly walked around small lakes of blood pooling on the street. Scorch marks infused with blood covered the clinic's walls and dozens of people helped pile body parts, including arms, feet and limbs, into blankets. Piles of shoes and tattered clothes were thrown into a corner.
Angry crowds gathered outside the hospital chanting "Allah akbar!" — Arabic for "God is great!" — and demanded to know the fate of their relatives.
"I was lined up near the medical center, waiting for my turn for the medical exam in order to apply for work in the police," Abdullah Salih, 22, said. "Suddenly I heard a very big explosion. I was thrown several meters away and I had burns in my legs and hands, then I was taken to the hospital."
Babil province police headquarters said "several people" were arrested in connection with the blast, the biggest confirmed death toll in a single attack since the fall of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites). Insurgents have repeatedly targeted recruits for Iraq (news - web sites)'s security forces, and the attack comes at a time when Iraqi politicians are trying to form a new government following landmark Jan. 30 elections.
Iraq's interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi wrote in The Wall Street Journal on Monday that Iraq still needed international forces on the ground while the effort was under way to rebuild Iraqi security forces.
"But we will continue to need and to seek assistance for some time to come," he wrote.
Maj. Gen. Osman Ali, an Iraqi National Guard commander in Hillah, put the toll at 115 dead and 132 wounded. A health official in Babil province said the death toll could rise.
Dia Mohammed, the director of Hillah General Hospital, said most of the victims were recruits waiting to take physicals as part of the application process to join the Iraqi police and national guard.
"I was lucky because I was the last person in line when the explosion took place. Suddenly there was panic, and many frightened people stepped on me. I lost consciousness and the next thing I was aware of was being in the hospital," said recruit Muhsin Hadi, 29. One of his legs was broken in the blast.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) condemned the attack and pledged to help the Iraqi government track down those responsible.
"All civilized people should feel nothing but revulsion for the terrorists who can kill innocent Iraqis who only want to help build a new democracy and a better society," he said.
A second car bomb exploded Monday at a police checkpoint in Musayyib, about 20 miles north of Hillah, killing at least one policeman and wounding several others, police said on condition of anonymity.
In Baghdad, the U.S. military said it was investigating the death of a U.S. soldier who was shot while manning a traffic checkpoint in the capital a day earlier. Nearly 1,500 U.S. troops have died since the war began in March 2003.
Iraqi troops blocked main avenues leading to and from Firdous Square, the roundabout in central Baghdad where Iraqis toppled a statue of Saddam on April 9, 2003. Occasional shots and bursts of automatic weapons fire could be heard during the sweep of the Battaween area, know locally as the Sudanese district.
Several people believed to be Sudanese were seen being arrested by police. Some of Baghdad's past suicide bombers have in the past been identified as Sudanese.
In al-Mashahda, 25 miles north of Baghdad, police found three unidentified corpses with their hands tied together with plastic cuffs, police commissioner Abbas Abdul Ridha said.
The Hillah suicide bombing came one day after Iraqi officials announced that Syria had captured and handed over Saddam Hussein's half brother, a most-wanted leader in the Sunni-based insurgency, in the latest in a series of arrests of important insurgent figures that the Iraqi government hopes will deal a crushing blow to violent opposition forces.
The arrest of Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan also ended months of Syrian denials it was harboring fugitives from the ousted Saddam regime. Iraq authorities said Damascus acted in a gesture of goodwill.
Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan, who shared a mother with Saddam, was arrested along with 29 other fugitive members of the former dictator's Baath Party in Hasakah in northeastern Syria, 30 miles from the Iraqi border, officials said Sunday on condition of anonymity. The U.S. military in Iraq had no comment.
In an interview published Monday in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Syrian President Bashar Assad denied U.S. accusations his regime lets militants slip across the Iraqi border. He said Washington blames Damascus in order to cover for its strategic mistakes in Iraq.
"Washington accuses us of failing to cooperate, of nurturing the guerrilla," he said. "But in reality they are asking us to remedy to their mistakes: the dissolution of the state, of military forces."
Syria is under intense pressure from the United States, the United Nations (news - web sites), France and Israel to drop its support for radical groups in the Middle East, to stop harboring Iraqi fugitives and to remove its troops from Lebanon.
A week ago, authorities grabbed a key associate and the driver of Jordanian-born terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaida in Iraq and believed to be the inspiration of the ongoing bombings, beheadings and attacks on Iraqi and American forces. Iraqi officials said they expect to take al-Zarqawi soon.
37 minutes ago
By ALI AL-FATLAWI, Associated Press Writer
HILLAH, Iraq - A suicide car bomber blasted a crowd of police and national guard recruits Monday as they gathered for physicals outside a medical clinic south of Baghdad, killing at least 115 people and wounding 132 — the single deadliest attack in the two-year insurgency.
Torn limbs and other body parts littered the street outside the clinic in Hillah, a predominantly Shiite area about 60 miles south of Baghdad.
Monday's blast outside the clinic was so powerful it nearly vaporized the suicide bomber's car, leaving only its engine partially intact. The injured were piled into pickup trucks and ambulances and taken to nearby hospitals.
The deadliest previous single attack occurred Aug. 29, 2003, when a car bomb exploded outside a mosque in Najaf, killing more than 85 people, including Shiite leader Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim. Although officials never gave a final death toll, there were suspicions it may have been higher.
On March 2, 2004, at least 181 people were killed and 573 were wounded in multiple bombings at Shiite Muslim shrines in Baghdad and Karbala, although those were from a combination of suicide bombers, mortars and planted explosives.
Outside the concrete and brick building in Hillah, people gingerly walked around small lakes of blood pooling on the street. Scorch marks infused with blood covered the clinic's walls and dozens of people helped pile body parts, including arms, feet and limbs, into blankets. Piles of shoes and tattered clothes were thrown into a corner.
Angry crowds gathered outside the hospital chanting "Allah akbar!" — Arabic for "God is great!" — and demanded to know the fate of their relatives.
"I was lined up near the medical center, waiting for my turn for the medical exam in order to apply for work in the police," Abdullah Salih, 22, said. "Suddenly I heard a very big explosion. I was thrown several meters away and I had burns in my legs and hands, then I was taken to the hospital."
Babil province police headquarters said "several people" were arrested in connection with the blast, the biggest confirmed death toll in a single attack since the fall of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites). Insurgents have repeatedly targeted recruits for Iraq (news - web sites)'s security forces, and the attack comes at a time when Iraqi politicians are trying to form a new government following landmark Jan. 30 elections.
Iraq's interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi wrote in The Wall Street Journal on Monday that Iraq still needed international forces on the ground while the effort was under way to rebuild Iraqi security forces.
"But we will continue to need and to seek assistance for some time to come," he wrote.
Maj. Gen. Osman Ali, an Iraqi National Guard commander in Hillah, put the toll at 115 dead and 132 wounded. A health official in Babil province said the death toll could rise.
Dia Mohammed, the director of Hillah General Hospital, said most of the victims were recruits waiting to take physicals as part of the application process to join the Iraqi police and national guard.
"I was lucky because I was the last person in line when the explosion took place. Suddenly there was panic, and many frightened people stepped on me. I lost consciousness and the next thing I was aware of was being in the hospital," said recruit Muhsin Hadi, 29. One of his legs was broken in the blast.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) condemned the attack and pledged to help the Iraqi government track down those responsible.
"All civilized people should feel nothing but revulsion for the terrorists who can kill innocent Iraqis who only want to help build a new democracy and a better society," he said.
A second car bomb exploded Monday at a police checkpoint in Musayyib, about 20 miles north of Hillah, killing at least one policeman and wounding several others, police said on condition of anonymity.
In Baghdad, the U.S. military said it was investigating the death of a U.S. soldier who was shot while manning a traffic checkpoint in the capital a day earlier. Nearly 1,500 U.S. troops have died since the war began in March 2003.
Iraqi troops blocked main avenues leading to and from Firdous Square, the roundabout in central Baghdad where Iraqis toppled a statue of Saddam on April 9, 2003. Occasional shots and bursts of automatic weapons fire could be heard during the sweep of the Battaween area, know locally as the Sudanese district.
Several people believed to be Sudanese were seen being arrested by police. Some of Baghdad's past suicide bombers have in the past been identified as Sudanese.
In al-Mashahda, 25 miles north of Baghdad, police found three unidentified corpses with their hands tied together with plastic cuffs, police commissioner Abbas Abdul Ridha said.
The Hillah suicide bombing came one day after Iraqi officials announced that Syria had captured and handed over Saddam Hussein's half brother, a most-wanted leader in the Sunni-based insurgency, in the latest in a series of arrests of important insurgent figures that the Iraqi government hopes will deal a crushing blow to violent opposition forces.
The arrest of Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan also ended months of Syrian denials it was harboring fugitives from the ousted Saddam regime. Iraq authorities said Damascus acted in a gesture of goodwill.
Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan, who shared a mother with Saddam, was arrested along with 29 other fugitive members of the former dictator's Baath Party in Hasakah in northeastern Syria, 30 miles from the Iraqi border, officials said Sunday on condition of anonymity. The U.S. military in Iraq had no comment.
In an interview published Monday in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Syrian President Bashar Assad denied U.S. accusations his regime lets militants slip across the Iraqi border. He said Washington blames Damascus in order to cover for its strategic mistakes in Iraq.
"Washington accuses us of failing to cooperate, of nurturing the guerrilla," he said. "But in reality they are asking us to remedy to their mistakes: the dissolution of the state, of military forces."
Syria is under intense pressure from the United States, the United Nations (news - web sites), France and Israel to drop its support for radical groups in the Middle East, to stop harboring Iraqi fugitives and to remove its troops from Lebanon.
A week ago, authorities grabbed a key associate and the driver of Jordanian-born terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaida in Iraq and believed to be the inspiration of the ongoing bombings, beheadings and attacks on Iraqi and American forces. Iraqi officials said they expect to take al-Zarqawi soon.
today's papersGoodbye, My Lord & TaylorBy David SarnoUpdated Monday, Feb. 28, 2005, at 8:39 AM PT
The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal's world-wide newsbox lead with the capture of Saddam Hussein's half-brother, once the head of two major Baathist security agencies and more recently thought to be a high-level player in the Iraqi insurgence. The Washington Post leads with the $10.5 billion acquisition of May Department Stores by Federated Departments Stores, a merger that will create a franchise with 1,000 locations and $30 billion in sales. The deal is expected to reduce Federated-May's costs by hundreds of millions, meaning thousands of layoffs are likely, as is the shuttering of hundreds of the worst-earning May stores around the country. USA Today devotes its headline to last night's Oscars, but reefers the coverage itself, leading instead with the growing number of personal attack campaigns spawned by the Social Security debate. The same consultants who advised last year's Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have been hired by the conservative group USA Next, in part to assail the AARP—one internet ad shows two men kissing at a wedding, and bears the caption: "The REAL AARP agenda."
Sabawi Ibrahim Hassan Tikriti was captured by the Syrian government along with 29 other Saddam loyalists, then handed to Iraqi authorities after intense pressure from the United States. Hassan was the head of both the General Security Directorate and Mukhabarat agencies, "which between them arrested and killed tens of thousands of Iraqis" (NYT). He'd been number 36 on the U.S.'s 55-member list of Iraq's most-wanted.
In their coverage of Federated-May merger, the papers agree that the deal means the end of the regional department store, an institution in American retailing for more than a century. The identities of old-guard local franchises like Hecht's (Washington, D.C.), Famous-Barr (St. Louis), Meier & Frank (Portland), and Robinson's-May (Los Angeles) have until now been kept intact by owner May Co. But Federated plans to eliminate the old names in order to build a few mega-brands that can compete nationally with Wal-Mart and the newly minted Kmart-Sears colossus. So by next year, your reliable old Goldsmith's, Burdines and Lord & Taylor stores may all be Macy's (or SuperMacy's?).
(The LAT ends by noting that the merger could harm newspapers because there won't be as many stores to sell ad space to).
The Oscars, in short: Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby won awards for best picture, best director, best actress (Hilary Swank) and best supporting actor (Morgan Freeman). Jamie Foxx gave a heartfelt speech when he won the best actor trophy for his role in Ray, and Cate Blanchett of Martin Scorcese's The Aviator took best supporting actress honors. Except for Foxx's speech and a few funny moments courtesy brash host Chris Rock, the 3-hour show remained stubbornly boring and insipid despite efforts by its producers to funk it up.
An NYT front reports on Iran's recent admission that in the late 1980's, it had contacts with infamous Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan. According to a document turned over to international inspectors, Khan offered to sell Iran a set of technologies that would enable it to construct a nuclear weapon. Iran appears to have rejected some parts of the deal and accepted others, though more specific details are not yet clear. Officials cite the document as more evidence that Iran is likely concealing uranium production activities from the international community, but say that the information is not a smoking gun.
Meanwhile, reports the WP, the Bush administration may reverse an earlier stance and join with Europe in nuclear negotiations with Iran. The talks aim to use economic incentives to persuade Iran to abandon its quest for nukes. Until now, the Bush government believed that Iran should not be given bribes to do what it was legally bound to do anyway, according to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The LAT runs an interesting feature on the vibrant yet chaotic Taiwanese media, which, though it's among the freest presses in the world, is so ratings-obsessed that most of its big stories amount basically to tabloid gossip. Reformers are trying to establish higher standards of integrity, accuracy, and accountability, since things like fact-checking and libel-prevention often fall by the wayside in the race to get the story out. A representative snippet: When one professor offered a course on media ethics, "none of his journalism students signed up. Asked why, several said they didn't want to become 'schizophrenic,' constrained by boring niceties that had no place in the real world."
Razz-Berry: Every year, the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation hosts an anti-award show a night before the Oscars, where trophies for the year's worst performances are handed out. In a feat of incredible humility, Halle Berry actually showed up Saturday to accept her Worst Actress Award for Catwoman, and delighted the crowd by reprising her tearful 2002 acceptance speech for her winning role in Monster's Ball (she brought that Oscar with her to the Razzies). Berry ended by earnestly thanking Warner Bros "for casting me in this piece of [expletive]." Ms. Berry, TP salutes you!David Sarno is a writer in Iowa City.Article URL: http://slate.msn.com/id/2114126/
The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal's world-wide newsbox lead with the capture of Saddam Hussein's half-brother, once the head of two major Baathist security agencies and more recently thought to be a high-level player in the Iraqi insurgence. The Washington Post leads with the $10.5 billion acquisition of May Department Stores by Federated Departments Stores, a merger that will create a franchise with 1,000 locations and $30 billion in sales. The deal is expected to reduce Federated-May's costs by hundreds of millions, meaning thousands of layoffs are likely, as is the shuttering of hundreds of the worst-earning May stores around the country. USA Today devotes its headline to last night's Oscars, but reefers the coverage itself, leading instead with the growing number of personal attack campaigns spawned by the Social Security debate. The same consultants who advised last year's Swift Boat Veterans for Truth have been hired by the conservative group USA Next, in part to assail the AARP—one internet ad shows two men kissing at a wedding, and bears the caption: "The REAL AARP agenda."
Sabawi Ibrahim Hassan Tikriti was captured by the Syrian government along with 29 other Saddam loyalists, then handed to Iraqi authorities after intense pressure from the United States. Hassan was the head of both the General Security Directorate and Mukhabarat agencies, "which between them arrested and killed tens of thousands of Iraqis" (NYT). He'd been number 36 on the U.S.'s 55-member list of Iraq's most-wanted.
In their coverage of Federated-May merger, the papers agree that the deal means the end of the regional department store, an institution in American retailing for more than a century. The identities of old-guard local franchises like Hecht's (Washington, D.C.), Famous-Barr (St. Louis), Meier & Frank (Portland), and Robinson's-May (Los Angeles) have until now been kept intact by owner May Co. But Federated plans to eliminate the old names in order to build a few mega-brands that can compete nationally with Wal-Mart and the newly minted Kmart-Sears colossus. So by next year, your reliable old Goldsmith's, Burdines and Lord & Taylor stores may all be Macy's (or SuperMacy's?).
(The LAT ends by noting that the merger could harm newspapers because there won't be as many stores to sell ad space to).
The Oscars, in short: Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby won awards for best picture, best director, best actress (Hilary Swank) and best supporting actor (Morgan Freeman). Jamie Foxx gave a heartfelt speech when he won the best actor trophy for his role in Ray, and Cate Blanchett of Martin Scorcese's The Aviator took best supporting actress honors. Except for Foxx's speech and a few funny moments courtesy brash host Chris Rock, the 3-hour show remained stubbornly boring and insipid despite efforts by its producers to funk it up.
An NYT front reports on Iran's recent admission that in the late 1980's, it had contacts with infamous Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan. According to a document turned over to international inspectors, Khan offered to sell Iran a set of technologies that would enable it to construct a nuclear weapon. Iran appears to have rejected some parts of the deal and accepted others, though more specific details are not yet clear. Officials cite the document as more evidence that Iran is likely concealing uranium production activities from the international community, but say that the information is not a smoking gun.
Meanwhile, reports the WP, the Bush administration may reverse an earlier stance and join with Europe in nuclear negotiations with Iran. The talks aim to use economic incentives to persuade Iran to abandon its quest for nukes. Until now, the Bush government believed that Iran should not be given bribes to do what it was legally bound to do anyway, according to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The LAT runs an interesting feature on the vibrant yet chaotic Taiwanese media, which, though it's among the freest presses in the world, is so ratings-obsessed that most of its big stories amount basically to tabloid gossip. Reformers are trying to establish higher standards of integrity, accuracy, and accountability, since things like fact-checking and libel-prevention often fall by the wayside in the race to get the story out. A representative snippet: When one professor offered a course on media ethics, "none of his journalism students signed up. Asked why, several said they didn't want to become 'schizophrenic,' constrained by boring niceties that had no place in the real world."
Razz-Berry: Every year, the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation hosts an anti-award show a night before the Oscars, where trophies for the year's worst performances are handed out. In a feat of incredible humility, Halle Berry actually showed up Saturday to accept her Worst Actress Award for Catwoman, and delighted the crowd by reprising her tearful 2002 acceptance speech for her winning role in Monster's Ball (she brought that Oscar with her to the Razzies). Berry ended by earnestly thanking Warner Bros "for casting me in this piece of [expletive]." Ms. Berry, TP salutes you!David Sarno is a writer in Iowa City.Article URL: http://slate.msn.com/id/2114126/
