ECM WORLD WATCH: GLOBAL AND NATIONAL NEWS

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 November 22, 2011 (San Diego's East County)--ECM World Watch helps you be an informed citizen about important issues globally and nationally. As part of our commitment to reflecting all voices and views, we include links to a wide variety of news sources representing a broad spectrum of political, religious, and social views.  

 
Top world and U.S. headlines include:  
 
 
 
 
U.S.
 
          General news and politics
  • A defense for Thanksgiving (Washington Post)
  • Supercommittee’s failure pushes Bush tax cuts to forefront of 2012 campaign (Washington Post)
  • Idaho man charged with attempting to assassinate Obama (Washington Post)
  • Bomb plot suspect arrested in NYC (BBC)
  • House GOP fails to pass balanced budget amendment (RawStory)
  • Video: Police pepper spray passive students at UC Davis (CBS News)
  • UC Davis police chief placed on leave following pepper-spray incident (Sacramento Bee)
          Energy and environment
  • Meet a 13-year-old solar panel developer (CNN)
  • GOP House energy chairman advocated loan for struggling solar company (The Hill)
  • GE: Cutting residential solar costs in half (USA Today)
  • Congress kills request for national climate service (Washington Post)
  • Romney’s energy advisors all used to work for Bush. Is that good or bad? (New Republic)
 
WORLD
 
  • Gadhafi’s son, Saif al Islam, captured in Libya (BBC)
  • Egypt’s Tarir Square explodes in violence (Slate)
  • Fukushima plant, a world left behind (Washington Post)
  • Ethiopian troops cross border into Somalia (BBC)
Click "read more" to see links, and stories. 

A defense for Thanksgiving (Washington Post)

 
November 19, 2011 -- Thanksgiving is under assault. Stores that once closed their doors in deference to the holiday are now touting Turkey Day deals starting as early as 9 p.m. Workers who should be on vacation are answering office e-mails on their smartphones. And those who plan on celebrating with a traditional dinner are finding that the cost of a bird is near its 30-year high, according to government data.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/a-defense-for-thanksgiving/2011/11/17/gIQAM33tcN_story.html?tid=pm_business_pop
Supercommittee’s failure pushes Bush tax cuts to forefront of 2012 campaign (Washington Post)
 
November 20, 2011 -- The imminent failure of the congressional deficit “supercommittee,” which had a chance to settle the nation’s tax policy for the next decade, would thrust the much-contested Bush tax cuts into the forefront of next year’s presidential campaign.
Those tax changes have repeatedly provoked fiery partisan debate since they were enacted during President George W. Bush’s first term. Now, with the cuts due to expire at the end of 2012 and their fate left unresolved by the supercommittee, both parties are already positioning themselves to exploit the issue for maximum electoral advantage.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/supercommittees-failure-pushes-bush-tax-cuts-to-forefront-of-2012-campaign/2011/11/20/gIQArIhFgN_story.html?hpid=z1
Idaho man charged with attempting to assassinate Obama (Washington Post)
 
November 17, 2011 -- In the past year, authorities say, Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez became more and more agitated. Louder and louder, his mind warned him that the government was plotting against him. As he saw it, one man personified the threat:  President Obama.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/idaho-man-charged-with-attempt-to-assassinate-obama/2011/11/17/gIQA6Ov9VN_story.html
Bomb plot suspect arrested in NYC (BBC)
 
November 21, 2011 -- Jose Pimentel, 27, was charged with terrorism-related offences, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told a news conference in the city.
Mr Pimentel was a "lone wolf" inspired by al-Qaeda who also allegedly planned to target US troops returning from abroad, Mr Bloomberg said.
He is alleged to have learned bomb-making from an al-Qaeda magazine.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15814383
House GOP fails to pass balanced budget amendment (RawStory)
 
November 18, 2011 -- A measure that would amend the Constitution to require the government to balance its books each year fell short in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives on Thursday.
By a vote of 261 to 165, largely along party lines, the bill fell short of the two-thirds majority that constitutional amendments need to pass the House and Senate.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/11/18/house-gop-fails-to-pass-balanced-budget-amendment/
Video: Police pepper spray passive students at UC Davis (CBS News)
 
November 19, 2011 -- Video of a tense standoff between police and Occupy demonstrators at the University of California, Davis shows an officer using pepper spray on a group of protesters who appear to be sitting passively on the ground with their arms interlocked - action the university chancellor called "chilling to us all."
Several videos, which were posted on YouTube, were shot Friday as police moved in on a tent encampment on the campus.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57328202/video-police-pepper-spray-passive-students/?tag=cbsContent;cbsCarousel
UC Davis police chief placed on leave following pepper-spray incident (Sacramento Bee)
 
Novemebr 21, 2011 -- The UC Davis campus police chief was placed on administrative leave today as the school's chancellor called for the Yolo County district attorney to review the use of force in the pepper spraying of protesting students.
The decision to place Chief Annette Spicuzza on leave was necessary to allow a review of events and help calm the campus, the university said.
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/11/21/4070465/uc-davis-police-chief-placed-on.html
 
          Energy and environment
 
Meet a 13-year-old solar panel developer (CNN)
November 18, 2011 -- Obvious statement: Lots of middle schoolers have been outside. But I'm going to go out on a limb and say that almost none of them look up at the trees, see the Fibonacci Sequence in the branches, and use that insight to develop new and more-efficient methods of arranging solar panels.
Stuff like that only happens to Aidan Dwyer.
 
GOP House energy chairman advocated loan for struggling solar company (The Hill)
 
November 19, 2011 -- A key House Republican who has been highly critical of the Obama administration for providing loan guarantees to now-bankrupt solar energy firm Solyndra urged the Energy Department to help fund a Michigan solar company that has now also suspended operations.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/194675-gop-house-energy-chairman-advocated-loan-for-struggling-solar-company
 
GE: Cutting residential solar costs in half (USA Today)
April 10, 2011 -- Despite all of the excitement about the declining cost and increasing performance of photovoltaic solar, the nation’s homeowners have been lackadaisical about putting panels on their roofs. Last year, there were a record 40,000 residential solar installations in the U.S., but that number is a tiny fraction of the 130 million total homes in the country.
A team of engineers from General Electric, the sponsor of this magazine, want to increase the number of homes with solar roofs by halving the cost of a standard 5-kilowatt (KW) installation, which can provide about 85 percent of the average home’s electricity needs.
http://www.txchnologist.com/2011/ge-cutting-residential-solar-costs-in-half
Congress kills request for national climate service (Washington Post)
 
November 20, 2011 -- At first look, the proposal is as dull, bureaucratic and routine as an agency request to Congress can be.
Romney’s energy advisors all used to work for Bush. Is that good or bad? (New Republic)
 
November 19, 2011 -- On Monday, Politico published a brief write-up of Mitt Romney’s informal team of energy advisers. All four that were named happen to be former George W. Bush officials, and there are a number of ways their pasts could dog Romney. Bush’s record may have frustrated environmentalists, but these officials have made statements supporting a cap-and-trade system for certain pollutants, or oversaw federal initiatives to subsidize clean energy technology—ideas that approach treason among today’s GOPers. On the other hand, picking up advisers from the Bush era provides an easy opportunity for liberals to go after Romney for being anything but “moderate” on the environment. And following a strategic victory on the Keystone XL pipeline, the reinvigorated green community is on the lookout for places to redirect its political capital.
http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-cohn/97628/romney-energy-advisors-bush
 
WORLD
 
Gadhafi’s son, Saif al Islam, captured in Libya (BBC)
 
November 19, 2011 -- Colonel Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam has been captured, Libyan officials say.
He was taken by fighters near the southern town of Obari and flown to the city of Zintan in the north. Saif al-Islam told a journalist he was well. He is the last key Gaddafi family member to be seized or killed. Libya's new prime minister says he will get a fair trial in Libya. Saif al-Islam, 39, is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged crimes against humanity.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15804299
Egypt’s Tarir Square explodes in violence (Slate)
 
November 21, 2011 -- State-run television reported Monday that every member of Egypt's caretaker government has submitted their resignations to the military leadership that appointed them, although the move appears unlikely to calm the ongoing protests in the nation's capital.
For one, the Washington Post notes, the military has not yet accepted the Cabinet members' offers to step down and, if history is any guide, they appear unlikely to do so anytime soon. Over the past few months, military leaders have repeatedly rejected the resignation of a number of government officials, including Prime Minister Essam Sharaf.
http://slatest.slate.com/posts/2011/11/19/egypt_s_tarir_square_explodes_in_violence.html
Fukushima plant, a world left behind (Washington Post)
 
November 19, 2011 -- Eight months ago, people left this place in haste. Families raced from their homes without closing the front doors. They left half-finished wine bottles on their kitchen tables and sneakers in their foyers. They jumped in their cars without taking pets and left cows hitched to milking stanchions.
Now the land stands empty, frozen in time, virtually untouched since the March 11 disaster that created a wasteland in the 12-mile circle of farmland that surrounds the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/after-japan-nuclear-disaster-a-wasteland/2011/11/16/gIQAt7ZTcN_story.html?hpid=z1
Ethiopian troops cross border into Somalia (BBC)
 
Ethiopian troops have crossed the border into Somalia in significant numbers, eyewitnesses say. They say they saw at least 20 vehicles carrying Ethiopian troops. A few hundred soldiers were seen in Gurel town in Galgudud region and there were other sightings around Beledweyne.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15807215

 


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