GVF — Following news about the arrest of the leaders of Iran’s opposition Green Movement, a reliable source has told the Green Voice of Freedom that the decision to detain Mousavi and Karroubi along with their wives was taken by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic Ali Khamenei.....
Note: I am using a sub headline from the print edition rather than the web edition.
By Sewell Chan, New York Times/Business, February 28/29, 2011
....Taken together, the disputes amount to a stalemate on what Mr. Obama has called a critical priority: expanding American competitiveness in manufacturing and other export-related sectors.
“In 30 years I have not seen trade policy in such disarray as it is now,” said Howard F. Rosen, a trade expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a research organization here....
In the following Feb. 14 press release, they also say they "played a key role" in defeating a Republican Senate amendment that would have blocked them from doing so:
....In contrast to Tunisia or Egypt, the Libyan people will not be required to engage in a further series of mass demonstrations against the new-old regime because there will be no one left to demonstrate against. Rather, the Libyan people will have a unique opportunity to speedily establish a new constitutional order and associated institutions that remove the security establishment from the apex of the power structure, and ram these down the generals’ throats.
By Mark Townsend, guardian.co.uk, 26 February 2011
The poll by Searchlight Education Trust, an anti-fascist charity, found that the
Level of far-right support could outstrip that in France or Holland.
Huge numbers of Britons would support an anti-immigration English nationalist party if it was not associated with violence and fascist imagery, according to the largest survey into identity and extremism conducted in the UK.....
By Mary Mitchell, Chicago Sun-Times, February 26, 2011
Rahm Emanuel’s jaw-dropping numbers in the African-American community gave him an undisputable win and raised the question: “How in the heck did he do it?”
After all, Mayor Daley got only 8 percent of the black vote when he first ran.
By William J. Broad and David E. Sanger, New York Times, February 25, 2011
Iran told atomic inspectors this week that it had run into a serious problem at a newly completed nuclear reactor that was supposed to start feeding electricity into the national grid this month, raising questions about whether the trouble was sabotage, a startup problem, or possibly the beginning of the project’s end.
By Stephanie McCrummen, Washington Post, February 26, 2011
BAGHDAD - Iraqi security forces detained about 300 people, including prominent journalists, artists and lawyers who took part in nationwide demonstrations Friday, in what some of them described as an operation to intimidate Baghdad intellectuals who hold sway over popular opinion.
....This is data for 2009, the most recent available. I've pulled out the relevant data, simplified the categories somewhat, and made a spreadsheet out of it:
[...]
These figures are all for export licenses granted. It's possible that in some cases the weapons weren't sold in the end. But licenses are the best public figures we have....
By Al Baker, New York Times "City Room," February 25, 2011
A fatal five-alarm fire that roared through a building in Flatbush, Brooklyn, on Saturday was ignited by candles arrayed around a bed that was intended to be part of a voodoo ceremony, Fire Department officials said on Friday.....Fire marshals pieced together the facts of the voodoo ceremony, and its role in starting the fire, by examining charred remains and by interviewing the voodoo priest and the woman who hired him for $300 to chase away evil spirits and bring her good luck....
