Midweek link dump

[tangaroa]

• Egypt banned women from judicial appointments to the Council of State.
• China sentenced liberal activist Liu Xiaobo to eleven years in prison for writing "Charter 08" which advocated liberal reforms in his country.
  • A copy of Charter 08 is hosted on on the web site of the New York Review of Books.
• Iran captured Abdul Malik Rigi, the leader of the Jundallah terrorist organization, who they claim had recently left a U.S. base.
• Cuban political prisoner Orlando Tamayo has died while on a hunger strike.
• Turkey has arrested and charged 40 additional military leaders with planning a coup against the Islamist government.
• Time Magazine reports on the growth of al-Shabab.
• Talking Points Memo identifies one of John Yoo's torture memo co-authors as Jennifer Hardy nee Koester.
• U.S. President Barack Obama is proposing that Congress dump the Senate's over 1000-page health care bill and start over with a new proposal. The Senate bill only needs the House's approval before becoming law, while a new bill will require support from the Republican Party to pass through the Senate.
• Toyota hired National Highway Traffic Safety Commission officials to block four investigations of its faulty accelerator.
• Minnesota man Koua Fong Lee was sentenced to eight years of prison for vehicular manslaughter in 2007 after his Toyota would not stop accelerating, which sounds consistent with the mechanical problem that caused Toyota to recently recall millions of cars.
  • The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported Lee's conviction and sentencing.
• The Christian news source Compass Direct reports that a Christian was murdered by an Egyptian policeman outside of a building that the police had seized to prevent Christians from forming a church there.
• Barry Rubin decries idiocy in high places on Middle East policy.
• Bill Berkowitz discusses the launching of several manifestos by the U.S. conservative right.