Now that he’s been cut loose from his contract at CNN, former anchor Lou Dobbs is free to do his thing unencumbered by any constraints imposed by media bosses or by archaic notions of journalistic objectivity. What, you might wonder, would “his thing” be? Well, it seems as if this self-declared champion of the middle class isn’t ruling out a run for office ... yes, even that office.  —KA

Reuters:

A week after abruptly quitting his longtime job as a CNN television news host and commentator, Lou Dobbs said on Thursday he is considering career options including possible runs for the White House or U.S. Senate.

“Right now I feel exhilaration at the wide range of choices before me as to what I do next,” Dobbs, whose outspoken views on immigration and other topics often angered liberals, told Reuters in a telephone interview from New York on Thursday.

Dobbs, 64, a veteran CNN anchor who had become one of the most divisive figures in U.S. broadcast journalism, announced last Wednesday he was leaving CNN after spending the better part of 30 years at the 24-hour cable news network.

He still hosts a daily radio show.

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President Barack Obama has signaled an escalation in the ongoing nuclear dispute with Iran, warning that punitive measures could come soon after Tehran rejected a proposal to send its enriched uranium to Russia or France for further processing.

The Guardian:

Barack Obama has signalled a further escalation in the crisis over Iran’s nuclear ambitions by serving notice that punitive measures could be agreed “within weeks”.

Obama used a speech in South Korea’s capital, Seoul, to warn that the lesson of dealing with neighbouring North Korea was that Tehran must meet a deadline for complying with international demands and would face unspecified “consequences” if it did not.

The president’s remarks came a day after Iran appeared to definitively reject a proposal put forward in Vienna last month for sending enriched uranium to Russia and France for further processing, leaving negotiations at an apparent dead end.

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In a boon for the hearing-impaired as well as non-English speakers, Google has announced it will soon plug in new technology that automatically adds text captions to many videos on its YouTube site. It will allow videos to be searched through text, rather than keywords.

The New York Times:

In the first major step toward making millions of videos on YouTube accessible to deaf and hearing-impaired people, Google unveiled new technologies on Thursday that will automatically bring text captions to many videos on the site.

The technology will also open YouTube videos to a wider foreign market and make them more searchable, which will make it easier for Google to profit from them.

While the technology can insert captions only on English-language speech, Google is giving users the choice of using its automatic translation system to read the captions in 51 languages. That could broaden the appeal of YouTube videos to millions of other people who do not speak English but could use the captioning technology to read subtitles in their native language.

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After the UC Board of Regents approved a 32 percent increase in fees, a collection of university students occupied Campbell Hall at UCLA. The last of those students left the building peacefully Thursday evening, suspending protests that saw dozens arrested.

Los Angeles Times:

After a day of protests over student fee hikes that roiled the UCLA campus, a final group of students who had taken over Campbell Hall left the building peacefully [Thursday] evening.

There were about 25 students when the group dispersed shortly before 7 p.m. Students had been occupying the building since about 12:30 a.m. Students used a bike rack to block hallways and desks to block doors. Pizza boxes were strewn in the third-floor hallway.

“This is only the end of this moment,” said Patricia Torres, 30, a first-year graduate student in the School of Urban Planning. “We are still dialoguing, but not stopping.”

Earlier [Thursday], the UC Board of Regents approved a 32% increase in student fees.

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Uri Avnery remembers Yitzhak Rabin, Yasser Arafat and the historic Oslo agreement that has since turned to mush. “The public memory,” Avnery warns, “is trying nowadays to obliterate” Rabin’s “inner revolution” toward peace with the Palestinians.

Rabin was assassinated 14 years ago this November.  —PZS

Uri Avnery in Gush-Shalom:

MORE THAN anything else, I respected Rabin for his dramatic change of outlook at the age of 70. The man who had been a soldier since he was 18, who had fought Arabs all his life, suddenly became a peace-fighter. And not just a fighter for peace in general, but for peace with the Palestinian people, whose very existence had always been denied by the leaders of Israel.

The public memory, one of the most effective instruments of the establishment, is trying nowadays to obliterate this chapter. Throughout the country one can buy postcards showing Rabin shaking hands with King Hussein at the signing of the Israeli-Jordanian peace agreement, but it is almost impossible to find a card showing Rabin with Arafat at the Oslo agreement signing ceremony. Never happened.

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For the second time in a couple of weeks, Fox News has run the wrong footage to go along with a story about a crowd gathering in support of a conservative cause, apparently mistakenly creating the impression that more people showed up than was the case. On Thursday, the network issued another apology, this time on its “Happening Now” show.  —KA

The Swamp via Gawker:

[On Wednesday], FOX News host Gregg Jarrett was talking about Republican Sarah Palin’s book tour and the crowd she is drawing at the start of it - no small turnout, with some 1,500 people lining up early this morning for a chance to get into this evening’s premier book-signing for Going Rogue in Grand Rapids.

“Sarah Palin continuing to draw huge crowds while she’s promoting her brand new book,’’ FOX’s Jarrett told his viewers. “Take a look at—these are some of the pictures just coming into us… The lines earlier had formed this morning.’’

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In a surprising last-minute move, Tony Blair has dropped out of the race for the European Council’s presidency, a position for which he was an early favorite.

The BBC:

Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has dropped out of the race to be European Council President—just as EU leaders meet to decide who to appoint.

The Belgian Prime Minister Herman van Rompuy is widely expected to get the job, with French and German support.

The socialist group of EU leaders is now urging the appointment of EU Trade Commissioner Baroness Catherine Ashton as the new foreign policy supremo.

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A once-temporary ban on the death penalty is now set to be enshrined into Russian law, permanently banning the practice as Russia prepares to join the majority of the world’s countries in outlawing capital punishment. —JCL

The BBC:

Russia’s ban on the death penalty will remain when a current legal suspension expires on 1 January, the country’s Constitutional Court has ruled.

It said the use of the death penalty was now impossible because Russia had signed international deals banning it.

Russian announced the moratorium in 1996 when it joined the Council of Europe, although it retains capital punishment in its criminal code.

Opinion polls suggest that a majority of Russians back the death penalty.

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Over four years after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, a federal judge has ruled in favor of four plaintiffs from the vicinity of the city’s Ninth Ward, finding that the Army Corps of Engineers was responsible for some of the damage incurred by the storm and awarding each plaintiff over $700,000.  —KA

The Christian Science Monitor:

The landmark ruling awards $719,000 to four plaintiffs from the city’s Lower Ninth Ward and neighboring St. Bernard Parish who filed suit in 2006. The only such liability suit to actually reach a courtroom, the so-called “Mr. Go” ruling (after a shipping channel in the area) opens the floodgates for a raft of new litigation from as many as 100,000 other residents.

More important, the ruling – which called the Army Corps “myopic” in its maintenance of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet canal (aka Mr. Go) – now puts pressure on President Obama to help the region settle claims that could reach into the billions of dollars. (Without a court judgment, the Bush administration had refused calls for a settlement.)

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It has been announced that Caster Semenya, the impressive 18-year-old South African runner, will retain her world title in the 800-meter race despite a public investigation/smear campaign against the athlete regarding the authenticity of her female gender.  —JCL

The Guardian:

The International Association of Athletics Federations has agreed that the South African runner Caster Semenya will keep her 800 metres world title, the country’s sports ministry said today.

The 18-year-old Semenya, who stormed to victory in August’s world championships in Berlin, underwent gender verification tests this summer in South Africa and Germany and a panel of experts has been studying the results for the IAAF.

South Africa’s government, Semenya’s lawyers and the IAAF had reached total agreement that she will retain her gold medal, title and prize money because she has been found “innocent of any wrong”, the ministry said in a statement.

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