World Big NewS

Baghdad blasts 'kill at least 90'

2009-10-25T18:36:00.002+07:00

At least 90 people have been killed and 265 injured in two car bomb attacks in central Baghdad, Iraqi officials say.

The blasts hit the ministry of justice and a provincial government office near the Green Zone, causing severe damage.

They came in quick succession at 1030 local time (0730 GMT) as people headed to work during the morning rush hour.

Correspondents say these are the largest attacks since 19 August, when truck bombs hit two ministry buildings and killed at least 100 people.

Iraq then blamed foreign fighters and accused Syria of involvement, demanding a UN investigation.

ANALYSIS
Gabriel Gatehouse
Gabriel Gatehouse, BBC News, Baghdad

These attacks do bear similarities to the 19 August blasts that hit the foreign ministry and the finance ministry, killing around 100 people.

The Iraqi government blamed foreign agents for those attacks, especially Syria, and called for a UN investigation.

It is too early to say who is behind these attacks.

But there have been warnings that as Iraq prepares for parliamentary elections in January, insurgents and foreign agents may try to stage attacks to destabilise the situation and reignite sectarian tensions.

Al-Qaeda blamed

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said he suspected that al-Qaeda militants or members of Saddam Hussein's former government were behind the attacks.

"The initial analysis shows that it bears the fingerprints of al-Qaeda and the Baathists," Mr Dabbagh said in a statement after being caught in a nearby hotel, where he saw others around him being showered in shattered glass.

Plumes of smoke were seen rising in Baghdad on Sunday morning after two vehicles packed with explosives blew up just outside the Green Zone, the heavily-fortified administrative heart of the capital.

"The walls collapsed and we had to run out," Yasmeen Afdhal, a 24-year-old employee at the Baghdad Governorate told AP news agency.

"Why are they doing this to us?" shouted another man at the scene of that attack.

Search for survivors

Iraqi officials say the number of dead and wounded is likely to rise, as rescue workers dig through the rubble to search for survivors.

The BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse in Baghdad said he felt the force of the explosions this morning, even though he was several miles away.

Our correspondent says it is too early to determine who is behind the attacks.

But he says the finger of blame is likely to point to insurgents or foreign fighters trying to destabilise the security situation ahead of Iraqi elections in mid-January.

Overall, violence has dropped dramatically in Iraq compared to a year ago, but sporadic attacks still continue in several parts of the country.

from : bbc.co.uk

Report: U.S. general calls for more troops in Afghanistan

2009-09-21T18:37:00.002+07:00

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- America's top commander in Afghanistan warns that more troops are needed there within the next year or the nearly 8-year-old war "will likely result in failure," according to a copy of a 66-page document obtained by The Washington Post.

"Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) -- while Afghan security capacity matures -- risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible," U.S. and NATO commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal said in the declassified document, according to the Post.

Bob Woodward of the Post -- who wrote about the leaked 66-page document -- will appear on CNN's "American Morning" on Monday.

The document was "leaked" to the newspaper, but parts were omitted after consultations between the newspaper and the Department of Defense, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said.

"While we would have much preferred none of this be made public at this time, we appreciate the paper's willingness to edit out those passages, which would likely have endangered personnel and operations in Afghanistan," Morrell said in a statement.

President Obama is considering the assessment of troop levels completed by McChrystal over the summer, however, a review of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan won't be driven "by the politics of the moment," Obama said on Sunday.

"Every time I sign an order, you know, I'm answerable to the parents of those young men and women who I'm sending over there, and I want to make sure that it's for the right reason," Obama told CNN's "State of the Union."

The president put off questions about whether additional troops would be needed, saying, "I don't want to put the resource question before the strategy question." But he said Afghans need to show that they are "willing to make the commitment to build their capacity to secure their own country."

The United States now has about 62,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, with NATO and other allies contributing about 35,000 more. The Pentagon is planning to add 6,000 troops by year's end, and some members of Congress say McChrystal soon will call for thousands more.

The fighting has ramped up sharply in the past year as U.S. troops and a NATO-dominated coalition battle a resurgence of the Taliban, the al Qaeda-allied Islamic militia that ruled most of Afghanistan before the attacks. Washington poured an additional 21,000 troops into Afghanistan to provide security for its recent presidential election, which has been marred by allegations of fraud.

In August, 48 U.S. troops were killed in the fighting, surpassing the previous high of 45 in July. And the war has spread into Pakistan, where Taliban fighters are now battling government troops in that nuclear-armed country.

Obama said he has ordered "a soup-to-nuts re-evaluation" of the U.S. strategy, refocusing "on what our original goal was, which was to get al Qaeda, the people who killed 3,000 Americans" in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Video

"To the extent that our strategy in Afghanistan is serving that goal, then we're on the right track," he said. "If it starts drifting away from that goal, then we may have a problem."

But support for the Afghan war hit an all-time low in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released last week. That survey found 39 percent still favor the war, compared with 58 percent who oppose it -- making it almost as unpopular as the Iraq war has become in recent years. And calls for more troops could be a tough sell in Congress.

Sen. Carl Levin, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has argued that the allies should bolster Afghan forces before sending in more troops of their own.

"If we can get the Afghan army much larger, much better equipped, and if we can also get a plan, finally, for co-opting or reintegrating those lower-level Taliban people the way we did in Iraq -- if we can get that in motion -- that hopefully will have an effect on how many additional troops we need to go to Afghanistan," Levin told CNN on Sunday.

Leading Republicans have called for McChrystal and Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in the Middle East and Central Asia, to testify publicly about their recommendations. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, told CNN that it was time for lawmakers to hear what McChrystal has to say.

"We would like to see Gen. McChrystal and Gen. Petraeus come up to Congress, like they did during the Iraq surge and give us the information about what they're recommending," McConnell said. "We think the time for decision is now." But he added that if more troops were needed, "I think the president will enjoy a lot of support among Senate Republicans."

Sen. Lindsey Graham, another Republican on the Armed Services Committee, said a decision on additional troops needs to be made soon.

"I've been told Gen. McChrystal's ready to hit the send button in terms of how many more troops he needs, and the longer we wait the harder it is," said Graham, of South Carolina.

Levin said hearings would be held "when we have a recommendation that is made to the president, and when the president makes his decision."

from : cnn.com

Climate Week kicks off in New York with bigwigs and big hopes

2009-09-21T18:35:00.003+07:00

2009: The year so many met so often to talk so much about the perilous state of the climate?and as of September, accomplished so little. Will this week be the charm?

During several different international meetings this year, nations have been getting into position for this December's international climate treaty talks in Copenhagen.

New York City skylineNew York City is playing host to climate week.This week, they're all gathering again. On Tuesday, the U.N. is holding a day-long Climate Summit (alongside its annual, two-week General Assembly) in New York City. And on Thursday and Friday, the Group of 20 (G20) leading world economies is gathering in Pittsburgh, its third meeting of the year to deal with the global economic meltdown.

While climate is not formally on the G20's agenda, some are hoping that President Obama will come off his speech at the New York event ready to signal to other world leaders that the U.S. will lead on forging a strong replacement to the Kyoto Protocol treaty to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, which expires in 2013. Its successor is supposed to be largely finalized at December's global-warming talks.

How likely is Obama to do that? As the Magic 8-Ball might say, "Reply hazy; try again."

Candidate Obama made strong climate action a central plank of his election platform. President Obama has taken some pragmatic steps to make good on those promises, such as naming a climate-savvy team to key environment- and energy-related posts. Obama also backed the massive funding within the stimulus bill for home-weatherization programs, clean energy research and development, expansion of rail transit, and other on-the-ground moves toward a low-carbon energy economy. And he spent a smidge of political capital to help get the House climate and energy bill passed in June.

On the international negotiating front, however, the Obama administration may be hamstrung by sluggish Senate progress on passing climate legislation. Senate leaders keep pushing back the timetable for action on a bill, with Majority Leader Harry Reid suggesting last week that it could be bumped all the way to next year. Republicans are almost universally opposed to a cap-and-trade system for cutting greenhouse-gas emissions, and many moderate Democrats aren't enthusiastic about cap-and-trade either.

If the Senate doesn't pass a climate bill by early December, U.S. influence in Copenhagen may well be diminished, though if the EPA takes action to regulate greenhouse gases with its existing authority, that could give the Obama administration something to take the table.

Meanwhile, the administration is working toward a bilateral climate agreement, which could circumvent the Kyoto treaty framework. Where the world's two greatest greenhouse-gas polluters lead, the rest of the world will probably have to follow, no matter how strong or weak the results may be.

Climate activists are not going to let this week's gatherings of nations pass without a demonstration?or even several thousand demonstrations, all around the world?to show global public demand for a strong international climate treaty. So there's a heavy schedule of (hoped-for) flash mobs, protests, call-to-arms film screenings, and other events in both New York City and Pittsburgh.

Through its Voices Project, the international aid group Oxfam and allies are helping a number of non-mainstream-media reporters and bloggers (including this reporter-blogger) to attend the Climate Summit; get face time with big names in climate policy, politics, and activism; and cover the G20 from a perspective that puts global warming front and center, instead of off to the side of the recession or global trade policy.

So, let's set the scene: Coming into this week's meetings, the U.S. and 16 other of the world's largest emitters have already made a commitment (at July's Major Economies Forum in Italy) to hold global temperature increases to less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.8 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100. They also reiterated a goal from last year of "achieving at least a 50 percent reduction in global emissions by 2050," with industrialized nations slashing their greenhouse-gas pollution by 80 percent. But as of yet, the 17 nations have made no formal plan for how to get to any of these milestones.

Will this week's events help break through the logjam? Stay tuned as we find out.

from : guardian.co.uk

Afghanistan Is Not 'Obama's War'

2009-09-04T08:55:00.002+07:00

In his column for the Washington Post on Tuesday, the influential conservative George Will provided intellectual fodder for the campaign among some Republicans to hang the Afghanistan war around the Obama administration's neck. Washington, he wrote, should "keep faith" with our fighting men and women by "rapidly reversing the trajectory of America's involvement in Afghanistan." "Obama's war," a locution one is now beginning to hear from other conservatives, is an expression of discontent that has been smoldering beneath the surface for several months.

The weakening public support for continuing the counterinsurgency campaign is not surprising. In the midst of an economic crisis people are tempted to draw inward. Add to that a general war weariness in the U.S. and the fact that the Afghanistan war is not going well right now?violence in Afghanistan is already far worse this year than last?and you have the makings of an unpopular conflict.

But the case of conservative opposition to the war in Afghanistan?as well as increasingly in Iraq?is symptomatic of something larger: the long history of political parties out of power advancing a neo-isolationist outlook. For example, Democrats were vocal opponents of President Reagan's support for the Nicaraguan contras and the democratic government in El Salvador, the U.S. invasion of Grenada, the deployment of cruise and Pershing missiles in Europe, and the forceful stand against the Soviet Union generally.

Many Democrats were also uneasy with or outright hostile to the policies of President George H.W. Bush. That included strong criticisms of the U.S. liberation of Panama and widespread Democratic opposition to the first Gulf War, which only 10 Senate Democrats voted to authorize.

The tables were turned in the 1990s: Then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay called Kosovo "Clinton's war" and a majority of Senate Republicans voted against a bombing campaign, even after the Serbs had created half-a-million refugees in Kosovo and were on a path to destabilizing southern Europe. And, unlike today, this was not at a time of economic insecurity at home. Nor were we shouldering the military burden alone (18 other nations fought alongside us in the Balkans). Conservatives also argued that President Clinton's strikes against Saddam Hussein's Iraq in 1998 were meant to distract the nation's attention from the Monica Lewinsky scandal. In 2000, in a sharp rebuke of the Clinton administration's nation-building, Condoleezza Rice?then a top adviser to presidential candidate George W. Bush?said that the 82nd Airborne should not be walking kids to school.

In this decade, Democrats were fierce opponents of President Bush's Iraq policy, going so far as to declare the war lost and doing everything in their power to stop the surge?which turned out to be enormously successful?from going forward.

Our concern is that this tendency for the party out of (executive) power to pull back from America's international role and to undermine a president of the opposing party will gain strength when it comes to President Obama's policy on Afghanistan.

The president deserves credit for his commitment earlier this year to order an additional 17,000 troops for Afghanistan, as well as his decision to act on the recommendation of Gen. David Petraeus and Defense Secretary Robert Gates to replace the U.S. commander in Afghanistan with Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

These were tough and courageous decisions. The president's actions have clearly unsettled some members of his own party, who hoped he would begin to unwind America's commitment in Afghanistan. Mr. Obama not only ignored their counsel; he doubled down his commitment. There should therefore be no stronger advocates for Mr. Obama's Afghanistan strategy than the GOP.

The war in Afghanistan is a crucial part of America's broader struggle against militant Islam. If we were to fail in Afghanistan, it would have calamitous consequences for both Pakistan and American credibility. It would consign the people of Afghanistan to misery and hopelessness. And Afghanistan would once again become home to a lethal mix of terrorists and insurgents and a launching point for attacks against Western and U.S. interests. Neighboring governments?especially Pakistan's with its nuclear weapons?could quickly be destabilized and collapse.

Progress and eventual success in Afghanistan?which is difficult but doable?would, when combined with a similar outcome in Iraq, constitute a devastating blow against jihadists and help stabilize a vital and volatile region.

We also believe supporting the president's Afghanistan policy is politically smart for Republicans. For one thing, isolationist tendencies don't do well in American politics. Even in a war as unpopular as Vietnam, George McGovern's "Come Home, America" cry backfired badly. So has every attempt since then. There is no compelling evidence that the congressional GOP was politically well served in the 1990s by opposing intervention in the Balkans.

In addition, indifference or outright opposition to the war would smack of hypocrisy, given the Republican Party's strong (and we believe admirable) support for President Bush's post-9/11 policies, its robust support for America's democratic allies, and its opposition to rogue regimes that threaten American interests. Republicans should stand for engagement with, rather than isolation from, the world. Strongly supporting the president on Afghanistan would also be a sign of grace on the part of Republicans. We know all too well how damaging it was to American foreign policy to face an opposition that was driven by partisan fury against our commander in chief. Republicans should never do to President Obama what many Democrats did to President Bush.

Mr. Obama's policies shouldn't be immune from criticism; far from it. Responsible criticism is a necessary part of self-government. And we are particularly concerned about reports that retired Marine Gen. James Jones, Mr. Obama's national security adviser, told Gen. McChrystal earlier this summer not to ask for more troops and that the Obama White House is wary to offer what Gen. McChrystal says he will need to succeed.

We do believe, however, that Republicans should resist the reflex that all opposition parties have, which is to oppose the stands of a president of the other party because he is a member of the other party. In this instance, President Obama has acted in a way that advances America's national security interests and its deepest values. Republicans should say so. As things become even more difficult in Central Asia, it's important to keep bad political patterns we have seen before from re-emerging.

Mr. Senor is an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Wehner is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. They both served as officials in the administration of George W. Bush.

from : online.wsj.com

US disturbed by Iran defence job

2009-09-04T08:50:00.003+07:00

The US has said Iran is "taking a step backward" by appointing a cabinet minister suspected of terrorism.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad chose Ahmad Vahidi, wanted by Argentina over the deadly 1994 bombing of a Jewish centre, as his new defence minister.

Mr Vahidi was strongly supported by Irna's parliament, the Majlis, with 227 MPs backing him out of 286, Iranian Speaker Ali Larijani said.

The US State Department described the appointment as "disturbing".

"Iran today is taking a step backward by putting into a high office a well-known individual suspected of participation in a terrorist act," said state department official PJ Crowley.

"For Iran, it is sending precisely the wrong message."

US President Barack Obama has given Iran until later in September to agree to new talks on its nuclear programme, or face tougher sanctions.

The US said it had hoped that Iran would take "a step forward to engage" with the world, showing "a new approach".

Taking up his post, Mr Vahidi was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying: "All those who act against Iran will face the iron fist of the Iranian government, nation and armed forces."

Interpol has distributed Argentina's warrant for Mr Vahidi's arrest over the attack at the Israeli-Argentine Mutual Association (AMIA) of Buenos Aires in 1994, which killed 85 people.

The US supported Argentina's efforts to prosecute those responsible for the bombing.

At the time of the attack Mr Vahidi was the commander of a special unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guard known as the Quds Force.

Israel and Argentina had earlier condemned Mr Vahidi's nomination, with Buenos Aires calling it "an affront to the victims" of the bombing.

Iran has denied any involvement in the blast and says the case against it is politically-motivated.

World's oldest dog Dachshund Chanel dies aged 147

2009-09-02T16:27:00.001+07:00

The world's oldest dog, who loved chocolate and woolly sweaters, has died.

Chanel the dachshund passed away on Friday, aged 147 in "dog years", said her owners Denice and Karl Shaughnessy.

Chanel, 21 in human years, was given the world's oldest dog title by Guinness World Records at a birthday party in Manhattan last May.

The wire-haired bitch was walked every day but she also had some unhealthy habits.

She loved butter and chocolate. Denice said: "She once ate an entire bag of peanut butter cups and she lived to be 21, so go figure." She was also sensitive to the cold and liked to wear a jumper, said Denice.

The Shaughnessys attributed Chanel's longevity to a higher being. "Dogs are God's angels sent here to look out for us," she added. Rivals are already vying for Chanel's title, including Max, a dog in Louisiana whose owner claims is 26 - or 182 in canine years.

9,950 year old conifer in Dalarna, Sweden, is world's oldest tree

154 year old Fairy Queen in Delhi is the world's oldest steam engine

38 year old Cream Puff was oldest cat. It died in 2005 and was 266 in cat years

from : mirror.co.uk

Hurricane Jimena loses power on approach to Baja

2009-09-02T13:44:00.001+07:00

CABO SAN LUCAS, Mexico (CNN) -- Hurricane Jimena weakened Tuesday evening as the still-dangerous Category 3 storm closed on the Mexican peninsula of Baja California and the resort town of Cabo San Lucas.

The hurricane's maximum wind speed dropped from 125 mph to 115 mph (185 km/hr) over a six-hour period, according to the National Hurricane Center's 8 p.m. PT (11 p.m. ET) update.

"Gradual weakening is expected prior to landfall, with a more rapid weakening thereafter," the center said.

Jimena was moving toward the north-northwest near 13 mph (20 km/hr) and was centered about 90 miles (145 km) west-northwest of Cabo San Lucas and about 125 miles (205 km) south-southeast of Cabo San Lazaro.

"On the forecast track, the core of Jimena will be near or over the southern portion of the Baja California peninsula Wednesday and be near or over the central Baja California peninsula Wednesday night and Thursday," forecasters said.

Mexico's government extended a hurricane warning for most of the southern half of the Baja peninsula -- from Punta Abreojos on the peninsula's west coast to Mulege on its east coast, according to the hurricane center.

A hurricane warning means hurricane conditions are expected within the warning area in the next 24 hours and people should quickly prepare "to protect life and property."

"A dangerous storm surge along with battering waves will produce significant coastal flooding along the Baja California Peninsula," the hurricane center said.

In addition to damaging winds, the storm could bring up to 10 inches of rain to the peninsula and western Mexico, forecasters said.

On Tuesday, the skies in Cabo San Lucas were overcast and gusts of wind began to pick up. There were good waves for surfing, but popular beaches were devoid of tourists. Red flags warned people to stay out of the water.

The day before, airlines offered extra flights to leave the area.

Lionel Alvarez, who runs the resort hotel Las Ventanas al Pariaso in the town of San Jose del Cabo, found a silver lining to the coming storm.

"The wind is refreshing a little bit because of the high temperatures we've gone through in the past few days," he said.

But Alvarez, like other locals, had work to do in preparation for Jimena.

"We protect the property by dismantling all that could be dangerous, fly or can be broken," he said.

Authorities had asked about 10,000 people to evacuate the area, but many had decided to wait out the storm.

Cuauhtemoc Morgan, a resident of Los Cabos who sent videos to to CNN's iReport, said residents had protected every home in his neighborhood, fortifying windows with masking tape. Lines at supermarkets were long as residents prepared, Morgan said.

Authorities were setting up shelters in schools and trying to devise a plan to protect the homeless, he added.

from : edition.cnn.com

Iran reportedly ready to hold talks with West

2009-09-02T13:37:00.001+07:00

Teheran's top nuclear negotiator said his country is ready to hold talks with world powers to ease fears over its nuclear activities and has prepared a revised package of proposals for Western countries, state TV reported on Tuesday.

Despite the suggestion of possible international cooperation, the Iranian parliament sent a defiant message to the world by supporting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's nomination of Gen. Ahmad Vahidi as defense minister. Vahidi is under an international arrest warrant for the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in Argentina that killed 85 people.

Nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili told reporters of the country's new proposals a day before a meeting in Germany of the six countries trying to address concerns about Iran's nuclear program - the US, France, Britain, Russia, China and Germany (G5+1).

"Iran has prepared to present its revised package of proposals... and is ready to hold talks with world powers... in order to ease common concerns in the international arena," state television quoted Jalili as telling reporters.

In Jerusalem, Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said Iran must be judged by what it does, not what it says. He pointed out that an International Atomic Energy Agency report issued on Friday showed that while the Islamic republic had promised to cooperate with the nuclear watchdog agency and its supervisors, it had in fact hid important elements of its nuclear program from the international community.

Likewise, he said, "picking a terrorist as defense minister does not exactly signal a spirit of cooperation with the international community."

Another senior Israeli diplomatic official said the Iranians were doing little more than engaging in "brinkmanship," and that it had been clear they would signal an interest in negotiations just before the G5+1 meeting in a bid to buy time and push off sanctions for another three months.

Israel's position was that "crippling sanctions" should be applied now, regardless of whether the Iranians agreed to negotiate or not, the official said.

The US has given Teheran until the end of the month to take up an offer of nuclear talks with the six world powers and enjoy trade incentives should it suspend uranium enrichment activities. If not, Iran could face harsher sanctions.

Previously, Teheran said its new proposals deal with political and economic issues as well as security and international affairs, but did not say how it would address Western concerns that its nuclear program is a cover to build atomic weapons.

The US and its European allies want to draw Iran back into negotiations over its nuclear program. At the G-8 summit in Italy in July, President Barack Obama said there was a September "time frame" for Iran to respond to offers to discuss its nuclear program.

The five permanent members of the UN Security Council in addition to Germany offered the Islamic republic a modified package of economic incentives in June of last year in return for suspending its uranium enrichment activities - or else face harsher sanctions.

Iran has repeatedly vowed it will never suspend enrichment work, but said the incentives package has some "common ground" with Teheran's own proposals for a resolution to the standoff.

Senior US officials have speculated that the turmoil in Iran following the disputed June presidential election could distract its senior leaders from diplomacy over the country's nuclear program. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has supported Ahmadinejad during the crisis, but the pro-reform opposition continues to decry his reelection as fraudulent.

Khamenei's attempts to end the unrest have been complicated by conservatives who have joined the opposition in criticizing abuse against protesters and activists detained after the election. That anger has spilled over into the conservative-dominated parliament, where Ahmadinejad faces a difficult battle in getting lawmakers to approve his proposed cabinet ministers.

Lawmakers from both sides have accused Ahmadinejad of choosing many nominees who lack the necessary experience and are simply unquestioning loyalists. But the president received a welcome show of support on Tuesday when parliament praised his nomination of Vahidi as defense minister.

Vahidi is wanted by Argentina in the bombing of the AMIA Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires, and his nomination has drawn an outcry from the South American country, Israel and Jewish groups.

But Iranian lawmakers hailed him as a hero with cries of "Death to Israel" as he addressed the chamber on Tuesday. One reformist made a dramatic gesture by proclaiming to other legislators that he would drop his initial opposition to Vahidi.

"Because of the Zionist regime's ominous stance against Vahidi, I am not only foregoing my opposition, but will vote for him," state TV quoted Hadi Qavami as saying.

The widespread support raises the likelihood Vahidi will be confirmed as defense chief when parliament votes on the entire cabinet list on Wednesday.

Vahidi is one of five prominent Iranians sought by Argentina in the bombing, which killed 85 people. He was the commander of a special unit of the Revolutionary Guards known as the Quds Force at the time of the attack.

Iran has denied that Vahidi was involved in the attack. But Interpol said in 2007 it would help Argentina arrest Vahidi and the four other Iranians wanted in connection with the bombing.

from : jpost.com

Ex-Rep. Jefferson convicted of corruption

2009-08-06T07:10:00.002+07:00

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (CNN) -- Former U.S. Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana was convicted Wednesday on 11 of the 16 corruption charges against him in a case that included the discovery of $90,000 in his freezer.

A federal court jury convicted Jefferson on four bribery counts, three counts of money laundering, three counts of wire fraud and one count of racketeering. He was acquitted on five other counts including wire fraud and obstruction of justice.

Jefferson, a 62-year-old Democrat, was indicted by a federal grand jury on June 4, 2007, about two years after federal agents said they found the cash in his freezer. Authorities said the cash was part of a payment in marked bills from an FBI informant in a transaction captured on video.

Jefferson had pleaded not guilty. He faces a maximum possible sentence of 150 years in prison, with sentencing tentatively set for October 30.

After the verdict on the fifth day of jury deliberations, U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis turned down a prosecution request for Jefferson to be taken into custody, ruling that he posed no flight risk.

The verdict showed that "no person, not even a congressman, is above the law," said U.S. Attorney Dana Boente of the Eastern District of Virginia. Asked what might have turned the case in the prosecution's favor, Boente said: "We always thought that a powerful piece of evidence in this case was $90,000 in a freezer."

A stern-faced Jefferson emerged from the courthouse with his lawyer, Robert Trout, who said the verdict would be appealed.

"We're very disappointed that the jury disagreed with us," Trout said.

Asked how he was holding up, Jefferson smiled briefly and answered, "I'm holding up," before walking away.

Jefferson was accused of using his congressional clout between 2001 and 2005 to solicit and receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes for himself and his family in exchange for promoting products and services in Africa, especially Nigeria, and elsewhere.

The information on the cash discovered in Jefferson's Washington home in August 2005 was revealed in an affidavit used to obtain a warrant to search Jefferson's office in May 2006. Descriptions from the heavily redacted affidavit and pictures of the open freezer show bills wrapped in foil and tucked into frozen food containers, including a box for pie crusts and another for veggie burgers.

FBI agents told a judge the money was part of a $100,000 payment delivered by an informant in the bribery investigation, which led to guilty pleas by a Kentucky businessman and a former Jefferson aide.

Jefferson, who graduated from Harvard Law School, represented Louisiana's 2nd Congressional District, which includes most of the New Orleans area. He held office for 18 years, or nine terms, before he lost his House seat in the December 2008 election.

As a representative, he served on the House Ways and Means Committee's subcommittee on trade and on the Budget Committee, and he co-chaired the caucus on Africa Trade and Investment as well as the caucus on Nigeria.

From Paul Courson
CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/08/05/us.rep.trial/

Bill Clinton has quite a story to tell

2009-08-06T07:10:00.001+07:00

By Steve Holland - Analysis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - After his talks with reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, Bill Clinton sure has a story to tell.

And one of the first in line to hear his tale is President Barack Obama.

"I suspect that President Clinton will have some interesting observations from his trip and I will let him provide those to me," Obama told MSNBC on Wednesday.

The former president was chosen by the North Koreans from among four possible envoys proposed to them to try to gain freedom for two American reporters sentenced to 12 years of hard labor in North Korea.

Other candidates for the task were other prominent Democrats: New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry and the man who served as Clinton's vice president, Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore.

Thus, Clinton became the most senior American envoy to spend time face-to-face with Kim in nearly a decade.

Kim is ailing and is widely believed to have suffered a stroke in August 2008. There have been rumors about pancreatic cancer and uncertainty about who will succeed him.

North Korea-watchers in and out of the U.S. government are wanting to know how he looked, how he seemed and what he talked about.

Some analysts have speculated Clinton's visit could open the way to direct talks with the communist state over its nuclear weapons program.

"I think it'll be very interesting," said Republican Senator John McCain. "He's the first Westerner to see Kim since his reported stroke and other problems. I think former President Clinton will have some interesting information."

In the secret negotiations that led to the rescue mission, Clinton made clear to Obama administration officials he only wanted to go if he had some certainty that Americans Laura Ling, 32, and Euna Lee, 36, would be released to his custody.

"We considered the request carefully," said a senior administration official. "We tested directly with the North Koreans repeatedly. We sought and received North Korea's agreement in fact that a visit by President Clinton would secure the release of Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee."

'INCREDIBLE'

Clinton had a meeting with Kim for an hour and 15 minutes and a dinner with him that lasted about two hours. In Clinton's entourage were his former White House chief of staff, John Podesta, and Clinton's personal physician, Roger Band.

Asia expert Nick Szechenyi of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said the up-close look at Kim was probably one of the most fascinating aspects of Clinton's visit.

http://www.reuters.com/article/vcCandidateFeed7/idUSTRE5746SZ20090805

Negotiations over 'clunkers' stall in Senate

2009-08-06T07:08:00.000+07:00

WASHINGTON — Negotiations to save the dwindling "cash-for-clunkers" fund dragged out in the Senate on Wednesday, prompting Majority Leader Harry Reid to warn vacation-bound lawmakers they might be stuck in the Capitol a few more days if they don't pass a $2 billion replenishment for the car rebate program quickly.

The government said it had spent $775.2 million of the $1 billion fund through late Tuesday, accounting for nearly 185,000 new vehicles sold, with buyers receiving rebates of up to $4,500. President Barack Obama has said the program would go broke by Friday if not replenished by Congress.

That's the same day the Senate was to follow the House into a monthlong recess, a looming break that Senate leaders often use to prod their colleagues past standoffs.

Reid did just that on Wednesday, threatening to start a series of procedural votes that would eat into the coveted August break if Republicans and a handful of Democrats did not agree on whether to pass or change the replenishment approved last week in the House.

"I've indicated what ... we have to complete before we leave here and that's all dependent on what cooperation we get from the minority whether we finish (Thursday), Friday or Saturday," Reid said, adding that the Senate could potentially complete its work on Thursday.

There was every indication the Senate would approve the bill this week, but Reid said no votes would take place on Wednesday.

"We all acknowledge there's a significant majority that want to move forward with this legislation," said Reid, D-Nev., adding that he has the votes to approve the House-passed version, as is. His Republican counterpart, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, concurred that the matter would be settled soon. And objectors conceded they do not have the votes to force all of the changes they want, or to block the House version of the bill.

"My guess is, at the end of the day, it will pass," said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., who called it an example of "Congress choosing winners and losers among industries."

The program offers car buyers rebates of between $3,500 and $4,500 for trading in their gas-guzzlers for new, higher-mileage models.

The new funding would triple the cost of $1 billion rebate program and give as many as a half-million more Americans the chance to grab the new car incentives through September.

Car companies have credited the clunkers program with driving up sales in late July. Most consumers are buying smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles under the program, according to a list of the top-10 selling cars released Wednesday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Among manufacturers, General Motors Co. had the largest share, accounting for 18.7 percent of new sales, followed by Toyota Motor Corp. with 17.9 percent. Ford Motor Co. was third with 16 percent of the sales. Detroit automakers represented 45.3 percent of the total sales while Japan's Toyota, Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co. accounted for 36.5 percent.

The Toyota Corolla is the top-selling vehicle on the list, followed by the Ford Focus, Honda Civic, Toyota Prius and the Toyota Camry. There is one SUV on the list, the Ford Escape, which also comes in a hybrid model that can get up to 32 miles per gallon. Six of the top-10 selling vehicles are built by foreign manufacturers, but most are built in North America.

Among states, Michigan has taken most advantage of the program, requesting more than $44 million in vehicle vouchers. California dealers had requested nearly $40 million in vouchers, and Ohio had sought nearly $38 million.

Senate passage would send the legislation to the White House for Obama's signature and assure consumers there will be no interruption in the program that has led to packed car dealerships nationwide.

Republicans still were seeking changes that included capping the cost of the program or setting an end date for it, Thune said.

Democratic Sens. Tom Harkin of Iowa and Patrick Leahy of Vermont also voiced concerns, but no one was expected to try to block the bill's passage.
On the Net:

* Car Allowance Rebate System: http://www.cars.gov

By KEN THOMAS and LAURIE KELLMAN (AP)
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i_J2CDMBIZhobnHhGIYFCzqvR52wD99T0UUG1

Africa: Clinton Says United States Believes in Continent's Promise

2009-08-06T07:06:00.000+07:00

Nairobi — "We believe in Africa's promise. We are committed to Africa's future. We will be partners with Africa's people," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said August 5.

Addressing the opening ministerial session of the Eighth African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Forum, Clinton said the United States and Africa have "shared aspirations for greater economic growth and prosperity across the continent."

Clinton said on the first stop of her historic seven-nation trip that the journey underscores "the significance that President Obama [whose father was born in Kenya] and I place on enhancing the trade and commerce both between Africa and the United States but also within Africa."

Clinton recalled Obama's remarks in Ghana in June, in which he talked about shared responsibility. (See "Obama's Speech in Ghana.")

The flip side of that, she said, is "shared opportunity," and how the United States and Africa can work together to help realize the potential of Africa's 800 million people.

Africans must seize opportunities in the face of "stereotypes, clichés of poverty, disease and conflict," she told her audience.

"The continent has enormous potential for progress," she said.

"Africa is able and making economic progress" and is "ripe with opportunities," she said, but she readily acknowledged that the "economies of many countries have slowed or stagnated under the weight of the global recession."

She also acknowledged that there are still some African countries where some workers "earn less than $1 a day, where mothers and fathers die of preventable diseases, where children are too often schooled with guns instead of books, and where women and girls are mistreated and even raped as a tactic of war and greed and graft are the dominant currency."

The story that also needs to be told, she said, is that "many parts of Africa are rising to 21st-century challenges and following a road map that will turn Africa into a regional and global hub for progress and prosperity."

Clinton said she is looking forward to seeing those signs of progress during her upcoming Africa trip, which will take her from Kenya to South Africa, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Liberia and Cape Verde.

"There is so much that is going on that needs to be lifted up and spotlighted," she said.

She cited Rwanda as a country making "amazing" progress, with one of the fastest-growing economies and improving health indicators -- all done in the wake of its 1994 genocide, in which more than 800,000 died.

And "new innovations are already transforming lives and fueling economic growth," Clinton said.

"Farmers in both East and West Africa can click a button on their cell phone to check prices on dozens of crops. Pineapple farmers in Ghana are using PDAs [personal digital assistants] and bar-coding technologies to facilitate transport and increase crop yields. The new underwater fiber optic cable will enable hundreds of millions of people to have access to the Internet."

Although Africa missed the first Green Revolution, Clinton said, it now has the opportunity to create its own.

"There are so many concrete examples of the opportunities to be seized," she said.

Clinton discussed four key themes: trade; development; good governance and women.

On trade, Clinton said, "As Africa's largest trading partner, we are committed to trade policies that promote prosperity and stability," and she echoed President Obama's earlier remarks in Ghana that the United States wants to be Africa's partner and not its patron.

Today, she said, Africa accounts for 2 percent of global trade. But "if sub-Saharan Africa was to increase that share by only 1 percent, it would generate additional export revenues each year -- greater than the total amount of annual assistance that Africa currently receives."

The historic African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), passed by the U.S. Congress in 2000, implemented duty-free trade preferences for more than 6,000 African products. The law has "achieved demonstrable results," she said, "but not yet enough."

"We know it has not met its full potential," she said. But she pledged that the United States will work with Africa "to try to make that potential real."

"Market access alone is not sufficient," she said, because "in too many cases, African countries do not yet have the capacity to meet the needs of the U.S. market."

She called on African countries to make trade a greater priority in their development strategy and further open up and streamline regional trade.

On development, Clinton said the Obama administration intends to build the kinds of partnerships that will integrate assistance as a "core pillar" of U.S. foreign policy. The administration is "on a path to double foreign assistance by 2014," she said. However, the money will be spent differently, with emphasis on delivery of long-term results, she said.

"Development assistance linked to trade policy, will, we believe, fuel dynamic, market-led growth rather than perpetuate dependency," she said.

Clinton announced that efforts will take place in September, on the margins of the U.N. General Assembly meeting, to advance the global partnership for agriculture and food security.

On governance, Clinton said true economic progress depends not only on the hard work of millions of people, but also on "responsible governments that reject corruption, enforce the rule of law and deliver results to their people. It is not just about good governance. It is about good business."

"Democracy does deliver," she said, noting that a key ingredient of democracy is transparency. "A famous judge in my country once said that sunlight is the best disinfectant, and there is a lot of sunlight in Africa."

Clinton praised the many African governments that have embraced transparency by participating in the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. She called on both citizens and governments to work together to build and sustain strong democratic institutions such as an independent judiciary, a free press and a dedicated and professional civil service.

"Progress depends on good governance and adherence to the rule of law. That is critical to creating positive, predictable investment climates and inclusive economic growth," she added.

She said the United States is still working, after 230 years, to improve its democracy.

On women, Clinton said the social, political and economic marginalization of women across Africa has left a void that "undermines progress and prosperity every day."

Women are doing the work of the whole continent, she said, "gathering firewood, washing clothes, preparing meals, raising children, in the fields planting and harvesting -- and when given the opportunity to economic empowerment: transforming communities and local economies."

She called on all Africans to ensure that the rights of women are respected and protected and that women have the opportunity to help drive social and economic progress. That, she said, is a "moral imperative."

Women and men across the continent are "taking responsibility" and wanting partners, she said.

"They want partners with their governments ... the private sector ...with countries like my own. There is no reason to wait. The ingredients are all here for an extraordinary explosion of growth, prosperity and progress."

After Clinton's speech, President Obama conveyed his best wishes to the Eighth AGOA Forum via video, saying AGOA has transformed the U.S.-Africa trade relationship.

Also speaking at the opening ministerial were Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200908051002.html

Ahmadinejad takes oath as Iran's crisis continues

2009-08-06T07:04:00.000+07:00

CAIRO -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was sworn into office Wednesday, beginning a second term amid pointed questions about the legitimacy of Tehran's theocratic regime and no let-up in the crisis triggered by his election.

Ahmadinejad took his oath before the Iranian parliament in a ceremony that was boycotted by high-ranking detractors who have declared his June election victory a sham. Outside the building, thousands of security forces were dispatched to push back protesters who reportedly chanted "Death to the dictator!" and wore black to signify their mourning over another four years with Ahmadinejad at the helm.

Even as Ahmadinejad vowed Wednesday to "spare no effort to safeguard the frontiers of Iran" - a dig at his enemies in the U.S. and Europe - the real battle rages on the home front. The June elections unleashed the biggest popular uprising since the 1979 Islamic revolution, and even some of Ahmadinejad's conservative supporters have openly criticized the ensuing mass arrests of politicians, journalists and activists.

A court trial of about 100 opposition heavyweights was scheduled to resume Thursday, just 24 hours after the swearing-in. With defendants such as former Vice President Mohammad Abtahi and Mohsen Mirdamadi, a reformist leader who was one of the chief organizers of the 1979 hostage-taking at the U.S. Embassy, the public is witness to embarrassing confrontations among the very pillars of the post-revolutionary Iranian republic.

"It's not easy to accuse them of being enemies of the revolution because they are the children of the revolution," said Nevine Mossaad, an Iran analyst for a Cairo-based research institute affiliated with the Arab League. "It will be very difficult for Ahmadinejad to rule with all these giant symbols clustered against him ... It threatens the legitimacy of the regime."

A 15-part indictment charged the defendants with participating in riots, acting against national security, disturbing public order and associating with armed opposition groups, according to Iran's semi-official news services.

Few, if any, of those on trial have regular access to attorneys, and human rights groups have collected accounts of detainees being abused or coerced into false confessions of helping to stage a "velvet revolution," a reference to the kind of bloodless coup found in Eastern Europe's recent history.

In Iran, however, many of those charged with "counter-revolutionary activities" were only years ago in power, swearing fealty to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final authority over Iran's affairs.

Ahmadinejad didn't mention the court proceedings in his inauguration speech Wednesday, and he only briefly touched on the post-election turmoil, warning that his administration would "resist any violation of law and interference." Still, his tone was more conciliatory than at other recent appearances and he added that Iranians should "join hands as we move forward to fulfill our goals."

Opposition Web sites noted several empty seats belonging to members of Parliament who snubbed the ceremony. Two former presidents, who typically would attend such an event, and Ahmadinejad's election challengers also stayed away.

It's not just dissidents who are disenchanted with Ahmadinejad: He even has sparred with the supreme leader, to whom he ultimately answers, over Cabinet appointments. Among his harshest critics are the speaker of parliament, the mayor of Tehran and other prominent conservatives.

"His opponents do dislike him immensely," Seyed Mohammad Marandi, the head of North American studies at the University of Tehran, told Al-Jazeera International on Wednesday. "He's a divisive person, and although he has large numbers of supporters, among the political elite there are major differences, even among the 'principlists,' as they're called here, or the conservatives, as they're called in the West."

The fissures are far too complicated to be reduced to hard-line vs. reformist, and analysts said how Khamenei maneuvers out of the crisis could shape the future of the Islamic regime and the legitimacy of his own office. Options range from widespread purges of political opponents to some sort of power-sharing framework - all unpleasant choices for the senior cleric, who is unaccustomed to having his orders questioned.

"What is happening goes to prove that Iranian society is very much alive, very active and for the general overall direction of moving toward democracy," said Pirouz Mojtahed-Zadeh, a professor of political geography at Tarbiat Modares University in Tehran and the director of the Urosevic Research Foundation in London. "The shouting and screaming, at least on the surface, is about democracy. It is bound to have some effect on the way this country is governed for the next four years, even if Ahmadinejad is in charge."

(Special correspondent Miret el Naggar in Cairo contributed to this report.)

By HANNAH ALLAM
McClatchy Newspapers
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/world/AP/story/1173272.html

Plane wreckage found in Indonesia: airline

2009-08-04T15:03:00.000+07:00

JAYAPURA, Indonesia — Wreckage from a plane that went missing over Indonesia's rugged Papua region with 16 people on board was found Tuesday in dense jungle, an airline executive said.

Search and rescue teams are trying to land in the area by helicopter but there is little hope any passengers or crew, all Indonesians, will be found alive.

The Merpati Nusantara Airlines plane crashed into a mountain range Sunday as it flew from Jayapura to Oksibil.

"The tail of the plane was spotted at 6:00 am (2100 GMT)," Merpati chief director Bambang Bhakti said.

An airborne search team saw the wreckage near Ampisibil village in Bintang Mountains Regency, at a height of 2,850 metres (9,300 feet), he added.

The site of the crash is about 37 kilometres (23 miles) south of Oksibil.

Indonesia relies heavily on air links across the archipelago but its safety record is one of the worst in Asia and accidents are common.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iWIkExdh3Gk__ElArn1erIfM_xMA

Pakistani Christians: Police did not stop carnage

2009-08-04T15:02:00.000+07:00

GOJRA, Pakistan — Almas Hameed grabbed his 7-year-old daughter and stumbled out of their smoke-filled home as she pleaded in vain to bring her pet parrots. His wife, father and two other children did not survive.

Outside, hundreds of enraged Muslims called the victims "dogs" as they fired guns and burned house after house in the Christian neighborhood of this eastern Pakistani city. The weekend rampage left eight Christians dead. All but one were relatives of Hameed.

"We always live in fear," said Hameed, 50. "I wonder if I will see a time in this country when I can live like an equal citizen."

The attack, which Pakistani officials said was incited by a radical Islamist group, followed rumors that some Christians had desecrated a Quran — an act regarded as sacrilege by Muslims. The violence drew condemnation Monday from the prime minister and the pope, a chilling reminder of how religious extremism has left minority religious groups in this country increasingly vulnerable.

On Monday, paramilitary troops patrolled near the dozens of targeted houses, with their blackened walls, charred furniture, and twisted ceiling fans. Six people died in the fires, two by gunshots.

Authorities urged calm and promised that local police would be investigated for their inability to stop the violence, which spiraled even after an initial probe debunked the rumor that a Quran had been defiled.

"It was like hell. Nobody was coming to help us," said Atique Masih, a 23-year-old Christian who was shot in his right leg.

Christian schools across the country closed for three days starting Monday.

"We are closing the schools to show our anger and concern," Bishop Sadiq Daniel told The Associated Press, emphasizing the move was a peaceful tactic. "We want the government to bring all perpetrators of the crime to justice."

In a telegram, Pope Benedict XVI said he was "deeply grieved" to hear of the "senseless attack."

Benedict sent his condolences to families of the victims and called on the Christians "not to be deterred in their efforts to help build a society which, with a profound sense of trust in religious and human values, is marked by mutual respect among all its members."

Christians — Protestants and Catholics among them — make up less than 5 percent of Muslim-majority Pakistan's 175 million people, according to the CIA World Factbook. They generally live in peace with their Muslim neighbors.

Extremists, however, have made Christians and other minority religious groups a target. Earlier this summer in the Kasur area, for instance, Muslims set fire to dozens of Christian homes, according to local news accounts.

The anti-minority phenomenon seems to be getting worse as Taliban militancy has gained strength.

In March, the Taliban issued an ultimatum to the leaders of more than 25 Sikh families in a tribal region near the Afghan border: Convert to Islam and join the jihad or pay 5 billion rupees — roughly $62 million — for protection.

Gojra, a small city about 220 miles southwest of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, lies in a region dotted with hard-line Islamist schools.

The anti-Christian riots began Thursday and reached their peak Saturday, when Hameed's home was torched.

Officials said the carnage was spearheaded by members of the banned Sunni Muslim extremist group Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, which more frequently targets minority Shiite Muslims.

Its offshoot, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, is linked to the Taliban and al-Qaida, and was believed involved in the beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and two failed assassination attempts against former President Pervez Musharraf.

Minority Rights Group International, a watchdog organization, ranked Pakistan last year as the world's top country for major increases in threats to minorities from 2007 — along with Sri Lanka, which was engaged in a civil war. The group lists Pakistan as seventh on the list of 10 most dangerous countries for minorities, after Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Myanmar and Congo.

Christians and other minority religious groups in Pakistan are especially vulnerable to discriminatory laws, including an edict against blasphemy that carries the death penalty for derogatory remarks or any other action against Islam, the Quran or the Prophet Muhammad.

Anyone can make an accusation under the law, and it is often used to settle personal scores and rivalries.

In Gojra, Hafiz Mohammad Shahbaz, a prayer leader at a mosque, said police briefly detained a Christian in the Quran defilement case but later set him free. That caused concern among the Muslim community, he said.

Shahbaz alleged that a peaceful rally of Muslims to protest the incident was passing by the Christian neighborhood Saturday when the Christians fired shots at its participants. "That triggered the violence," he said, calling the killing that ensued un-Islamic.

Hameed, however, said mosque prayer leaders on Saturday stirred the pot by calling for every Christian to be killed. Christians repeatedly sought police help but to no avail, he said.

Federal Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti said Monday that the government would rebuild the burned homes and offer financial assistance to victims. Bhatti criticized the police's slow response and promised they would be held accountable. He also said a weeklong celebration of minority rights planned for later this month was canceled.

Many local residents said they were in shock over the violence.

"We really regret these killings. I can assure that no one from this city could ever think of killing non-Muslims," said Mohammad Naseer, a grocer who has lived in Gojra for 47 years and insisted the attackers must have been outsiders.

Hameed said his daughter, Aashi, was being treated for burns in the hospital.

In the courtyard of their gutted home lay two wooden-made bird cages.

The parrots were gone.

Dogar reported from Gojra, and Shahzad from Islamabad. Associated Press writer Ashraf Khan also contributed to this report from Karachi.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
By BABAR DOGAR and ASIF SHAHZAD (AP)
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hkiMxbHNH0BqgpWA2ZG6VD6wVTmAD99RL3N80

On Russian street: Lieberman's woes less newsworthy than TA attack

2009-08-04T15:00:00.000+07:00

Last week's killings at the gay and lesbian club in Tel Aviv is getting far more attention among the Russian-speaking community here than the police recommendation its leading politician, Foreign Minister and Yisrael Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman, be indicted for money laundering and graft.

The reasons why this should be so are unclear. True, the investigation of Lieberman has been going for a long time, over a decade, and then there's the calm Lieberman himself displayed over the news. For now, the main reaction on the Russian street is no reaction. The usually lively Russian-language blogs offer little comment on the case, and even the Internet news sites largely make do with terse reports.

The community is very unlikely to assert automatically that Lieberman is innocent, as it once did whenever a prominent Russian-speaker faced legal proceedings. Following the high-profile cases against former prime minister Ehud Olmert and former finance minister Abraham Hirchson, it is harder for Russian-speakers to accuse the police of targeting Russian immigrants in particular.

That is not to say that Lieberman will not try to make this claim, and he might have some success. After the police announced their recommendation on Sunday, he refused to speak with the Hebrew-language media, but he did grant an interview to a Russian-language television station - still his home turf. His trump card is the length of the investigation. That is a type of alleged abuse with which Russian immigrants can sympathize.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1105055.html

Bill Clinton on N Korea mission

2009-08-04T14:59:00.000+07:00

Former US President Bill Clinton has arrived in North Korea on a surprise visit, apparently to discuss the fate of two jailed US reporters.

He is the highest-profile American to visit since his own secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, went there in 2000.

No official reason for his trip has been given, but analysts say he will try to free Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who were recently jailed for 12 years.

He may also try to ease the deadlock over the North's nuclear ambitions.

The last visit to North Korea by a former American president - Jimmy Carter in 1994 - led to an important step forward in nuclear negotiations during an otherwise tense period.

Tensions are also high now. In addition to the reporters' detention, North Korea has recently conducted a string of nuclear and missile tests in defiance of repeated calls from the UN Security Council.

Flowers

Mr Clinton landed in Pyongyang in an unmarked jet and was greeted at the airport by North Korean officials, including chief nuclear negotiator Kim Kye Gwan and Yang Hyong Sop, vice president of parliament.

As he stepped down from the plane, a little girl came forward to present him with a bouquet of flowers.

No information was given before the visit, and neither the US nor North Korea have released an itinerary.

But there is speculation Mr Clinton might see leader Kim Jong-il, whom analysts say is eager to improve relations with Washington as he prepares to name a successor.

Mr Kim is thought to have suffered a stroke a year ago, and also has chronic diabetes and heart disease. Analysts say his third son is already being lined up to take over power one day.

The main aim of Mr Clinton's trip is likely to be to try to free the two American reporters currently held in Pyongyang.

"As soon as he arrives, he will be entering negotiations with the North for the release of the female journalists," South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted a source as saying.

Political pawns?

Laura Ling and Euna Lee were found guilty of entering North Korea illegally across the Chinese border in March, and sentenced to 12 years' hard labour.

They were arrested by North Korean guards while filming a video about refugees for California-based internet broadcaster Current TV.

According to North Korea's state news agency KCNA, the two reporters have admitted entering the country illegally.

But the women's families have always claimed that Lee, 36, and Ling, 32, had no intention of crossing into North Korea.

They fear the two reporters may become political pawns in negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang, amid growing tensions over North Korea's nuclear programme.

Last month, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton - Bill Clinton's wife - requested an amnesty for the women, asking that they be allowed to return home.

Former releases

This is not the first time a senior US statesman has gone to North Korea to negotiate for the release of American citizens.

In 1994, then-congressman Bill Richardson - now governor of New Mexico - helped negotiate the release of Bobby Hall, one of two pilots of a US army helicopter shot down after straying into North Korea.

Two years later he negotiated the release of Evan Hunziker, who was detained on suspicion of spying after swimming the Yalu river border.

The last former US president to visit Pyongyang was Jimmy Carter, who visited Kim Jong-il's late father Kim Il-sung in 1994 under Mr Clinton's presidency.

That visit is credited with helping push through a breakthrough accord a few months later.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8182716.stm

Philippines coup plotters salute 'brave' Aquino

2009-08-04T14:57:00.001+07:00

MANILA — Military officers who launched seven bloody coup attempts against the late Philippine president Corazon Aquino on Tuesday paid tribute to their one-time foe, praising her bravery in the face of gunfire.

Aquino's quiet resolve and unflinching courage, coupled with her steadfast belief that everything could be resolved with dialogue were among the reasons why threats against her government failed, they said.

"It was hard not to like Cory," said retired navy commodore Rex Robles, who as a young colonel was among a group of officers who turned against Aquino after her "people power" revolution toppled dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986.

Robles recalled that in one of the coup attempts that he co-led with ex-colonel and now Senator Gregorio Honasan, he and his fellow officers wavered at the last minute.

"I asked Greg, if we manage to penetrate Malacanang (presidential palace), what do we do with her? If she extends her hand and tells us she wants to talk to us, what do we do then?," Robles said.

"We would surely lose, Greg said, because all of us would readily surrender to her," he said.

"Her aura was her armour. You couldn't possibly hurt her. She was well mannered and she was very sincere," he said. "She was brave in a very quiet way."

Robles, now a mining consultant and a security analyst, said he first met Aquino two months before the revolution that swept her to power.

"She just looked like an ordinary lady. She did not dress particularly well. She was plain looking but well groomed," Robles said.

Aquino died on Saturday after more than a year battling cancer. She is to be buried Wednesday.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gJ6tMp6ippexyTpUCyGbcyWkIWUg

Pakistan Valley Tries to Heal, and Fears Dark Battles Ahead

2009-08-03T09:31:00.000+07:00

MINGORA, Pakistan — Schools have officially reopened. Soldiers stand guard at checkpoints and have established a semblance of order. Many thousands have returned here to a town that is mostly intact, if still under a military presence.

But Mingora, a battle-scarred city in the Swat Valley, remains tense. Pakistan’s efforts to restore normalcy — a vital test of the government’s resolve to stand up to the Taliban — waver between fear and hope, leaving an enduring victory over the militants a distant goal.

Beneath the surface of relative calm, there is the sense that a new and more insidious conflict may be afoot, one that could take many months to play out before the fate of this once-prosperous region is ultimately decided.

On Sunday morning, a body, hands bound with rope and shot in the back of the head, lay on the sidewalk of a main road. A note pinned to the shirt and written in Urdu gave the victim’s, Gul Khitab, and said he was from Matta, one of the remaining Taliban strongholds. “Enemy of Swat,” it read.

Rumors abound of other bodies being dumped in the last two weeks, a signal that the army may be prepared to use extrajudicial killings to settle scores. A government employee, Murad Ali, who peered at the body, said he had seen three bodies, shot in the head, lying in similar fashion in the past six days.

Asked about the identity of the man, an army commander who stopped to look, and then moved on, said with a grin, “Maybe a bad guy.” A military spokesman, Maj. Nasir Khan, said the army was unaware of the death and did not condone extrajudicial killing.

If no one knew precisely what to make of the body, it was a clear enough sign that the conflict in Swat was not over.

To the fear and frustration of those who suffered at their hands, the top Taliban leaders remain on the loose. Taliban fighters have melted away to the periphery of Swat or to neighboring areas, like Dir, leaving soldiers and civilians alike filled with dread of when — and how — the insurgents would return.

On Friday, warning shots could be heard, as jittery soldiers, worried about suicide bombers, patrolled on with hair triggers.

Three months after the Pakistani military began its offensive, many among the more than one million displaced have returned, expecting calm but still uncertain whether the military can guarantee it.

The failure to kill or capture Taliban leaders has left many here suspicious that the military is not serious about taking on the Taliban. To allay fears, the military has publicly presented four teenage boys who it says were captured by the Taliban and placed in a training camp with more than 100 other boys, all of them hostages.

The boys said they were lectured by a trainer on how the army was an “infidel” organization filled with “apostates.” The four boys said they escaped in less than two weeks.

For the moment, the military’s presence is tolerated. But the fact that soldiers are holed up in schools — the prestigious Sarosh Academy is being used as a prison for Taliban militants — does not make people happy, either.

The western part of the city remains barricaded. The many requirements to secure the peace — functioning courts and other government services — seem months away.

“One year — we’ll be lucky if we get this under control,” Atif ur-Rehman, the district coordinating officer who is one of the senior government officials in Swat, said in the garden of his residence on a hill above the town.

Mr. Rehman, the point man for foreign donors who are beginning to line up with plans for reconstructing Swat, said the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank were assessing needs based on the damage to buildings, roads and bridges after two years of periodic fighting between the militants and the army, and the three-month offensive.

The United Nations planned to help restore health and education services. The United States Agency for International Development had also offered to help.

“Their mode of working is slower than the government of Pakistan,” Mr. Rehman said of his meeting with officials at the American agency.

Whether these foreign aid programs can be done fast enough to satisfy the people who are most vulnerable to the lure of the militants is a pressing concern.

By JANE PERLEZ and PIR ZUBAIR SHAH
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/03/world/asia/03swat.html?hp

Ford to post U.S. sales rise in July from year-ago

2009-08-03T09:28:00.002+07:00

DETROIT (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co will report its U.S. sales for July rose from a year ago on a late-month surge under the federal government's "Cash for Clunkers" incentive program, senior U.S. executives said on Sunday.

The July increase marks Ford's first year-over-year monthly rise since November 2007, just before the U.S. economic downturn began, and the first increase for any of the largest automakers since the start of the financial crisis a year ago.

The result is "important to Ford, but it is also a very good indication for the economy," Ford U.S. sales chief Ken Czubay said in a telephone interview.

"It was a deep hole that the entire economy was in," Czubay said. "We may not be out of the hole, but we are seeing very encouraging signs in July."

Ford, the only U.S. automaker that has not restructured in bankruptcy with federal funding, has consistently outperformed the other six largest automakers in the U.S. market this year, with less severe sales declines than its rivals amid the lowest vehicle sales rate in nearly three decades.

"The beginning of July was firming up for us and then a week ago last Friday the government's 'Cash for Clunkers' program kicked in and there was a substantial increase in business and that kicked us over the top," Czubay said. "We don't know about the others, but we do know that we are going to have an increase year over year."

The "Cash for Clunkers" program took effect on July 24, a week before the end of the July sales period. Automakers will report their July U.S. sales on Monday.

The "Cash for Clunkers" program provides consumers payments of up to $4,500 for the purchase of a new car when an older vehicle is traded in for a more fuel-efficient one. The initial $1 billion of funding could cover 222,000 to nearly 286,000 vehicles.

Ford will also report its first year-over-year retail sales increase since July 2007, supported by sales of more fuel-efficient vehicles, chief sales analyst George Pipas said.

"You are going to see large gains in almost every Ford product that is powered by a four-cylinder engine -- the Focus, the Fusion, Fusion Hybrid, the Escape small utility and its hybrid version, the companion Mercury products -- that is where the demand was, particularly this past week," Pipas said.

July's monthly U.S. seasonally adjusted annualized sales rate is expected to be the strongest of 2009, though weak by historical standards.

Czubay said the annualized rate, a figure economists use, was expected to be "well into" the 10 million unit range.

Automakers sold about 13.2 million light vehicles in the United States in 2008, a sharp decline from more than 16 million sold in 2007, but sales rates plunged further in the first half of 2009 to an annualized rate as low as 9.1 million in February.

"No one is happy with a 10-plus (million unit annual rate), but it's a solid indicator for the economy that we are into the double-digits," Czubay said.

The sales downturn has left Ford burning cash and helped push its rivals General Motors and Chrysler into bankruptcy.

By David Bailey
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE5711TM20090802

Most Japan Stocks Rise on Bank Profit Outlook; Casio Slumps

2009-08-03T09:28:00.001+07:00

Aug. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Most Japanese stocks rose, led by banks, after Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. reported a jump in first-quarter profit. Casio Computer Co. and Fujifilm Holdings Co. slid after posting losses.

Mitsubishi UFJ, the nation’s largest listed bank, advanced 4.6 percent. Smaller rival Resona Holdings Inc. climbed 3.7 percent. Nissan Motor Co. added 5.2 percent after unveiling its first electric car. Casio, Japan’s first maker of waterproof mobile phones, dived 5.3 percent, while Fujifilm sank 3.2 percent.

“Banks’ earnings are solid, given they set aside substantial reserves for bad loans,” said Tomochika Kitaoka, a senior strategist at Mizuho Securities Co. in Tokyo. “People are concerned the market has risen too fast and too high.”

The Nikkei 225 Stock Average was little changed at 10,354.26 as of 10:10 a.m. in Tokyo. The broader Topix index rose 6.03, or 0.6 percent, to 956.29, with two shares gaining for each that fell.

The Topix is headed for a 12th day of gains as better-than- expected results from U.S. and Asian companies led to improved investor confidence. Companies on the gauge traded at 1.23 times their corporate net worth, a level not seen since September 29, according to data compiled by Nikkei Inc.

Mitsubishi UFJ jumped 4.6 percent to 592 yen. Net income jumped 48 percent to 75.9 billion yen ($801 million) in the three months to June 30 because of rising lending income and a gain in stockholdings.

Nissan Gains

Resona, Japan’s most profitable bank last year, climbed 4.3 percent to 1,458 yen. First-quarter net income declined by a third as one-time gains inflated earnings a year earlier. The bank said separately it agreed to buy back preferred shares from Bank of America Corp.’s Merrill Lynch & Co. and will sell common stock to the U.S. company for 103.2 billion yen.

Banks as a group contributed the most to the Topix’s advance, followed by carmakers.

Nissan, Japan’s No. 3 automaker, rose 5.2 percent to 725 yen. Chief Executive Officer Carlos Ghosn said yesterday electric cars will account for at least 10 percent of global vehicle demand by 2020, depending on conditions. The company plans to sell its electric car, the Leaf, in the U.S., Japan and Europe next year.

Casio Computer Co. Ltd. slid 5.3 percent to 736 yen. The company posted a net loss in the first quarter, as sales of digital cameras and mobile phones dropped, the company said.

Fujifilm, the world’s biggest maker of film used in liquid- crystal-display panels, declined 3.2 percent to 2,990 yen, breaking a five-day winning streak. The company swung to a net loss in the first quarter from a year-earlier profit. The stronger yen and weaker demand hurt earnings, the company said.

Nikkei futures expiring in September slid 0.1 percent to 10,360 in Osaka and dipped 0.1 percent to 10,355 in Singapore.

To contact the reporter for this story: Masaki Kondo in Tokyo at mkondo3@bloomberg.net; Toshiro Hasegawa in Tokyo at thasegawa6@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: August 2, 2009 21:25 EDT

By Masaki Kondo and Toshiro Hasegawa
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=a1VqDwDvr_Sg

Nissan Rises in Tokyo After Displaying Electric Car (Update2)

2009-08-03T09:21:00.000+07:00

Aug. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Nissan Motor Co., Japan’s third- largest automaker, rose to the highest in 10 months after displaying its first electric car, aimed at a market it anticipates will be larger than hybrids.

Nissan gained as much as 6.5 percent to 734 yen and traded at 733 yen as of 10:28 a.m. on the Tokyo Stock Exchange today. It was the highest since Sep. 29.

Nissan Chief Executive Officer Carlos Ghosn said yesterday electric cars may account for at least 10 percent of global vehicle sales by 2020. Nissan has failed to match the popularity of Toyota Motor Corp.’s Prius hybrid and Honda Motor Co.’s Insight, and is betting demand for emission-free cars will offset the restrictions of limited range.

“Investors are jumping to Nissan after it actually unveiled the much-awaited car,” said Koichi Nishi, an equity strategist at Nikko Cordial Securities Inc. “Products that fulfill the promise of environmental-friendliness are encouraging.”

The company plans to sell its electric car, the Leaf, in the U.S., Japan and Europe next year. Nissan’s new electric car can travel 100 miles on a full charge and can seat as many as five people. The car’s lithium-ion battery pack can be fully recharged at a 200-volt outlet in eight hours, or in less than 30 minutes from a so-called fast-charge station, according to Nissan. In contrast, hybrids can refuel at conventional gasoline stations.

U.S. Loan

Nissan aims to use a $1.6 billion U.S. loan to retool a factory in Tennessee so battery-powered cars can be made on the same line that currently produces hybrids and other models. The automaker will also receive grants and loans from the U.K. and Portugal to build factories for lithium-ion batteries. The company hasn’t disclosed the amount of aid it will receive from the two European governments.

The Japanese automaker has said it will have the capacity to produce 200,000 electric vehicles in the U.S., 100,000 in Europe and 50,000 in Japan. Nissan and partner Renault SA, which owns 44 percent of the Japanese carmaker, plan to offer electric vehicles in the U.S. and Japan starting in 2010 and globally in 2012.

To contact the reporter on this story: Kiyori Ueno in Tokyo at kueno2@bloomberg.netTetsuya Komatsu in Tokyo at tekomatsu@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: August 2, 2009 21:34 EDT

By Kiyori Ueno and Tetsuya Komatsu
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aLC7FCSbP09U

Cory Aquino’s Gift

2009-08-03T09:20:00.000+07:00

When Corazon Aquino addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress in 1986, she could have crowed over her role in the Phillipines’ remarkable and peaceful transition to democracy after years of authoritarian rule. Instead she summed up the event this way: “Last year, in an excess of arrogance, the dictatorship called for its doom in a snap election. The people obliged. With over a million signatures they drafted me to challenge the dictatorship. And I obliged.”

Aquino, who died Saturday at age 76 from colon cancer, was a self-described “plain housewife” who never aspired to enter politics. Yet she always believed in that most powerful of political truths: that personal freedom is a moral right. After her husband, opposition leader Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., was assassinated in 1983, she took up his mantle. Her courage served as an example to democracy activists from South Korea to Eastern Europe to Latin America—and matters still for oppressed peoples from Iran to Cuba.

The Philippines was then run by Ferdinand Marcos, who used the threat of Communist unrest in the 1970s to extend his elected Presidency with martial law. Along with his wife Imelda, Marcos became famous for “crony capitalism,” and the economy stagnated even as the rest of East and Southeast Asia began to prosper. Marcos jailed Ninoy Aquino and, under pressure from the Carter Administration, exiled the Aquinos to Boston in 1980.

Ninoy returned to Manila three years later under military guard and was shot as he exited the plane. The murder ignited a public revolt that slowly gathered support from across Philippine society—including the Catholic Church and the business leaders of Manila’s Makati district. When Marcos agreed to hold an election in 1986, Cory Aquino united the fractious opposition and ran against him. After Marcos tried to nullify the vote, peaceful protests known as “people power” dominated the streets of Manila and captured the world’s attention, like the recent protests in Iran.

Marcos threatened a crackdown, but he was abandoned by his top military advisers and warned against violence by an envoy from President Reagan. He quickly went into exile in Hawaii. The event showed that, while elections alone can’t topple an autocrat, stolen elections can galvanize opposition like few other events. U.S. pressure at that stage was crucial, as along the way were the Philippines’ diverse civil society and relatively free press.

Aquino’s presidency was notable mainly for consolidating Philippine democracy despite repeated coup attempts. Her administration wrote and passed a new constitution and, despite numerous pleas that she stay on past her term, she successfully passed power to another elected leader, former general Fidel Ramos.

Her attempts at economic reform were less successful, especially after the suicide of her reform-minded finance minister, Jaime Ongpin. The Philippines has still never unleashed the full economic potential of its creative people thanks to multiple government barriers and corruption. Too many of its young people feel they must seek opportunity abroad.

The country’s democracy remains tumultuous and, more than most, subject to cults of personality and family feuds. Aquino herself backed a people-power movement to oust former President Joseph Estrada in 2001. Current President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has tried to engineer a way to remain in office past the end of her legally mandated term next year. Filipinos could find no better way of honoring Aquino’s brave legacy than through another peaceful, and constitutional, transfer of power.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204619004574325361454410636.html

Afghanistan Violence Raises Concerns About Election Security

2009-08-03T09:17:00.000+07:00

In Afghanistan, concerns are growing about security for the country's presidential election later this month amid an increase in violence. At least nine NATO troops have died in clashes with insurgents in Afghanistan over two days, and militants have stepped up attacks on election candidates and their staff. The top U.N. official in Afghanistan said any comprehensive effort to end the violence would have to include talks with top-level Taliban leaders.

The killing of more than 70 foreign soldiers in July made it the deadliest month for the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan. But there is no let up in the bloody trend in August as the country prepares to hold its second presidential election since the removal of the Taliban from power in 2001.

NATO officials say that armed militants in an eastern Afghan region attacked U.S troops on Sunday, soon after hitting their convoy with a roadside bomb. The clash left three American soldiers dead. Six other troops, including three Americans, were killed Saturday.

Authorities say Taliban extremists and their allies are behind increased attacks on election-related activities across the country.

The latest attack took place on Saturday, when suspected Taliban militants ambushed a convoy carrying Afghan President Hamid Karzai's campaign workers. The attack killed one guard and wounded two others.

Last week, President Karzai offered peace talks to Taliban militants who are prepared to renounce violence. Mr. Karzai's offer was echoed by U.S. and British officials, who called for the reintegration of Taliban fighters into Afghanistan's political system, if they renounce violence and extremism.

At a news conference in Kabul on Sunday, the U.N. Special Representative in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, said peace talks should include top Taliban leaders.

"If you want relevant results, you have to talk to those who are relevant," he said. "If you only have a partial reconciliation process, you will have partial results. If you do want a comprehensive peace process, it is not enough to talk to commanders on the ground. It is a political process, and I think you also have to approach the more political structures of the insurgency movement."

The U.N envoy did not name any insurgent leaders, such as fugitive chief of the Taliban insurgents, Mullah Omar. The militant leader has rejected previous offers of peace talks by President Karzai, saying no dialogue can take place while U.S-led coalition forces are present in Afghanistan. But Mr. Karzai has dismissed this demand, saying the presence of international troops is in the interest of his country.

While expressing concerns over alleged irregularities and Taliban attacks on those taking part in the election, U.N. Representative Eide, said the presidential election is most challenging for both the Afghans and the international community.

"First of all, this is a country in a conflict. Secondly, it is a country with weak institutions, and it is a country with weak infrastructure and very high illiteracy rate," he said. "It is the most complex election, I have ever witnessed. This being said, it is my assessment that, what we have seen is by and large a dignified political campaign. We have never witnessed such a vibrant political debate in this country. And, we have never seen such involvement by the public as we have seen during these few weeks."

The stepped up militant violence also comes as U.S.-led forces are engaged in a major offensive in southern parts of the country aimed at improving security ahead of the August 20 election, with President Karzai seen as the front-runner from among as many as 40 candidates.

By Ayaz Gul
Islamabad
http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-08-02-voa19.cfm

After Tenenbaum, who will take back the music industry from the RIAA?

2009-08-01T09:44:00.000+07:00

Because the Joel Tenenbaum trial hasn't been maddening enough, Engadget yesterday had a little item on how the RIAA is claiming that customers ought to just suck it up and accept that DRMed tracks will go poof even if they've been paid for, since no other products or service providers are expected to "provide consumers with perpetual access to creative works." That's interesting coming from a group that claims that alone of all industries, copyright holders somehow deserve to get paid in perpetuity for their output. I guess forever looks a lot longer when it includes server-maintenance duties.

If anyone's got a more enlightened response than "oy" to the Tenenbaum trial's result, I'm all ears. I respect Professor Neeson's legal acumen, and having fair use taken off the table just hours before the trial was probably not a setback from which any legal team could have recovered, but looking over the past year's proceedings -- the defense's push to make its processes open and transparent, the sustained effort to get the trial shown live on the Web, all that -- I wonder if we'd all have have been better off if both Tenenbaum, and Jammie Thomas before him, had simply rolled over.

No, I do not support the RIAA's extortion racket.

I think the recording industry is a culture-gutting abomination, and that the entire outfit ought to be torched like Rome during a Nero violin recital. Whatever figure the jury arrives at, the artists Mr. Tenenbaum loves will never see a cent of it; after over a century of treating most artists like sharecroppers, "the industry" takes the droit de seigneur approach to windfall profit.

Music is so much more than the music industry, and for the sake of music -- the transmission of it, the longevity of the worthwhile stuff -- I hope the industry which treats one of humankind's most powerful communication devices and repositories of memory like so much chattel withers and dies.

Now that distribution is a non-issue, A&R guys, vice-presidents of promotion, global distribution managers -- to all of the ranks that stand between us and the artists...

Buh-bye, hope an honest day's work happens to you someday.

The courtroom, however, is not a venue for accomplishing that goal, and I've come to the conclusion that Joel Tenenbaum was ill-served by the attempt to make it otherwise. It's simply not built to do that.

The record-industry representatives insinuated during testimony that any desirable track was easily available online. That's a pantload, but unless Neeson's team was prepared to prove it untrue, it's testimony they couldn't challenge. (Had anyone asked, I'd suggest trying to find the complete catalog of The Connells online as an exercise in how "easily available" stuff is, but hey.)

The courts aren't the place to conduct our battle against the music industry; they've got good lawyers while all we consumers have are good ears and good sense. The legislative branch is perhaps our only remaining hope to fix the legal nightmare that copyright has become. And yes, I am painfully aware that the US Congress is a clown college when it comes to parsing this stuff. But we've written ourselves, legally speaking, into a corner. Even the most activist of judges isn't going to get us out, no matter how strong the moral appeal.

I am also painfully aware that file sharing is having a cultural effect not unlike Prohibition did back in the day. Circumvention efforts lead to security holes; disdain for one set of laws opens up disdain for others, and the public is forced to choose between seeming unethical (for file-sharing) and seeming stupid (for believing what they're told about file-sharing and handing over its cash). Protip: No one chooses to look stupid. Result: Sharing will continue, and thrive, hamstringing potentially better delivery mechanisms (in the way that bad money invariably drives out good) and ensuring that journalists will always have stories to write about litigation that ruins some random music fan's life.

The real leaders in this, ironically, are the world's unacknowledged legislators -- that is, the poets, or in this cases the lyricists and musicians. The musicians who choose to avoid the industry and sell directly to fans; the artists who post tracks for download and set up fair means of (again) purchasing directly; the radio stations that eschew RIAA-beholden music in favor of independent fare; and most importantly every one of us who decides that there's better stuff to listen to than whatever's being shoved down the foie-gras-feeding-tube of Clear Channel / RIAA / music television / People magazine -- these are the forces of nature now.

Years ago I sat in on a panel of teenagers being queried about their downloading habits, and one of the boys said that he used to download but didn't much anymore, because he had everything he wanted and didn't think he'd need anything else. I smiled, because even the most backward adult usually finds at least an artist or two to like after 17. But I wonder sometimes how that worked out for him -- if he's still downloading and exploring, or if he let his obvious fear of the power of the music industry undercut what should be a lifelong source of joy.

I hope he's out there taking advantage of good DRM-free services such as Lala, checking out tracks on the music blogs, and maybe directly sponsoring the next recording due out from a favorite artist or two.

Most of all I hope he's not letting a group of vampires calling itself the music industry take away from him enjoyment of music. That's what Professor Nesson was trying to explain to that Boston jury -- that the enjoyment of music is, or should be, bigger than this passing "industry" situation. He didn't succeed. That doesn't mean he was wrong -- just that he was in the wrong place.

Let your geek flag fly.

http://www.betanews.com/article/After-Tenenbaum-who-will-take-back-the-music-industry-from-the-RIAA/1249082637

Myanmar delays Aung San Suu Kyi verdict

2009-08-01T09:41:00.000+07:00

Reporting from Bangkok, Thailand, and New Delhi -- A court's decision Friday to postpone the much-awaited verdict in a politically sensitive case against opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi fits into a broader pattern by Myanmar's military rulers of using timing, leverage and blunt force in the interest of political survival, analysts said.

Suu Kyi, 64, faces up to five years in prison on charges of harboring an American who swam across a lake in May and stayed for two days at her home, where she is under house arrest. Foreign governments and human rights groups say the charges are politically motivated. President Obama has called the proceedings a "show trial."

Lawyers for the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner expressed hope that the delay meant the court was carefully considering their arguments. They maintain that Suu Kyi's government-appointed guards are responsible for security and access to her home, not her, and that the charges are based on laws no longer in effect.

Analysts said the delay probably was part of an effort to keep critics guessing. "We don't know what is going to happen next," said an activist in Myanmar who asked not to be identified because of the risk of reprisal. "But today's move is a real twist."

A crowd had gathered Friday outside the courthouse in a Yangon prison, amid heavy state security. Diplomats flew into the country for the verdict. And human rights activists had prepared their sound bites for an expected conviction, only to be told to check back Aug. 11.

"They're very smart," said David Mathieson, Thailand-based researcher with Human Rights Watch who covers Myanmar, also known as Burma. "It's like [the film] 'Ground Hog Day.' "

The intruder, John Yettaw, 53, from Missouri, also is being held. A verdict in his case has been postponed, as well.

Delaying the Suu Kyi verdict serves the regime in a couple of ways, analysts said.

It allows authorities to crack down further on domestic opponents and get through a sensitive anniversary, which could bring people into the street. Aug. 8 marks the 21st anniversary of major protests Suu Kyi led against military rule.

Approximately 28 pro-democracy activists were rounded up Thursday night around the country, according to Burma Partnership, a pro-democracy alliance based in Thailand.

The generals may fear that a guilty verdict and Suu Kyi's imprisonment will fuel riots.

"They seriously think there will be an uprising if they imprison Daw Aung San Suu Kyi," said Linn Aung, deputy secretary of the Forum for Democracy in Burma, an exile group based in Thailand, using an honorific for the pro-democracy leader.

The move also fits with the regime's usual delay tactics when faced with foreign criticism.

"Foreign attention span is always limited," said Myo Myint Maung, a Burmese student in Singapore. "They're testing limits and hoping to wear down international pressure."

Another element affecting the regime's decision-making appears to be a desire to bolster its claim to legitimacy at home and abroad, despite saying it doesn't care about its international reputation. It wants to maintain the appearance of a system governed by the rule of law, many outside experts say, even though all key decisions are made by Senior Gen. Than Shwe and a small inner circle.

This need to appear rule-based has constricted its maneuvering room. Suu Kyi has spent 14 of the last 20 years under house arrest. Even by its own regulations, Suu Kyi should have been freed from the latest 6-year stretch, on May 27. However, the term was extended for six months "for her own safety."

Further complicating the regime's position is its pledge to hold an election next year, its first in two decades.

Suu Kyi is barred from running, but even public appearances by her could have an enormous effect on voters and bolster support for other pro-democracy candidates.

"If they can sentence her criminally, they get her out of politics," said Khin Ohmar, Burma Partnership's coordinator. He said the protests led by Buddhist monks in 2007 caught authorities off guard and "they're very scared of another movement."

Unused to criticism at home, Myanmar's military rulers may have underestimated resistance to pursuing criminal charges, said David Steinberg, a Burma expert at Georgetown University. They also know that if any harm befalls her, they'll be blamed.

"If something where to happen to her, there could be revolution in the streets," he said.

Despite her soft voice and small stature, Suu Kyi is a formidable adversary for the reclusive generals, analysts said.

The daughter of a national hero, Suu Kyi has pedigree, charisma and is one of the few people who could pull the nation's diverse regions, interests and tribal communities together, analysts said.

"She's a very frustrating figure for them," said Ko Pauu, a blogger and Burmese exile living in Singapore. "She can inspire younger Burmese to follow in her footsteps. And they also have to worry about the thinking of their own younger soldiers."

McDermid is a special correspondent.

mark.magnier@latimes.com

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-myanmar-suu-kyi1-2009aug01,0,3687458.story

Dealers warned off Cash for Clunkers

2009-08-01T09:40:00.000+07:00

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Despite the Obama administration's promises that any Clunker deals written this weekend would be honored, the National Automobile Dealers Association is advising its members to play it safe and not close any more deals until the program's fate is clearer.

"Regarding auto sales this weekend, one possible alternative is for dealers to take deposits in lieu of consummated sales with an eye toward legislative success next week," NADA spokesman Charles Cyrill wrote in an e-mail.

The House of Representatives allocated $2 billion more on Friday to continue the program after it apparently burned through its original $1 billion budget in the week since its official July 24 start date. The measure faces opposition in the Senate, however.

"We could have a legislative conclusion very quickly with the promise of more money for the program," Cyrill said later by telephone. Until that's settled, he said, the dealers' organization is recommending that dealers proceed with caution.

Since the rules of the program require dealers to render traded-in vehicles permanently inoperable before applying for their rebates, dealers whose applications are not honored could be left with no money and no vehicle to sell.

Under the plan as enacted, vehicles purchased after July 1 will be eligible for refund vouchers worth $3,500 to $4,500 on traded-in gas guzzlers. The trade-in vehicle has to get a combined city and highway fuel economy rating of 18 miles per gallon or less.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/31/autos/nada_no_deals/

Final House Panel Approves Health Reform Bill

2009-08-01T09:39:00.000+07:00

WASHINGTON -- A key House panel approved its version of major health care reform package Friday night, setting the full House up for a debate on the legislation after its August recess.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee, which voted Friday, was the last of three panels to approve a health bill. The vote, 31-28, was made possible by a deal brokered earlier this week between Democratic leaders and conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats, though health reform legislation still is being held up in one Senate committee.

The Blue Dogs wanted to dial back a "public option" where the government offers health care for Americans. They also sought protections for small business owners and significant cost reductions.

All but five Democrats on the committee voted for the plan. The other Democrats, Reps. Charlie Melancon of Louisiana, Bart Stupak of Michigan, Rick Boucher of Virginia, Jim Matheson of Utah and John Barrow of Georgia joined all Republicans in opposing the legislation.

House Democrats intend to spend August selling the health care bill to the public. They hope the effort will enable them to call a vote on the measure before the whole House in September.

Republicans, on the other hand, intend to use August to gin up opposition to the plan.

Just before the final vote, both Democrats and Republicans stood to give a standing ovation to Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., for whom the bill is named. Dingell is the most-senior member of the House, starting his career in the 1950s. Dingell's father preceded him in the House and worked on approving health care reform in the 1940s.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/07/31/final-house-panel-approves-health-reform/

Islamist death 'good for Nigeria'

2009-08-01T09:36:00.000+07:00

A Nigerian government minister has expressed relief at the death of an Islamic sect leader, Mohammed Yusuf.

Yusuf's body was shown to journalists on Thursday just hours after police said they had captured him.

Human rights campaigners alleged he had been executed, but police said on Friday that he died in a shoot-out following days of bloody fighting.

Information Minister Dora Akunyili told the BBC that the government "does not condone extra-judicial killings".

The militant group led by Yusuf has been blamed for days of violent unrest in which hundreds of people died in clashes between his followers and security forces.

His group - known as Boko Haram or Taliban - wants to overthrow the Nigerian government and impose a strict version of Islamic law.

The bullet-riddled body of Mohammed Yusuf, 39, was seen hours after police announced he had been captured in the northern city of Maiduguri.

The BBC's Bilkisu Babangida says the city is returning to normal, with shops and banks re-opening.

She says many residents are happy that Mr Yusuf is dead.

'Shocking'

Information Minister Dora Akunyili told the BBC's Network Africa that she was concerned about the death and that the government would find out "exactly what happened".

However Mohammed Yusuf's demise was "positive" for Nigeria, she added.

"What is important is that he [Yusuf] has been taken out of the way, to stop him using people to cause mayhem."

She accused Mr Yusuf of "brainwashing" youths to cause trouble.

Ms Akunyili praised the security forces, saying they had managed to stop the violence spreading even further and that normality was returning to the region.

Human Rights Watch staff said there should be an immediate investigation into the case.

"The extrajudicial killing of Mr Yusuf in police custody is a shocking example of the brazen contempt by the Nigerian police for the rule of law," said Eric Guttschuss, of the New York-based rights group.

Another Human Rights Watch researcher, Corinne Dufka, told AP news agency: "The Nigerian authorities must act immediately to investigate and hold to account all those responsible for this unlawful killing and any others associated with the recent violence in northern Nigeria."

'Trying to escape'

Troops had stormed Boko Haram's stronghold in the north-eastern city of Maiduguri on Wednesday night, killing many of the militants and forcing others to flee.

Mr Yusuf was arrested the following day after reportedly being found hiding in a goat pen at his parents-in-law's house.

Later, a BBC reporter in the city was among journalists shown two films - one apparently showing Mr Yusuf making a confession, the other showing what appeared to be his body, riddled with bullets.

"Mohammed Yusuf was killed by security forces in a shoot-out while trying to escape," the regional police assistant inspector-general, Moses Anegbode, told Nigerian television.

A spokesman for the state governor was also quoted as saying that Mr Yusuf had been trying to escape.

One policeman told AFP news agency Mr Yusuf had "pleaded for mercy and forgiveness before he was shot."

'Inspirational'

The violence began on Sunday night in Bauchi state, before spreading to other towns and cities in the northeast of the West African nation.

Crowds of militants tried to storm government buildings and the city's police headquarters, but dozens of them were shot dead by security forces.

Several days of gun battles between militants and Nigerian security forces ensued, culminating in the assault on the militant's stronghold.

It is thought more than 300 people have died in the violence - some estimates say 600, although there has been no official confirmation.

The Red Cross said about 3,500 people had fled the fighting and were being housed in their camp.

Witnesses and human rights groups have accused the military of excessive violence in quelling the militants, but the army says it used a minimal amount of force.

Police say Mr Yusuf was a preacher from Yobe state, who had four wives and 12 children.

They described him as a inspirational character.

His sect, Boko Haram, is against Western education. It believes Nigeria's government is being corrupted by Western ideas and wants to see Islamic law imposed across Nigeria.

Sharia law is in place across northern Nigeria, but there is no history of al-Qaeda-linked violence.

The country's 150 million people are split almost equally between Muslims in the north and Christians in the south.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8177681.stm

Arroyo Calls for the Release of Burmese Dissident

2009-08-01T08:45:00.000+07:00

Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo called Friday for the immediate release of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, saying that Burma should demonstrate whether it has a legitimate hold on power by accelerating a "road map" to democracy and by permitting the full participation of Suu Kyi's party in elections.

"The best way to find out [whether the government is legitimate] would be to accelerate the road map and have elections being conducted in an atmosphere and an environment in which Aung San Suu Kyi and her party are able to participate fully," Arroyo said in an interview. "It would help to promote human rights, democracy and peace and stability in the region."

Burma, also known as Myanmar, is regarded as one of the world's most oppressive nations, run by generals who have enriched themselves while much of the country remains desperately poor. The National League for Democracy, Suu Kyi's party, won a landslide electoral victory in 1990, but the military leadership refused to accept it. Since then, she has been under house arrest for most of the time, as have hundreds of her supporters. The government has also used brutal tactics against its ethnic minorities, employing gang rape as an instrument of war.

In May, just days before Suu Kyi's six-year term under house arrest was due to expire, the government put the 64-year-old democracy activist on trial for an incident involving a U.S. citizen who swam across Rangoon's Lake Inya to reach Suu Kyi's lakefront bungalow. Suu Kyi was taken to the notorious Insein Prison on charges of violating the terms of her detention by hosting a foreigner. A verdict was due to be announced Friday, but judges postponed the verdict until Aug. 11, citing a need to review the case.

Intense international pressure has been placed on the government regarding Suu Kyi. The Philippines has been among the countries most vocal in its concerns about human rights violations in Burma. It helped raise the issue at the United Nations and at the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Arroyo, who met with President Obama at the White House on Thursday, said that the two leaders had an extensive discussion on the situation in Burma and that the United States and the Philippines "are on the same page." The Obama administration has conducted a review of its Burma policy, suggesting that a tough approach has not yielded much progress, but the review has been on hold pending the outcome of Suu Kyi's trial.

Although the Philippines does not have the clout to impose sanctions on Burma, "the United States has a very strong influence on many countries that in turn influence Burma," Arroyo said. "I hope that given the continued commitment of the United States to human rights in Burma that concerted action can become stronger."

She added that she and other members of her government have urged Burmese officials to examine how the Philippines, also a multi-ethnic country, has emerged from military rule and created a democracy, saying it was a "paradigm" that could be followed.

Arroyo also said that greater attention should be paid to human rights abuses in North Korea. "North Korea's nuclear adventurism needed to be addressed," she said, but the "people are suffering while they are rattling their nuclear saber."

Next year, the Philippines will chair a panel charged with updating the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and Arroyo said Manila hoped to play a helpful role in ending the nuclear standoff with Pyongyang.

By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/31/AR2009073102160.html?hpid=topnews

Judge rejects sheik spokesman Keysar Trad's defamation claim

2009-07-31T17:42:00.000+07:00

KEYSAR Trad, the longtime spokesman for Muslim cleric Sheik Taj bin al-Hilaly, has been described as "racist" and "offensive" by a judge who today rejected his defamation claim against radio station 2GB.
Mr Trad sued the top-rating Sydney station in the NSW Supreme Court after presenter Jason Morrison described him "gutless" and " just trouble" for his conduct at a rally after the Cronulla riots in December 2005.

Mr Trad's comment about the "shame of tabloid journalism' caused the crowd to boo and harass a 2GB journalist near the stage.

The reporter told Mr Morrison he feared for his safety, prompting the presenter to deliver his tirade the following morning, in which he also described Mr Trad as "disgraceful and dangerous individual who incited violence, hatred and racism."

In August 2007, a jury found Morrison had defamed Mr Trad but Justice Peter McClellan found for 2GB in the second - or defence - phase of the trial that was heard in May, saying the statement were true and also protected as comment based on fact.

"There is little doubt that many of the plaintiff's remarks are offensive to Jewish persons and homosexuals," Justice McClellan said in his judgment.

"Many of his remarks are distasteful and appear to condone violence.

"I'm satisfied that the plaintiff does hold views which can properly be described as racist.

"I'm also satisfied that he encourages others to hold those views. In particular he holds views derogatory of Jewish people.

"The views which he holds would not be acceptable to most right-thinking Australians."

Mr Trad, who founded the Islamic Friendship Association, faces up to $400,000 in court costs and there are question marks over his credibility after Justice McClellan's scathing judgment.

During the trial he was subjected to close scrutiny about his public profile as Sheik Hilaly's right-hand man and he frequent statements he made to "clarify" the controversial views of the cleric.

These included comments that women who dressed provocatively were "uncovered meat" inviting the attention of rapists. Mr Trad suggested Hilaly was "talking about people who engage in extramarital sex."

Neither Mr Trad or Mr Morrison were at Sydney's Supreme Court to hear the judgment.

Outside court, a representative for Mr Trad said he planned to appeal. Parties are due to meet again next Thursday to discuss costs.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25861728-2702,00.html

One-child policy debate reignited in China

2009-07-31T17:30:00.000+07:00

SHANGHAI: Analysts say recent media attention reflects a struggle between demographers alarmed by a shrinking workforce and ageing population and officials clinging to the mindset that China has too many people.

Shanghai nurse Lu Ming wants a second baby but it is not China's one-child policy that is holding her back.

If anything, she is being encouraged to increase the size of her family as the city faces the challenge of providing for its ageing population.

Last week it reminded couples such as Lu and her husband - both of whom are only children because of the policy - that they are eligible to have a second child.

Comments by Shanghai family planning director Xie Lingli published on the front page of the government-run China Daily were initially seen as a signal that the controversial one-child policy was about to be relaxed after 30 years.

However, days later a report by China's official Xinhua news agency quoted Xie as saying she was simply stating rules that had been in place for years and that Shanghai never pursued measures that parted from national policies.

Yet for young university-educated mothers such as Lu, who said she was aware of the policy exceptions for having a second child, government officials' words alone mean little in the face of the rising costs of raising a bigger family.

"I had one child and now I want to have a second one," the 31-year-old said.

"But not every family can afford to have a second child," she added.

"To raise a second child you have to take all the financial costs into consideration, otherwise it's not responsible."

"The fact this caused such a media storm shows the wind is blowing the other way and it's about time," said Wang Feng, a sociology professor at the University of California, Irvine.

"It's a monumental decision that China has to face: what to do about a policy that came out as an emergency measure and was supposed to last for only a generation," Wang said.

Regardless of whether China decides to phase out the one-child policy, population decline is inevitable after more than 15 years of fertility rates below the replacement level of 2.1, Wang said.

The government has yet to understand that young career-minded women and rising living costs signal demographic trends similar to those in Western Europe, and birth rates will fall even further, Wang said.

"China needs to realise there is a demographic crisis quickly in order to prevent it from deepening," he said.

Even though the rules for having a second child are not new, by publicly encouraging people to take advantage of them Shanghai officials may be trying to counter propaganda tilted towards encouraging only one child, he said.

"Having a second child is often portrayed as if it's a sign of backwardness and not contributing to the country's goal of controlling population growth," Wang said.

A senior Shanghai district family planning official insisted that encouraging eligible couples to have a second child had been going on for nearly five years since new exceptions to the one-child policy were introduced.

Couples are asked a series of questions when they register to marry to determine if they can have more than one child, the official said, declining to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.

She provided a bright booklet distributed in Shanghai since 2005 which spells out who is eligible to have a second baby, with children's book-style illustrations showing a young father with two children hanging off his arms.

Conditions include one of the couple being disabled, one working on a fishing boat at sea for five years, and one being an only child from a rural household.

Urban couples who do not meet the criteria but have a second child nonetheless, are fined the equivalent of three times the per capita income in their city, the booklet said.

The fine for a Shanghai couple, based on 2008 figures, would be about 80,000 yuan (US$11,800) - a price wealthy families are often willing to pay.

But in a Shanghai park bouncing her six-month-old grandson on her knee, 51-year-old Huang Yuanxiang said that, for most of the younger generation, the biggest barrier to having more than one child is economic.

For her grandson to prosper, he will have to go to good schools that cost money.

"In my generation, none of us was rich and things were not expensive so it cost little to have more than one child," she said. "We didn't face the same financial burden as they do."

- AFP/yb

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/445972/1/.html

Brumby strikes $3.5bn desalination plant deal

2009-07-30T20:19:00.000+07:00

VICTORIA claims to have pulled off the biggest public-private partnership in the world since the global financial crisis with the announcement of the successful tenderer for the $3.5 billion desalination plant.
The AquaSure consortium - comprised of French company Degremont, local constructor Theiss and financier Macquarie - has won the right to build the plant.

Premier John Brumby praised the consortium for coming up with the finance in the middle of the global financial crisis and said the plant would put Victoria on the road to removing water restrictions.

The cost of the plant has blown out by $400 million from $3.1 billion to $3.5 billion but Mr Brumby said the money was being used to supply extras such as fully underground power and broadband cabling for the Kilcunda region, southeast of Melbourne, where the plant will be built.

The plant, to be finished by 2011, is expected to deliver 150 billion litres of water a year, depending on demand.

Under the PPP model, the government can purchase blocks of water from 50, 75, 100, 125 and up to 150 billion litres a year.

The plant is also configured to be easily expanded to 200 billion litre a year capacity if the 13-year drought and climate change in southeastern Australia continue.

Infrastructure experts said the deal was being watched by investors worldwide and its success would help unfreeze capital for a range of other infrastructure projects.

The plant will be comfortably Australia’s largest. The $2 billion Sydney desalination plant will produce a little over half the output, or 85 billion litres, once it is fully operational in 2011/12.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25857560-2702,00.html

Thai PM warns against royal pardon petition for Thaksin

2009-07-30T20:17:00.000+07:00

BANGKOK: Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva on Thursday warned supporters of ousted leader Thaksin Shinawatra against signing a petition for a royal pardon that might allow him to return from exile abroad.

Backers of the former leader, who fled Thailand last August to escape a two-year jail term for corruption, are trying to gather one million signatures to present to the country's revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

But Abhisit said a royal pardon could be sought only by Thaksin himself, or his relatives, and only once he had served at least part of his sentence. Thaksin was toppled in a military coup in 2006.

"The royal pardon should be his (Thaksin's) own individual initiative or that of his family members and it's not reached that stage because Thaksin has not yet served the sentence," Abhisit told reporters.

"It's not possible for people to sign up to seek a royal pardon," he said, adding that those behind the document were "manipulating innocent people."

"We have to be cautious because these masterminds have complicated matters and people could fall victim to their provocations," he said.

State-owned television is to run a segment with a legal expert late Friday to remind the public that it was improper to involve the monarchy in politics, a government minister said later.

Thaksin said in a March interview that he had written three letters to the king seeking to be allowed home.

The billionaire's so-called "Red Shirt" supporters have said they will rally on Friday night in Bangkok and announce the number of signatures before submitting the petition to the royal household.

They launched the campaign last month following months of sometimes violent street protests and political conflict in Thailand between supporters and foes of Thaksin.

Twice-elected Thaksin still enjoys huge support among Thailand's poor, particularly in rural northern parts of the country, but is hated by the Bangkok-based elites.

Thaksin is currently being tried in absentia on a separate corruption charge relating to US$2.2 billion of funds that were frozen by an anti-graft body soon after the coup.

Thailand's royal family is treated with almost religious adulation and protected by strict defamation laws.

- AFP/yb
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/445738/1/.html

Doctor focus of Jackson inquiry; chef talks about singer's last day

2009-07-30T20:13:00.000+07:00

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Michael Jackson's cardiologist is the central focus of a federal investigation into the singer's death, a law enforcement official told CNN on Wednesday.

While authorities have subpoenaed the records of various doctors who have treated Jackson over the years, "Dr. [Conrad] Murray is the only one we're looking at," the federal law enforcement official said.

The disclosure was among several developments Wednesday in a story that continues to gather steam more than a month after the death of the pop icon on June 25.

Also Wednesday:

• Jackson's personal chef, Kai Chase, recounted the day the singer died and how Jackson's children and his staff gathered in a circle to pray for him.

• Jackson's father, Joe, acknowledged that a 25-year-old Norwegian performer is Jackson's son -- even as the man himself denied the relationship in various news reports.

• Jackson's estate is worth at least $200 million, a source with knowledge of the estate's dealings told CNN.

Murray and the drug investigation

Despite the comment from the federal law enforcement official, Murray's lawyer does not think an arrest is imminent because autopsy results into Jackson's death are pending.

Police have interviewed Murray twice since Jackson's death. Murray's lawyer, Ed Chernoff, said his client is ready to talk to investigators again, but a meeting has not been scheduled.

Murray has consistently denied that he prescribed or administered anything that could have killed Jackson.

A source told CNN on Monday that the Texas-based cardiologist allegedly gave Jackson the anesthetic propofol -- commonly known by the brand name Diprivan -- in the 24 hours before he died.

On Tuesday, investigators searched Murray's home and office in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Chernoff said he won't comment on "rumors, innuendo or unnamed sources."

Meanwhile, Murray failed to make a payment of $15,000 on his $1.65 million home in January and has racked up debt since.

If he does not make a payment by mid-August, he will lose his home to foreclosure, a spokeswoman confirmed.

"He was to be paid $150,000 a month by Michael Jackson," the spokeswoman said. "He was not [paid] by AEG, the tour promoter, or Jackson, for the two months he worked for them. So he's low on money."

Murray has been beset by financial difficulties since graduating from medical school.

He filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in 1992 and accumulated $44,663 in state tax liens in Arizona and California from 1993 until 2003, according to court documents.

He has also has been hit with several judgments related to unpaid bills, child support payments and defaults on education loans.

On Wednesday, CNN learned that Murray was arrested on a charge of domestic violence disorderly conduct in Tucson, Arizona, in 1994.

Murray's then-girlfriend accused him of having an affair and threw something at him, Tucson law enforcement officials said. Murray allegedly pushed the woman down.

The doctor was acquitted five months after the incident.

The day Jackson died

The first sign that something was amiss on the day Jackson died came shortly after noon, said Jackson's chef, Kai Chase, in a first-person account to "Larry King Live."

Murray would usually come down to the kitchen about 10 a.m. to get Jackson something to eat or drink. But that day -- June 25 -- he didn't.

"I thought maybe Mr. Jackson's rehearsal time had been pushed back and he was sleeping late," Chase said.

About five to 10 minutes after noon, Murray ran down the stairs, screaming, "Hurry, get Prince (Jackson's eldest son), get security," Chase recounted.

"Clearly, something was very wrong," she said. "I instantly felt the energy in the house change. It was normally a warm, happy home. In an instant that feeling was gone. The mood became very unsettling."

Security guards rushed by; the housekeepers cried. Paris, Jackson's 11-year-old daughter, was screaming, "Daddy, daddy," Chase said.

"This was their father -- the only person they have in the world. We weren't told what was going on, but you could feel things were very bad," Chase said.

"We eventually gathered everyone together in a circle -- the three kids, all the staff -- and we prayed: 'God, please let everything be OK with Mr. Jackson.'"

An hour later, security officials told employees to leave the house, saying Jackson had been hospitalized.

"We still didn't know what was happening, but the sight of a stretcher in the foyer of the house earlier told me things were not good," Chase said. "Still, I didn't learn of Mr. Jackson's death until later that day on the radio."

Chase said Jackson was a great father, letting the children stay up late, watching movies and eating popcorn, but ensuring their days were fairly regimented, with time set aside for study, theater and dance.

"The house was always filled with games, laughter and music," she said. "This makes what happened on June 25th all the more difficult."

Chase will appear on CNN's "Larry King Live" Thursday to talk more about her experiences as Jackson's chef.

Joe Jackson: Jackson had another son

In an interview with the Web site NewsOne, Jackson's father, Joe, said the singer had another son, a 25-year-old Norwegian performer, Omer Bhatti.

"Yes, I knew he had another son. Yes, I did," Joe Jackson said. "He looks like a Jackson, he acts like a Jackson, he can dance like a Jackson. This boy is a fantastic dancer. As a matter of fact, he teaches dancing."

At Jackson's memorial service this month, Bhatti was seated in the front row between the pop star's father and sister.

CNN has been unable to confirm the relationship. And Bhatti has told various media outlets that he and Jackson were close friends.

Battle brews over Jackson's will

Jackson's estate is worth at least $200 million and could amount to much more, an informed source told CNN on Wednesday.

Earlier this month, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge granted control of Jackson's assets to the executors of his will: John Branca, Jackson's longtime personal attorney, and John McClain, a music industry executive and longtime friend.

A third executor, accountant Barry Siegel, recused himself. Jackson's mother, Katherine, now wants the judge to install her in the open slot.

The judge has scheduled a hearing on Monday.

"The question is, will all this get resolved on Monday, when there is a hearing?" said CNN legal analyst Lisa Bloom. "Or will this blow up into a huge dispute between Katherine and the executors?"

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Music/07/30/michael.jackson.wrap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

Iranian Police Move to Break Up Mourning Ceremony

2009-07-30T20:05:00.000+07:00

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Riot police officers ordered the Iranian opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi to leave a contentious mourning ceremony on Thursday commemorating those killed in the unrest after Iran’s disputed presidential election, news reports said.

Quoting unidentified witnesses, news reports said Mr. Moussavi went to the Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery in Tehran to commemorate the dead, including Neda Agha-Soltan, a young woman who was shot to death in post-election violence. Amateur video showing her bleeding to death rapidly became a global icon of resistance to the electoral victory claimed by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad after the June 12 elections.

News reports said hundreds of people gathered around Ms. Agha-Soltan’s grave as Mr. Moussavi arrived at the cemetery. He approached the grave, but the police forced him to return to his car before he could offer prayers. He drove off as arguments broke out between mourners and police, these reports said.

Other reports said the police arrested mourners and tried to force them to disperse.

Thursday was a day of unusual symbolic importance because 40 days have passed since the shooting of Ms. Agha-Soltan. The 40th day marks an important Shiite mourning ritual, and similar commemorations for dead protesters fueled the demonstrations that led to the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

On Wednesday, the authorities said more detainees who had been arrested in the post-election crackdown would soon be freed but also that 20 protesters charged with serious crimes would be put on trial, starting this weekend.

There were new arrests, including those of two prominent reformists, Saeed Shariati and Shayesteh Amiri, opposition Web sites reported. Separately, an “underground network providing foreign media outlets with photos and footage of the post-election unrest” was identified and its members arrested, the state-run Press TV reported, citing security forces.

The report said that the network was made up of “pro-reform extremists” and that at least two members had confessed to providing images of the unrest to Western news media in an effort to “stage a regime change” in Iran. The Iranian leadership has blamed foreign news outlets for encouraging the riots and rallies.

On Tuesday, the authorities released 140 detainees, amid accusations that jailed protesters had been tortured and killed. Prominent conservatives and senior clerics have joined the opposition in denouncing the abuses, and the release of the detainees appeared to be part of a government effort to defuse the issue.

Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, a dissident and one of Iran’s most senior clerics, issued a fierce statement on Wednesday on his Web site, saying the government’s closing of one notorious detention center was not enough. “Was the shah able to resist the protests by jailing, torturing, extracting confessions and lying?” he said, referring to the fall of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in the 1979 revolution.

There were more conciliatory gestures from the government on Wednesday, with Iran’s top police official, Brig. Gen. Ismail Ahmadi-Moqaddam, saying some officers “went to extremes” and caused damage during the post-election protests, Press TV reported. The prosecutor general of Iran, Ayatollah Qorban-Ali Dorri-Najafabadi, said that more detainees would soon be released and that a “serious judicial inquiry” was being conducted into prison deaths after the election, Iranian news agencies reported.

But the authorities have also said that their clemency is limited, and that protesters who crossed the line will be punished. The 20 protesters whose trial is scheduled to start this weekend are charged with “attacking military units and universities, sending pictures to enemy media, carrying firearms and explosives, organizing thugs and rioters, and vandalizing public property,” state television reported.

President Ahmadinejad has also drawn criticism from fellow hard-liners after he refused to obey a command from Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to drop a controversial deputy from his cabinet.

Robert F. Worth reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Nazila Fathi from Toronto. Alan Cowell contributed reporting from Paris.

By ROBERT F. WORTH and NAZILA FATHI
Published: July 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/world/middleeast/31iran.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Burma court likely to find Aung San Suu Kyi guilty, observers say

2009-07-30T19:59:00.000+07:00

Rangoon - While hope may spring eternal, the likelihood of a Myanmar court finding opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi innocent Friday is slim, analysts said on the eve of the expected verdict.

Suu Kyi, 64, stands accused of breaking the terms of her house detention by allowing US national John William Yettaw to swim to her home-cum-prison on May 3 and stay, albeit uninvited, in her compound until the night of May 5.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who has spent 14 of the past 20 years under house detention, faces a minimum of three years in jail and a maximum of five if found guilty by a special court set up in Rangoon's Insein Prison.

Suu Kyi's two housekeepers, Khin Khin Win and Win Ma Ma, face similar charges for accommodating Yettaw's surprise visit and Yettaw faces several months in jail for breaching various laws, including a prohibition against swimming in Inya Lake, on which Suu Kyi's family compound sits.

Past court cases have demonstrated that Burma's judiciary has no independence from the country's ruling military junta, which wants Suu Kyi to remain out of politics until after a general election planned next year, observers said.

So a guilty verdict was widely expected. But to placate a new onslaught of international criticism that it was sure to spark, the authoritarian regime was expected to suspend Suu Kyi's sentence shortly after it is issued.

"She will be sentenced to jail because this regime never backs down, but maybe a few days or weeks later, they may suspend the sentence and place her under house arrest again," said Win Min, a political analyst at Chiang Mai University in northern Thailand.

The same thing happened to Brigadier General Khin Nyunt, once Myanmar's military intelligence chief who fell from grace in 2003.

Khin Nyunt was found guilty of corruption and sentenced to 44 years in prison, but his sentence was quickly suspended and changed to house arrest.

There was little hope that Suu Kyi would be found innocent because her freedom might galvanize opposition to the government's scheduled general election in 2010 that promises to be neither free nor fair.

"If you ask 10 Burmese people whether the court will find her innocent, maybe one will say yes, nine no," said one Yangon resident who asked to remain anonymous.

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party won the last Burma election in 1990 by a landslide even though she was in jail at the time of the polls.

The NLD, barred from power for the past 19 years, is unlikely to contest the 2010 polls because the 2008 constitution, pushed through my the military, guarantees the generals control over any elected government.

Analysts said Suu Kyi, deemed the only opposition politician the ruling regime fears and a democracy icon to her people, could seriously threaten the military's so-called political reforms, which it has dubbed a "seven-step roadmap" to democracy.

"They want to keep her out of communication with her followers, so no one knows whom she supports in the next election," Win Min said.

Given this political reality, even Suu Kyi is not optimistic about Friday's court outcome.

"Daw (Mrs) Aung San Suu Kyi is prepared for the worst," her attorney Nyan Win said Tuesday after the court's final hearing.

Suu Kyi's case began May 11. While the prosecution was allowed to present 14 witnesses, her defence were allowed two.

Her lawyers argued that Suu Kyi, whose latest six-year detention term had ended on May 27, had informed authorities of Yettaw's previous visit to her Rangoon compound in November when he gave her servants a copy of the religious text the Book of Mormon but officials chose to do nothing about it and in fact permitted Yettaw to re-enter the country in May.

Besides this case, the democracy icon also faces a civil lawsuit over the ownership of her family compound.

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/07/30/regional/regional_30108719.php

Thai students get chance to study in Malaysia

2009-07-30T19:56:00.000+07:00

Muslim officials from Malaysia's Terengganu state have offered scholarships for 10 students from the deep South to study Islamic astronomy as a gesture of peace making in the region.

A nine-member delegation from the northern states of Terengganu and Kelantan made the offer during their visit to the deep South this week to gather first hand accounts from local people.

The three months' course aims to educate young Muslims in the deep South about the Islamic calendar to make sure people know important dates, notably during the fasting month of Ramadan, said Tuan Haji Khazan Bin Che Mat, chairman of Terengganu state government's committee for religion and information.

Khazan led the delegation to southern Thailand on July 26 - August 1 and met Islamic and community leaders, and government officials, including Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya.

"We are happy to see the situation is not as we had heard, or as we had read in newspapers in our country," he said.

"Of course there are tragedies but they do not occur every day and in every place. So it is safe to visit southern Thailand," Khazan said.

However, the delegation failed to hear of several violent incidents during their visit, including a bomb at Dusongyor school in Narathiwat on Tuesday that injured six soldiers.

Khazan said he does not know the root cause of the violence in the deep South, but it had left Muslims with problems "with money, incomes and mentally," he said.

He praised the Thai government's effort to restore peace in the region.

"Our delegation is happy to know the Thai government has given full attention to the Muslim community," he said. "Government projects aim to increase the incomes of Muslims in the South, [and] we hope they will help the community, especially the poor," he said.

Khazan said he suggested his Muslim fellows also take the opportunity to lift their ambitions for a better life.

"Islam teaches us to get a good life here and in the hereafter, learning religion not just to know how to pray, to fast, but how to get a better life - by knowledge, by education and by technology. In Malaysia we find a balance between Islamic study and secular study," he said.

By The Nation
Published on July 30, 2009
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/07/30/regional/regional_30108684.php

Supporters of fugitive former premier mark his 60th birthday

2009-07-29T14:43:00.000+07:00

Bangkok - Supporters of fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra gave alms to Buddhist monks nationwide and flocked to temples Sunday to make merit for the controversial populist politician on his 60th birthday. Hundreds-of-thousands of Thais, sporting red shirts, gave alms to Buddhist monks and attended prayers at temples to mark the birthday of Thaksin, who has been living in self-exile since August, 2008, and faces a two-year jail sentence in Thailand, according to media reports.

Thaksin has promised a "special surprise" Sunday night, to be revealed during a video-taped call in to his supporters gathered at Kaew Fah Temple in Nonthaburi, a province neighbouring Bangkok.

The pro-Thaksin United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) has organized various events to celebrate Thaksin's birthday, including the baking of 2,492 cakes to mark the year of his birth in the Buddhist era, and the signing of a 2,492 foot-long birthday card, which they hope will make the Guinness Book of Records.

In Bangkok, a birthday banquet at Royal Dragon Restaurant was scheduled to be held Sunday evening with 350 tables and about 3,500 guests for Thaksin's relatives and political allies.

Thaksin, never shy about publicity during his premierships between 2001 to 2006, is the main decision-maker and financier behind the UDD and the Puea Thai opposition party.

Although a fugitive from justice, he remains a central player in Thai politics and a threat to the current coalition government's fragile stability.

On April 11-12, red-shirted Thaksin supporters raided the venue of a South-East Asian summit at Pattaya beach resort, forcing current Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejajjiva to cancel the event.

Thaksin, through call-ins, urged his followers to stage a "people's revolution" at the time and was widely blamed for instigating the resulting violence and damage to Thailand's reputation.

The mayhem prompted a crackdown on UDD followers in Bangkok, and has shifted domestic security to the hands of the politically-powerful army rather than the police, many of whom support Thaksin, who was a former police officer himself.

In the 1980's he became a billionaire off publicly-awarded telecommunication concessions in new services such as beepers and mobile phones.

His decision in January, 2006 to sell his family's holdings in the Shin Corp in a tax-free deal arguably marked the beginning of his political downfall, turning the Bangkok-based middle and upper classes against him.

On September 19, 2006, he was ousted by a military coup, forcing him to live in self-exile throughout 2007, but his group returned to power when the pro-Thaksin People Power Party won the December, 2008, general election.

In July, 2008, the Bangkok Criminal Court found Thaksin's then-wife Potjaman, guilty of tax evasion and sentenced her to three years in jail, prompting the couple to flee.

And in October the Supreme Court for Political Office Holders found Thaksin guilty of abuse of power for allowing his wife to successfully bid on a plot of prime Bangkok land at a public auction in 2003, when he as still prime minister.

He was sentenced in absentia to two years in jail and bailed to launch an appeal before the deadline.

Another court case was launched earlier this month to determine whether Thaksin illegally obtained some 2 billion dollars in frozen bank accounts in Thailand from the Shin Corp sale.

Despite his fugitive status, Thaksin remains beloved among Thailand's rural poor whom were on the receiving end of his populist policies such as cheap health care and housing.

His ongoing popularity was demonstrated last month in two by-election in the North-East which were won by the pro-Thaksin Puea Thai Party candidates.

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/278993,supporters-of-fugitive-former-premier-mark-his-60th-birthday.html

Hunt for Nigerian Islamist sect

2009-07-29T14:40:00.000+07:00

Nigerian troops are tracking down members of an Islamist sect who went on a killing spree in northern cities.

Soldiers are searching areas near the home of sect leader Mohammed Yusuf in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state.

On Tuesday the army shelled the compound, exchanging heavy gunfire with militants. At least 140 people have been killed in three days of violence.

President Umaru Yar'Adua said the army had acted to nip a potentially dangerous problem in the bud.

Nigeria's security services have been flooding Maiduguri, the city worst affected by the violence, the BBC's Caroline Duffield reports.

Maj Gen Saleh Maina told the Associated Press news agency troops were hunting for sect members in homes and a mosque and near the railway station. He said the operation was being carried out "to prevent further loss of lives and property".

Residents and civilians have been told to leave.

Mr Yusuf's group, known as Boko Haram, is being blamed for attacked on police stations and government buildings in four states in Nigeria.

Many civilians were also shot dead or stabbed at random.

Boko Haram is against Western education, and believes Nigeria's government is being corrupted by Western ideas and wants to see Islamic law imposed across Nigeria.

State of alert

Late on Tuesday explosions and gunshots could be heard from the Doidamgari area of Maiduguri, where Mohammed Yusuf's home is situated and the Boko Haram have their spiritual headquarters.

President Umaru Yar'Adua ordered Nigeria's national security agencies to take all necessary action to contain and repel attacks by the extremists.

"It is the government that has moved to nip a potentially dangerous problem in the bud," he said before leaving on a visit to Brazil.

"These people have been organising, penetrating our societies, procuring arms, learning how to make explosives and bombs to disturb the peace and force abuse on the rest of Nigerians.

"And I believe the operation we have launched now will be an operation that will contain them once and for all."

Outside Maiduguri, there is a heightened state of alert across the northern states:

• In the city of Kano, police arrested 53 people after an attack on a police station outside the city on Monday; police also shot and killed three suspected militants as they tried to reach Maiduguri

• In Sokoto, in the far north-west, police arrested five men said to have been caught in the act of planning an attack

• In Bauchi, scene of the first bloodshed on Sunday, 176 people remain under arrest

A BBC reporter counted about 100 bodies of residents and militants in the streets of Maiduguri on Monday.

Maiduguri police said 103 had died in the violence in the city, including 90 members of Boko Haram, eight police officers, three prison officials and two soldiers.

At least 39 people were killed in the violence in Bauchi.

Sharia law is in place across northern Nigeria, but there is no history of al-Qaeda-linked violence in the country.

The country's 150 million people are split almost equally between Muslims in the north and Christians in the south.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8173717.stm

Prison court extends Aung San Suu Kyi case by a day

2009-07-29T14:38:00.000+07:00

Rangoon - A court in Rangoon's Insein Prison on Monday extended by a day the trial of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, her two aides and a US national who swam to her lakeside home three months ago.

Defence and prosecution lawyers presented their final arguments Monday in the case against Suu Kyi's two housekeepers, Khin Win and Win Ma Ma, and John William Yettaw, who swam to Suu Kyi's house-cum-prison on May 3 and stayed there until May 5.

At the end of the hearing, the court allowed the defence another hearing on Tuesday to permit it to present its answers to the prosecution's arguments, defence lawyer Nyan Win said.

Final arguments for Suu Kyi's case were already presented on Friday, but Nyan Win said he would attempt Tuesday to persuade the court to allow new witnesses for her case.

He said he intends to argue that since Suu Kyi was never officially under detention, according to the government's wording, and had been kept in her Rangoon house for six years for "security reasons," she could not have broken the terms of her detention and, therefore, requires new witnesses to argue this point.

Nyan Win said he would also object to an article that appeared in a government-run newspaper Thursday that said Suu Kyi was guilty, which, he said, unfairly biased judges against her in the case.

Suu Kyi, who has been confined for 13 of the past 19 years, faces an additional five years of detention for breaching the terms of her house arrest after Yettaw's intrusion.

Her housekeepers face similar charges for facilitating Yettaw's uninvited visit, and Yettaw himself has been charged with violating the terms of his visa and swimming illegally in Rangoon's Inya Lake.

It was not yet known when the court would issue its verdicts in the four cases.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has been accused of breaking the terms of her detention by allowing Yettaw to enter her compound without informing the authorities.

On Friday, the prison court heard her lead attorney, U Kyi Win, present the 30-page defence case that she was an innocent party to an intrusion that should have been prevented by her military guards.

Suu Kyi's legal team has asked why the authorities did not respond to Suu Kyi's earlier complaint when Yettaw first broke into her compound to try to contact her in November.

Critics of Burma's military regime consider Yettaw's intrusions an unintended gift to the junta, giving it an excuse to detain Suu Kyi after her previous six-year detention expired on May 27.

The military government is believed to want her confined until at least after elections planned for 2010.

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party won the 1990 general elections by a landslide but has been blocked from power by Burma's junta for the past 19 years.

The new trial of Suu Kyi has sparked a chorus of protests from world leaders and even strongly worded statements from Burma's regional allies in the Association of South-East Asian Nations.

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton last week offered Burma improved relations if it released Suu Kyi, but there was no indication the junta would agree.

The New Light of Myanmar, a state-run newspaper, said Friday in an editorial that "demanding the release of Suu Kyi means showing reckless disregard for the law."

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/07/28/regional/regional_30108527.php

Recovery Signs in Housing Market Stir Some Hope

2009-07-29T14:36:00.000+07:00

After a plunge lasting three years, houses have finally become cheap enough to lure buyers. That, in turn, is stabilizing prices, generating hope that the real estate market is beginning to recover.

Eight cities, including Chicago, Cleveland, Denver and San Francisco, showed price increases in May, up from four in April and one in March, according to data released Tuesday. Two other cities, Charlotte, N.C., and New York, were flat.

For the first time since early 2007, a composite index of 20 major cities was virtually flat, instead of down.

“We’ve found the bottom,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist for First American CoreLogic, a data firm.

The release of the surprisingly strong Case-Shiller Price Index, compiled by Standard & Poor’s, followed earlier reports that sales of existing homes rose last month for the third consecutive time, while sales of new homes rose in June by the largest percentage in eight years.

All of these improvements are tentative, and come after a relentless decline that knocked more than half the value off houses in the worst-hit cities.

Some skeptics say they believe the market is merely pausing before it resumes falling and that much of the life in the market is coming from speculators. Even the most enthusiastic analysts acknowledge that rising unemployment, another leap in foreclosures or a significant jump in interest rates could snuff out progress.

Still, hope is growing in some quarters that the worst has passed.

“Recession is over, economy is recovering — let’s look forward and stop the backward-looking focus,” John E. Silvia, the Wells Fargo chief economist, wrote Tuesday in a research note.

Kirit Shah decided to look forward a few weeks ago. A retired forensic chemist for the New York Police Department, he closed on a house in Royal Palm Beach, Fla.

Mr. Shah was not dissuaded when the salesman at K. Hovnanian Homes told him the five-bedroom place had been empty since it was finished three years ago. “It was waiting for me,” said Mr. Shah, 64. “I’m on a lakefront. I never dreamed I would be on a lakefront. I’m within walking distance of a swimming pool.”

But the thing he likes best is this: he paid $260,000 for the five-bedroom house, half of what that model was fetching during the boom. “An excellent deal,” he said. “Plus I got a good rate on my mortgage, under 5 percent.”

Turning markets are full of uncertainty. If Mr. Shah was one reason new home sales were up 11 percent in June from May, it is unclear just how many others like him are out there.

Brad Hunter, chief economist for Metrostudy, a research firm, said the new home numbers appeared to illustrate less a return of buyers like Mr. Shah and more a resurgence of investors and speculators. Metrostudy’s own data showed that the number of buyers during the second quarter who actually moved into their new house declined 2.6 percent.

“Investors are turning right around and putting the houses on the market for sale or for rent,” Mr. Hunter said. “What appears to have been an absorption of excess inventory can be just a changing of ownership of that inventory.”

The good news in the Case-Shiller index, the most widely watched source of price information about the housing market, is equally provisionary. Tracking only large urban areas, the monthly index does not represent the country as a whole.

The Case-Shiller figures released Tuesday showed May prices were down 17.1 compared with May 2008. As bad as that may sound, it was the fourth consecutive month that price declines slowed — a step in the right direction, but perhaps not cause for widespread celebration.

More attention was focused on the news that, when May was compared with April, the price index for 20 major cities showed a half-percent gain. It was the first month-over-month increase in the index in 34 months.

“It is very possible that years from now we will say that April 2009 was the trough in home prices,” said Maureen Maitland, vice president for index services at Standard & Poor’s.

When the numbers were adjusted for seasonal factors, however — the usual way housing figures are presented — the slight gain disappeared and the index was essentially flat. Half of the cities showed continued declines.

One reason the market is perking up in some places, real estate agents say, is the encouragement offered by such measures as the first time buyer’s tax credit of $8,000.

All the more reason, said the National Association of Realtors, to not only extend the credit but expand it. The association is lobbying for the current credit, which expires in December, to be replaced with a $15,000 credit for all buyers.

“This is a relatively low-cost way to keep the housing market moving forward,” said Paul Bishop, the association’s managing director of research.

Another reason for the market’s resurgence is the prevalence of foreclosures, which make up about a third of all existing home sales. In some troubled regions, agents say they cannot remember the last transaction that did not involve a bank disposing of a property.

These communities are not yet showing any improvement in prices. Las Vegas was the worst-performing city in the May Case-Shiller index, falling 2.6 percent. Prices have fallen there by a third in the last year.

“The mom and pop that work at the Hilton can now afford a home here again,” said Justin Pechonis, a Las Vegas real estate agent. “Las Vegas is a great place to buy now.” But not from him. Sickened by seeing so many clients foreclosed on, he is getting out of the business. He now drives a taxi.

All this uncertainty breeds a hesitancy that seems to show up in nearly every sale, especially at the higher end of the market. When Margot and Pascal Lalonde decided in April to sell their two-bedroom condominium in the North End of Boston, they methodically quizzed six experienced agents about a good price.

List it for under $500,000 unless you want to be here for months, said one agent. Two others said they should demand $675,000. The other three were in between.

“In a market with so few sales, no one knows what to do,” said Ms. Lalonde, a consultant.

After 80 days on the market and two small price reductions, the condo is now under contract for $550,000. The buyers examined the apartment six times. The Lalondes, who are moving to Short Hills, N.J., expect to be no less careful when they buy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/business/economy/29housing.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Divorce takes health toll that remarriage can't heal, study says

2009-07-29T14:33:00.000+07:00

(CNN) -- Divorce causes more than bitterness and broken hearts. The trauma of a split can leave long-lasting effects on mental and physical health that remarriage might not repair, according to research released this week.

"People who lose a marriage take such damage to their health," said Linda Waite, a sociologist at the University of Chicago in Illinois.

Waite and co-author Mary Elizabeth Hughes, of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, found that divorced or widowed people have 20 percent more chronic health conditions such as heart disease, diabetes or cancer than married people. They also have 23 percent more mobility limitations, such as trouble climbing stairs or walking a block.

Their article, published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, examined the marital history and health indicators for 8,652 middle-aged people in research funded by the National Institute on Aging. The authors found differences between the overall health of those who remain married and those who divorce.

Almost half of all U.S. marriages end in divorce, according to the National Institutes of Health.

"Losing a marriage or becoming widowed or divorced is extremely stressful," Waite said. "It's financially, sometimes, ruinous. It's socially extremely difficult. What's interesting is if people have done this and remarried, we still see, in their health, the scars or marks -- the damage that was done by this event.

Divorced people "have more chronic conditions, more mobility limitations, rate their health as poorer than people like them in age, race, gender, education who've been married once and are still married," Waite said.

The authors assessed health by taking data in four categories: chronic conditions, mobility, depressive symptoms and their self-assessment.

Previous research has suggested that marriage has protective health benefits by providing financial, social and emotional stability.

Married women have more financial security, which means better access to health care and reduced stress, Waite said.

"Married men have better health habits," she said in comparison to single males. "They lead a cleaner, healthier life, and less times in bars and eat better. Women tend to manage men's interactions with the medical system, get him in for colonoscopy and make sure they get flu shot."

Mark Hayward, director of the Population Research Center and a professor of sociology Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin, said spouses check up on each other's needs. They remind each other about when to go see a doctor, a dentist or when to get a medical issue checked out.

"You're making decisions together about your lifestyle and investing in a future together," said Hayward, who was not involved in the latest research. But in a similar study, he found that divorce has a lasting impact on cardiovascular diseases, even after remarriage. His 2006 study, funded by the National Institute on Aging, found that divorced middle-aged women were 60 percent more likely to have cardiovascular disease than middle-aged women who remain married.
Health Library

* MayoClinic.com: Marriage counseling -- working through relationship problems
* MayoClinic.com: Children and divorce -- helping kids cope with a breakup

"There's no erasure of the effects of divorce," Hayward said. "There is intense stress leading up to divorce, stresses during divorce proceedings. Think of divorce as one of the most intense stressors. It leads to what we call dysregulation [impairment] in key cardiovascular process that may be permanently altered. You're not going back to your original set point."

Both genders suffer irreversible, detrimental effects on their health after losing marriage through a divorce or death of a spouse, according to the findings.

Those who did not remarry after a divorce or a spouse's death showed deficits in mental and physical health. Waite called this the "double whammy" because they don't get the protective effects of marriage and have gone through a "damaging, health-destroying experience."

They had worse health indicators than people who never married and therefore "didn't get the goods and didn't get the bads," Waite said.

People who remarried had better health than those who did not.

"If you loved and lost, did you find love again?" Waite said. "The people who did are doing better." But this group overall showed health deficits compared to those who remained married.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/07/28/divorce.marriage.health/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

Vietnam finds 200kg of illegal elephant tusks

2009-07-29T14:31:00.000+07:00

HANOI: Vietnamese customs officials have uncovered 200 kilogrammes (440 pounds) of elephant ivory tusks illegally imported from Kenya, official media reported on Wednesday.

The tusks were found hidden in timber inside a container at the northern Hai Phong port, said Cong An Nhan Dan (People's Police) newspaper.

Authorities are seeking the owner of the container, who did not turn up to receive the goods when they arrived in April, the newspaper said. It did not say who was listed as the receiver or give a street value for the ivory.

Officials from Hai Phong Customs Bureau refused to comment to AFP on the case.

Communist Vietnam banned the ivory trade in 1992, but shops can still sell old stocks dating from before then, and ivory-based products sell well to buyers from Vietnam and elsewhere in Asia.

Last week in Tanzania, six businessmen were charged with smuggling 11 tonnes of elephant ivory, worth around 600,000 dollars, to the Philippines and Vietnam over the previous six months.

- AFP/so

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/445359/1/.html

Wik Way win access to lands at Rio Tinto mine

2009-07-29T14:28:00.000+07:00

AFTER a 16-year legal battle and 30-year political struggle, members of the Wik Way clan in Cape York have finally been granted access to their traditional lands.
Federal Court Justice Andrew Greenwood formally recognised the claim of the Wik and Wik Way people to 1,200 sq km of land covered by Rio Tinto's bauxite mining lease in a ceremony in Aurukun today.

The declaration will give traditional owners the right to use the land for activities such as fishing, hunting and camping but will not prevent Rio from mining in the area.

Traditional owner Gina Castelain, whose mother Norma Chevathun helped lead the legal fight for the claim to be recognised up to her death eight years ago, said her mother would have been proud to see her dream recognised.

“It's been a long time coming, we've been waiting for a very long time,” she said.

“It's a day for celebration, but it's also a sad day for many of us, remembering the people who worked hard for our native title rights.”

However, Ms Castelain said the native title determination was part of a broader struggle to improve the lives of people in the impoverished Aurukun community.

“Recognition is one thing but the next step for us I believe is to have greater control over the access to those areas and develop our own management plans for those areas,” she said.

“They laid down the foundations and now it's up to us, the younger generation and the other people in the community to build on that.”

The determination is the third to be made in the Aurukun area since 2001, but the first to coincide with the mining lease.

It comes after more than 16 years of negotiations and legal fighting and marks the culmination of a broader struggle for the community dating back to the 1970s.

The Queensland government of the time established mine leases on Aboriginal land without community consent and refused an application by traditional owners to buy a nearby pastoral lease.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25852796-2702,00.html#

Lawyers to wind up arguments in Aung San Suu Kyi case

2009-07-28T07:09:00.000+07:00

Rangoon - The final hearings began at a special court in Rangoon's Insein Prison Monday in the controversial trial of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, her two aides and a US national who swam into her lakeside compound three months ago.

Defence and prosecution lawyers were scheduled Monday to present their final arguments in the case against Suu Kyi's two housekeepers - Khin Win and Win Ma Ma - and American national John William Yettaw, a 53-year-old Mormon who swam into Suu Kyi's house-cum-prison compound on May 3 and stayed there until the night of May 5.

Suu Kyi, who has been confined for 13 of the past 19 years, faces an additional five years for breaching the terms of her house arrest after the May intrusion by Yettaw.

Her housemaids face similar charges for facilitating Yettaw's uninvited visit, and Yettaw himself has been charged with violating the terms of his visa and swimming illegally in Inya Lake.

Lawyers presented their final arguments in Suu Kyi's case on Friday. It is not yet known when the court will issue its verdicts in the four cases.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has been accused of breaking the terms of her detention by allowing Yettaw to enter her compound without informing the authorities.

On Friday, the special court in Insein Prison heard her chief lawyer U Kyi Win present the 30-page defence case that she was an innocent party to an intrusion that should have been prevented by her military guards.

Suu Kyi's legal team has asked why the authorities did not respond to Suu Kyi's earlier complaint when Yettaw first broke into her compound to try to contact her in November.

Critics of the regime consider Yettaw's intrusions an unintended gift to the junta, giving it an excuse to detain Suu Kyi after her previous six-year detention expired on May 27.

The military government is believed to want her confined until at least after elections planned for 2010.

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party won the 1990 general election by a landslide but has been blocked from power by Myanmar's junta for the past 19 years.

The new trial of Suu Kyi has sparked a chorus of protests from world leaders and even strongly-worded statements from Myanmar's regional allies in the Association of South-East Asian Nations.

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton last week offered Myanmar improved relations if it released Suu Kyi, but there was no indication the junta would agree.

The New Light of Myanmar, a state-run newspaper, said Friday in an editorial that "demanding the release of Suu Kyi means showing reckless disregard for the law."

By Deutsche Presse Agentur
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/07/27/regional/regional_30108432.php

North Korea refuses to disarm

2009-07-27T09:08:00.000+07:00

Phuket - North Korea yesterday refused to return to six-party talks on its nuclear ambitions, and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton threatened Pyongyang with isolation and tough sanctions from the international community.

"There's no place for North Korea to go. They have no friends left to protect them from the international community's efforts to move toward denuclearisation," Clinton told a press conference.

North Korea was a hot issue at the Asean Regional Forum (ARF), Southeast Asia's most important security forum, as diplomats from Pyongyang told the meeting the country would never halt its nuclear programme or ballistic-missile development.

Ri Hung-sik, North Korea's director for international-organisation affairs, rushed to see reporters in the middle of the ARF meeting to deliver the message of refusal.

"We cannot talk to a person with a knife in his pocket," Ri told reporters in Korean.

Initially, Ri booked the podium to hold a press conference back to back with Clinton, but the US delegation had reserved a large space, and Clinton met the media late.

Li decided to take over a corner of the conference room to deliver his country's message.

Fearing harsh criticism at the Asean meeting, Pyongyang has sent only low-ranking diplomats led by Ambassador-at-Large Pak Kun-gwang to Phuket.Prior to the meeting, Clinton announced a comprehensive package with economic incentives to normalise relations with North Korea if the country stopped its nuclear programme.

North Korea's Ri called the package "nonsense" and said it was merely a replay of the George W Bush administration's "Complete, Verifiable, Irreversible Dismantlement" policy.

"The US is telling us to take off all of our clothes," he said. "The most important thing for us is sovereignty. Sovereignty, security, namely life, should be guaranteed. How can we barter life with money?"Clinton said the international community would use UN Resolution No 1874 to deal with North Korea.

More than a simple condemnation, that resolution, combined with authorisations from the UN Sanctions Committee, is a powerful tool for addressing North Korea's unacceptable activities.

It puts pressure on individuals and entities connected to the regime and its nuclear, ballistic-missile and related programmes, she said.

UN Resolution No 1874 was adopted unanimously on June 12 after North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test on May 25. It imposes further economic and commercial sanctions against that country and encourages UN member states to search North Korean cargo.

The international community will act unanimously to enforce the resolution, she said, pointing out that even Burma, which has military ties with North Korea, signed the resolution. North Korea's nuclear ambitions are elevating tensions on the Korean Peninsula and could provoke an arms race in the region.

"That would serve no one's national interest," she said

North Korea has no option but to return to denuclearisation talks and fulfil its commitments under a 2005 joint statement calling on it to abandon its nuclear-weapons programme and return at an early date to six-party non-proliferation talks and International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards, she said.

The six-party talks consist of US, China, Russia, Japan and North and South Korea.

By Supalak Ganjanakhundee
The Nation
Published on July 24, 2009
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/07/24/regional/regional_30108236.php

Iran intelligence minister sacked

2009-07-27T09:06:00.000+07:00

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has sacked one of his ministers, a day after he was forced to cancel the appointment of his vice-president.

No reason was given for the sacking of Intelligence Minister Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie.

Meanwhile, the culture minister quit, saying the government was weakened.

The president is due to announce a new cabinet after he is sworn in for a second term in 10 days' time, following a disputed election victory.

Amid the turmoil, Mr Ahmadinejad's office also denied reports that three other ministers were sacked.

One of those reported dismissed, Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister Mohammad Hossein Saffar Harandi, said he was resigning because of the confused reports.

"Unfortunately due to the recent events which shows the esteemed government's weakness, I will no longer consider myself the minister of culture and will not show up at the ministry as of tomorrow," he said in a letter of resignation carried by the Fars news agency.

Mr Ahmadinejad's decision to give up on the appointment of his First Vice-President, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, was prompted by the publication of a letter from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei telling him his choice was unacceptable.

On Saturday, however, Mr Ahmadinejad appointed Mr Mashaie as his chief of staff, setting up another potential confrontation with conservatives.

Mr Mashaie had angered hardliners last year by saying Iranians and Israelis were friends.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8169839.stm

Thaksin's big surprise: I'll return

2009-07-27T09:05:00.001+07:00

Deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's big surprise on his 60th birthday on Sunday was a video clip of him singing "Chan Ja Klab Ma" (I Will Return).

The red-shirt supporters of the fugitive politician, including his brother-in-law and former premier Somchai Wongsawat, took part in a merit-making ceremony at Kaew Fah temple in Nonthaburi.

Thaksin made a brief phone-in address from Dubai to his supporters. He thanked them for making merit for him on his birthday, and hoped he would return to work for his supporters in the country again.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/breakingnews/150202/thaksin-big-surprise-i-ll-return

NKorea 'threatens to retaliate'

2009-07-27T09:03:00.000+07:00

North Korea's defence minister promised to retaliate against tough new UN sanctions put in place following its missile and nuclear tests, state media reported Sunday.

Kim Yong-Chun warned of possible all-out war amid "a touch-and-go situation" created by what he called reckless UN sanctions and US-South Korean provocations, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

"We will mercilessly and resolutely counter the enemy's 'sanctions' with retaliation, its 'all-out war' with all-out war," Kim, minister of the People's Armed Forces, said in a report carried by the agency.

The communist state, however, regularly issues aggressive statements and rhetoric against its neighbours and the US.

Kim, speaking at a public meeting in Pyongyang to mark the anniversary of the 1950-1953 Korean War, added: "We will deal unimaginably deadly blows at the US imperialists and the South Korean puppets if they ignite a war."

He did not, however, elaborate further.

North Korea on Sunday separately denounced an annual upcoming US-South Korean military exercise as preparing to invade the communist country.

The Ulchi Freedom Guardian (UFG) drill, scheduled for August 17-27, "lays bare the black-hearted aim lurking behind 'peace keeping' and 'dialogue'", KCNA said in a separate dispatch.

Tensions have intensified following the communist state's missile and nuclear tests in recent weeks, resulting in a new flurry of UN sanctions amid a renewed standoff with the US.

Pyongyang quit the six-party talks aimed at ending its nuclear weapons programme after the UN Security Council censured it for a long-range rocket launch in April. In May it also staged its second nuclear test.

The Council has since imposed tougher sanctions, including an expanded arms embargo and beefed up inspections of air, sea and land shipments going to and from North Korea.

A travel ban has also been imposed on Pyongyang officials suspected of being involved in the country's nuclear and missile programmes.

The United States has urged the international community to continue to pressure North Korea to return to the six-party talks -- made up of the two Koreas, the US, China, Japan and Russia.

North Korea's UN envoy, Sin Son-Ho, said Friday Pyongyang was not opposed to negotiations with the US, but would not return to the six-party talks.

"Pyongyang intends to strike a deal at bilateral talks with Washington, seeking to circumvent US-led sanctions imposed on the communist regime," Yang Moo-Jin, professor of Seoul's University of North Korean Studies, told AFP.

US and South Korean military authorities said last week they had informed North Korea of their plan to hold the joint military drill, which will involve 10,000 US soldiers and an unspecified number of South Korean troops.

The drill involves computer-simulated war games designed to improve the allies' ability to defend South Korea from attack, they said.

North Korea regularly denounces such exercises as preparations for an invasion of the communist state.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/breakingnews/150207/nkorea-threatens-to-retaliate

Sarkozy collapses while exercising

2009-07-27T08:59:00.000+07:00

France's President Nicolas Sarkozy was taken to hospital on Sunday after falling ill while exercising, his office told AFP.

The 54-year-old leader was examined by his doctor and underwent medical tests after falling ill, a statement from the Elysee Palace said.

Later, officials in his office said Sarkozy had been taken to hospital after suffering some kind of illness while exercising at La Lanterne, his weekend retreat near the Palace of Versailles outside Paris.

He was thought to have been taken to the Val de Grace military hospital, a well-placed source said. A military helicopter was seen flying over the Versailles forest.

Sarkozy, who assumed the presidency in May 2007, is a fitness enthusiast, and is often seen jogging or cycling with aides and bodyguards.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/breakingnews/150214/sarkozy-hospitalised-french-presidency

NATO, Afghan soldiers among 22 killed in weekend unrest

2009-07-27T08:58:00.000+07:00

KABUL : A wave of Taliban-linked violence across Afghanistan over the weekend killed 22 people including insurgents, a foreign soldier and two Afghan troops, authorities said Sunday.

Clashes and attacks have surged this month, with NATO-led offensives in the south leading to record foreign military casualties and the Taliban insurgency at its fiercest since the 2001 US-led invasion toppled their government.

In the Bargi Matal district of Nuristan, a mountainous province near Pakistan, Afghan forces backed by foreign troops pounded Taliban positions with artillery, killing 16 militants on Saturday, the defence ministry said.

"The enemy launched several rockets on a military outpost. The troops responded and killed 16 enemy fighters," it said.

Dozens of Taliban-linked militants stormed and briefly captured Bargi Matal district centre in the first week of July. Afghan and foreign forces recaptured the area days later in an assault which saw several rebels and police killed.

One foreign soldier with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has also been reported killed in southern Afghanistan, a hotbed of Taliban unrest and the target of recent military offensives.

An ISAF statement said the soldier "died of wounds suffered in a hostile incident" on Saturday but did not reveal their nationality.

Also in the south, three local security guards were killed when a mine exploded in Helmand province, an attack the Ministry of Interior blamed on "enemies of peace and stability" -- a reference to the insurgents.

The defence ministry, meanwhile, said two Afghan soldiers were killed when their vehicle struck a mine planted by the Taliban in eastern Paktika province, another insurgency-hit region on the Pakistan border.

Four Italian soldiers were also wounded Saturday in a roadside bomb blast in the western province of Herat, local officials said.

The latest violence came as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the Taliban was under "tremendous pressure" in Afghanistan.

"The Taliban, which is, as I believe strongly, part of a kind of terrorist syndicate with Al-Qaeda at the centre, is now under tremendous pressure, and I think that's in America's national interest," Clinton told NBC.

In addition to boosting the US military presence in the war-ravaged nation, Clinton said that, "importantly, we've seen the Pakistani government and military really step up, which had not happened to the extent it has now."

Clinton cited the porous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan as facilitating the clandestine movements of extremist cells in the region where Washington and its allies believe Al-Qaeda operates terrorist training camps.

There are about 90,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan helping local forces stabilise Afghanistan, with thousands most recently deployed to the south to try and secure the restive area ahead of presidential polls on August 20.

The independent www.icasualties.org website, which tracks military losses in Iraq and Afghanistan, says 223 foreign soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan this year, not including the latest death.

The website reports 67 killed in July alone -- the deadliest month for international forces since the 2001 invasion.

- AFP /ls

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/444890/1/.html

Cairns looking for a lift from cosmetic surgery tourism

2009-07-27T08:55:00.000+07:00

CAIRNS, the tourism hub of tropical north Queensland, is reinventing itself as the cosmetic surgery and IVF mecca of Australia - targeting US defence personnel in Guam.

Following a boost in weekly commercial flights from the US Pacific territory, Cairns tourism operators are banking on US defence base workers taking advantage of the cheaper surgery in Australia compared with the US.

West Australian IVF pioneer John Yovich and partner Doug Yek will open a fertility clinic in Cairns in mid-September in a complex also housing plastic surgeons.

The move borrows from Thailand and Singapore, where people can have cosmetic and other medical procedures while on holiday.

Guam, with a population of 200,000 and a strong US defence presence, is a target market, given that there is no IVF in the US territory and Cairns is the closest Western city where it is offered.

"The biggest opportunity is the American market because it is very expensive in the US and they are not covered by their health fund," Mr Yek said.

Qantas's cutting of 14 flights a week from Tokyo to Cairns a year ago had been expected to cost the economy $125million a year and 1200 jobs.

However, Rob Giason, chief executive of Tropical Tourism North Queensland, said the city's fortunes were revived after seven of the cancelled flights were reinstated and four new flights a week were secured from Guam.

Despite this, the local industry realised it could no longer rely on the Japanese yen, so the Australian Tourism Export Council and TTNQ were encouraging medical tourism.

Cairns' hotel market emerged as one of the worst performers of the country last year, with occupancy rates diving 5.7 percentage points to 61.9 per cent, after flights there from Japan were slashed.

Tourism operators also reported a slump in the number of people on tours from Cairns out to the Great Barrier Reef.

The city's tourism industry was struck again when swine flu started keeping Asian visitors away, and it is still struggling to fill Cairns' 13,000 hotel rooms.

The latest kick in the guts for the city came last month, with the $250m collapse of Hedley Group at a time when the city's jobless rate is higher than any other in Queensland, at 8.5 per cent.

The medical clinic is expected to boost hotel occupancy through package deals including the cost of the procedure, massages, flights and accommodation with operators such as Rydges or the Shangri-La.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25839630-2702,00.html

Swamped with friends, Bill Gates quits Facebook

2009-07-27T08:52:00.000+07:00

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates says he was forced to abandon Facebook after too many people wanted to be his friend.

Gates, the billionaire computer geek-turned-philanthropist who was honoured on Saturday by India for his charity work, told an audience in New Delhi he had tried out Facebook but ended up with "10,000 people wanting to be my friends".

Gates, who remains Microsoft chairman, said he had trouble figuring out whether he "knew this person, did I not know this person".

"It was just way too much trouble so I gave it up," Gates told the business forum.

Gates was in the Indian capital to receive the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development, awarded by the government for his work for the charitable organisation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The foundation, built by his massive fortune, has committed nearly one billion US dollars to health and development projects in India, targeting especially AIDS and polio.

Gates also confided to the audience that he was "not that big at text messaging" and that "I'm not a 24-hour-a-day tech person".

"I read a lot and some of that reading is not on a computer," he said.

Gates, who sought to drive a vision of a computer on every desk and in every home, said the information technology revolution had been "hugely beneficial" but added: "All these tools of tech waste our time if we're not careful."

agencies
http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/swamped-with-friends-bill-gates-quits-facebook-20090726-dxkg.html

South Korea Economy Snaps Out of Stupor

2009-07-26T12:55:00.000+07:00

SEOUL -- The South Korean economy roared back to life in the second quarter to put up its best quarterly performance in more than five years, raising hopes that the recovery in Asia's fourth-largest economy is sustainable.

The central bank, however, cautioned that the outlook for the second half of the year is largely uncertain, given the country's reliance on exports, which account for half of the $1-trillion economy.

Still, the performance added to recent evidence that Asian economies may be turning the corner and past their worst point of the current global financial downturn. Last week, China unveiled stellar ...

BY IN-SOO NAM
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124839159242477493.html

Indonesia Confirms Yudhoyono Poll Win

2009-07-26T12:52:00.000+07:00

MACAU -- Macau's former culture minister was anointed Sunday as the new chief executive in the gambling enclave's first change of leadership since reverting to Chinese rule a decade ago.By I MADE SENTANA

JAKARTA -- Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono won a second five-year term in office in July's presidential election, the election committee announced Saturday.

Yudhoyono and his running mate Boediono garnered 60.8% of the 121.5 million valid votes, ahead of former president Megawati Sukarnoputri with 26.8%, and incumbent Vice President Jusuf Kalla with 12.4%.

The result was in line with most quick counts by independent pollsters.

Yudhoyono won re-election as voters backed his anticorruption campaign and economic management.

He is scheduled to be sworn in October.

Write to I Made Sentana at i-made.sentana@dowjones.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124849594328681057.html

Behind the Honduran Mutiny

2009-07-25T22:52:00.000+07:00

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras -- During Honduras' Independence Day celebrations last September 15, then-President Manuel Zelaya turned up for a time-honored ritual meant to promote national unity. But rather than merely making the traditional presidential cry "Long Live the Republic!" Mr. Zelaya treated political, civic and business leaders to a 15-minute diatribe against capitalism.

"The businessmen and corrupt oligarchy are responsible for our country's two centuries of poverty because they support an unjust neoliberal economic model that exploits humans and our natural resources," said Mr. Zelaya, wearing his trademark white Stetson hat, as members of the crowd began to shout "Fuera! Fuera! Fuera!" ("Out! Out! Out!").

Forced out of the country last month by the military, Mr. Zelaya returned Friday -- at least temporarily. Trailed by reporters and talking on a cell phone, Mr. Zelaya crossed the border into Honduras from his Nicaraguan exile. He walked to the rusty chain that marks the border, lifted it and walked a few feet onto his native soil.

"We are unarmed. I come in peace," Mr. Zelaya said, shaking hands with a Honduran army officer, before retreating back into Nicaragua under threat of arrest by the provisional Honduran government. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the stunt "reckless."

It's the latest turn in a growing regional crisis that's far more complicated than it appears. The episode may seem like a flashback to a tragicomic era of Latin American history when presidents were regularly overthrown in coups. That's how the Obama administration has responded so far, voting with the Organization of American States to suspend Honduras and calling for Mr. Zelaya's reinstatement.

But in fact, a close look at Mr. Zelaya's time in office reveals a strongly antidemocratic streak. He placed himself in a growing cadre of elected Latin presidents who have tried to stay in power past their designated time to carry out a populist-leftist agenda. These leaders, led by Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, have used the region's historic poverty and inequality to gain support from the poor, but created deep divisions in their societies by concentrating power in their own hands and increasing government control over the economy, media and other sectors.

Mr. Zelaya, a 56-year-old former rancher and logger with a handlebar moustache, joined this group, which includes Mr. Chávez, Rafael Correa in Ecuador, Evo Morales in Bolivia, and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. This past week, Mr. Ortega laid out plans for a referendum to rewrite Nicaragua's Constitution and allow him to be re-elected indefinitely, something Mr. Chávez has already achieved in oil-rich Venezuela.

It was such a move that led to trouble in neighboring Honduras. For the past year, Mr. Zelaya led a drive to rewrite the constitution to abolish term limits. On the day of his ouster, he was planning a referendum to call a constitutional assembly, even though the vote had been declared illegal by the country's Supreme Court.

The crisis has put the Obama administration in a difficult spot. Mindful of past U.S. support of coups in Latin America, it condemned the ouster and has led efforts to find a negotiated solution. But its insistence Mr. Zelaya return to power has angered many middle-class Hondurans, who feel the ouster defended the country's institutions from a Chávez-style power grab.

"This is a showdown which will determine if the Chavista model triumphs or not," says Moises Starkman, who advised Mr. Zelaya on special projects and now works for the interim government in the same capacity.

Little in Mr. Zelaya's background suggested he would become an international symbol of a democratically elected leader forced from office. Mr. Zelaya is a product of Olancho, a violent, macho state in central Honduras that is dominated by pistol-packing landowners who run huge estates. His family, involved in logging and ranching, has been one of the dominant forces in Olancho for decades.

One of four children, Mr. Zelaya grew up the son of rural privilege, distinguished by little but a love for the guitar, Harley Davidsons and horses. In 1975, when Mr. Zelaya was 23 years old, his father, also named Jose Manuel, was put on trial for helping army officers torture and murder 14 rural activists, including two priests. Convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison, Mr. Zelaya's father served little more than a year before being freed in a general amnesty.

The elder Zelaya's incarceration deeply affected his son, friends say. Mr. Zelaya dropped out of college after a spotty period studying industrial engineering and went home to Olancho to take care of the family businesses. Mr. Zelaya visited his incarcerated father often, at times even sleeping in the prison, says Victor Meza, who served as Mr. Zelaya's last interior minister. "That shaped him," says Mr. Meza.

As a young man, Mr. Zelaya didn't have strong ideological leanings. He ran his family's logging operations and eventually became a director of Honduras' top business organization. He also worked his way up the ranks of the Liberal Party, the country's oldest and most important political party, serving first as a deputy then as head of Honduras' social investment fund.

Colleagues say Mr. Zelaya is disorganized and lacks formal education but has animal-like political instincts. "His background is milking cows, and all of a sudden he's speaking before the United Nations," says Mr. Meza. Despite his lack of formal education, Mr. Zelaya is a quick study.

Soon, he was a rising star in the Liberal Party, making an unsuccessful run for the presidency in 2001. In 2005, he ran again, this time winning the presidency by a sliver. At his inaugural, Mr. Zelaya threw away his prepared speech and improvised, making numerous gaffes. "It would be a sign of the way he would run his government," says Honduran political scientist Miguel Calix.

In his first year, Mr. Zelaya didn't seem very ideological and spent a lot of time traveling. He was a big spender. On one notable trip to Washington, he took along a large group, including family members. He handed off his infant granddaughter to a startled President George W. Bush at a White House ceremony.

Two years into his term, Mr. Zelaya reshuffled his government, bringing into his cabinet a hard-line cadre of ministers dominated by Patricia Rodas, his foreign minister. The daughter of a famous right-wing Liberal party leader, Ms. Rodas has a reputation as a doctrinaire, hard-line Marxist from her university days.

Even as leftist associates increased their influence on Mr. Zelaya, the world economy also pushed him leftwards. In 2007, Honduras was hit hard by record high oil prices. The country imports all its fuel needs, and also has no refining capacity. That means four companies -- Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell and the local Dipsa -- control the market, importing the fuel directly and distributing it through their own service stations. As oil prices climbed, Honduras, whose power plants run on fuel, was forced to hike electricity prices, and ration power.

At first, Mr. Zelaya, desperate for relief, tried to lower the cost of imports by buying oil products in bulk, but the plan failed because the government didn't have its own oil-storage facilities. So, in 2007, Mr. Zelaya decreed a cut in fuel prices. But this move led to fuel shortages as importers complained that the price cuts undermined revenues. By mid 2008, the oil companies threatened to halt all new investment in Honduras.

Neighboring Nicaragua, which had been getting cut-rate fuel from Caracas since 2005 under a program called Petrocaribe, had no such problems. A brainchild of Mr. Chávez, Petrocaribe sells Venezuelan oil at market prices but allows its 18 member countries to finance a part of the oil at very low interest rates. As of 2007, Petrocaribe had provided $1.2 billion in financing -- similar to the Washington-based Inter-American Development Bank's soft loans in that period.

As Mr. Zelaya fought with foreign oil companies, Mr. Chávez offered cheap oil. Few here opposed the country's entry into the Venezuelan oil pact when the Congress approved it in March of 2007. "I pushed hard for Petrocaribe," says Adolfo Facusse, the head of Honduras' industrialists' chamber and now an opponent of Mr. Zelaya. Since then, Petrocaribe has provided Mr. Zelaya's government some $126 million in savings, officials say.

Mr. Zelaya, who at first had kept his distance from Mr. Chávez, was quickly ensconced in the Venezuelan's tight embrace. "They get along very well, and trade jokes," says Mr. Meza. "On one trip to Caracas, Chávez joked with Zelaya, 'Mel, where did you tie up your horse?"'

Mr. Zelaya soon copied the Venezuelan's inflammatory rhetoric. In August, Mr. Zelaya joined the ALBA -- a nine-nation trade and political pact that Mr. Chávez designed to counter U.S. influence in the region. Its other members include Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, and Nicaragua.

On Aug. 26, Mr. Zelaya joined Mr. Chávez and Nicaragua's Mr. Ortega before an audience of some 30,000 Hondurans, most of whom the government had paid a few dollars to attend. "Today we are taking a step towards becoming a government of the center-left, and if anyone dislikes this, we'll just remove the word 'center' and keep the left," he said.

Mr. Chávez didn't go down well in deeply conservative Honduras. "Any Honduran who is against joining ALBA is either an idiot or a traitor," the Venezuelan shouted to the crowds at the ALBA event, where he gave Mr. Zelaya a new nickname: "Comandante Cowboy."

Like Mr. Chávez, Mr. Zelaya was soon battling most of Honduras' institutions. Obliged by the constitution to send a budget to Congress by September 15, Mr. Zelaya refused, alleging various reasons, including that the world's financial crisis made it impossible for him to draw up numbers.

No one was more disappointed with Mr. Zelaya than his former mentor, Honduras' Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez, a top candidate to replace the late Pope John Paul II at the time of the pontiff's death. Cardinal Rodriguez blames Mr. Zelaya for using public money to promote his referendum instead of spending it on the poor. Earlier this year, cameras at Honduras' Central Bank caught government officials withdrawing about $2 million from its vaults in a suitcase, presumably to fund Mr. Zelaya's referendum drive. Three of Mr. Zelaya's former top officials, and Mr. Zelaya himself, have been charged with misappropriating public funds in that case. The officials deny the charges and say they are politically motivated.

"We were good friends. But he changed drastically," the Cardinal concludes. "It was Chávez. It was Chávez."

Some saw other Chávez-like traits emerging in Mr. Zelaya, including megalomania. Like his Venezuelan mentor, Mr. Zelaya took often to the airwaves commandeering all of the country's television channels for long speeches. Mirroring Mr. Chávez's fascination with Venezuelan independence hero Simon Bolivar, who tried to unite much of Latin America, Mr. Zelaya asked El Salvador's president if he could borrow the remains of Central America's 19th century hero, Gen. Francisco Morazán, who is buried in El Salvador, so he could tour Central America with the bones to push regional integration.

Mr. Zelaya took much of his cabinet when he went scuba diving in a tourist development, wearing his cowboy hat until the last moment before hitting the water. Earlier this year, he skipped a meeting with donor countries to attend a private concert of Mexico's Los Tigres del Norte, who serenaded Mr. Zelaya at the presidential palace with one of their hits "Jefe de Jefes," or "Boss of Bosses."

What really set Mr. Zelaya and most of the establishment on a collision course was what many Hondurans saw as his bold drive to perpetuate himself in power by rewriting the constitution to permit re-election -- which is forbidden by Honduras's charter.

In the weeks before the referendum, the Supreme Court had ruled the vote illegal for two reasons: First, only Honduras' election agency, not the president, can call a referendum. Second, the article in Honduras' constitution that bars re-election is unchangeable -- so much so that even attempting to change it leads to automatic dismissal from public office.

When the military, following court rulings, refused to help distribute the ballots days before the referendum, the president fired the military's chief of staff, Gen. Romeo Vasquez, and accepted the resignations of the heads of the army, navy and air force and the defense minister.

"I told the president we could not act against a court order. If we did so, we would be committing a crime," says former defense minister Edmundo Orellana, a close friend of Mr. Zelaya, who refused to go along with the president and resigned over the issue.

Tensions spiked two days later when Mr. Zelaya, defying the courts, led a mob to seize the disputed ballots at an Air Force base. "That was traumatic for the armed forces," says Mr. Orellana, referring to the mob's forced entry. "At that moment everyone said 'the man is crazy. We have to get him out."'

The Supreme Court responded by ordering Mr. Zelaya stripped of his office and arrested. The military carried out the order, but feared his arrest would spark violence. So the army sent Mr. Zelaya packing, breaking another constitutional article that states a citizen can't be forcibly exiled and leading to an image -- a president in his pajamas forced into exile at gunpoint -- that led nearly everyone around the world to conclude the ouster qualified as a coup.

Mr. Orellana, who had resigned days earlier because he believed Mr. Zelaya was breaking the law, also believes the soldiers' action in exiling Mr. Zelaya constituted a coup. "It's the worse thing that could have happened," he says.

By JOSE DE CORDOBA
Write to Jose de Cordoba at jose.decordoba@wsj.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124847775316780293.html

Rocking Beijing

2009-07-25T20:31:00.000+07:00

Beijing -- Zhang Shouwang, a slight, sheepish 23-year-old wearing Chuck Taylor sneakers and a hooded sweatshirt, is the pride of Beijing's underground music scene. With just four years in the business, Mr. Zhang already has toured the world, collaborated with the likes of Sonic Youth and Glenn Branca, and received accolades from critic Alex Ross of the New Yorker magazine.

At May's third-anniversary celebration of D-22, a dimly lit music club with a single bar and chipped red walls in the capital's student district of Haidian, his postpunk band Carsick Cars played to a room filled with devoted, screaming fans (and cigarette smoke). The cramped little venue's 2006 opening had featured a few forgettable bands playing to a sparse crowd and numerous cardboard boxes, but D-22 is now the center of new music in Beijing. It is also home to the city's expanding counterculture -- a movement powered by local students hungry to escape the bland diet and commercialism of Mandarin pop, commonly known as Mandopop.

China's industrial growth still far outpaces its artistic development. Beijing bands are only beginning to formulate their own sound, and even successful underground musicians have day jobs. The fan base is small, made up mostly of elite students. Yet, it is these students who could be the tastemakers of tomorrow -- and this century may turn out to be China's not just economically but musically as well.

Four years ago, few Beijing clubs were willing to host Carsick Cars, Queen Sea Big Fish, Snapline or any other of the 10 or so alternative bands that made up the loosely affiliated "No Beijing" movement. But these days, Carsick Cars, with Mr. Zhang on lead guitar and vocals, Li Qing on the drums and Li Weisi on bass, has a grueling schedule: The D-22 performance was sandwiched between four shows in Europe and a 23-city tour across China.

In June, the group released its second album, "You Can Listen, You Can Talk," on the Maybe Mars label, with songs in both English and Mandarin. Less aggressive and angsty than the band's self-titled debut album of 2007, "You Can Listen" is sophisticated and well-produced. One of the best tracks is the hypnotically catchy "Invisible Love," which escalates from a few infrequent open notes on the electric guitar over a drum beat to surging power chords in the chorus. The influence of the late-'80s, early-'90s postpunk group The Pixies and grunge bands like Nirvana is apparent. "There's something I know, that perches in my soul," Mr. Zhang sings in a voice that these days sounds a lot like Lou Reed.

The album solidifies Carsick Cars's status as the leaders of the Beijing rock scene, which now has a fast-growing following among the capital's university students.

With Carsick Cars, says Jiancui, a writer and critic who has followed the Beijing scene for eight years, "the new Beijing underground music movement started, and more and more rock bands came out very suddenly."

"Five years ago, none of my students at Tsinghua or Beida had any interest in what we would call countercultural stuff," says Michael Pettis, a finance professor at Beida's -- that is, Peking University's -- Guanghua School of Management who owns D-22 and the Maybe Mars label. Today Mr. Pettis estimates that a quarter of his students have been to rock clubs and maybe 5% to 10% "are really knowledgeable and sophisticated."

"And I see that spreading really quickly," he adds.

Mr. Pettis compares today's China with America in the 1960s, a period that produced Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix. Yet Beijing's underground lacks both the political and the sonic cohesion of the Woodstock generation. There's no counterpart, for instance, to Cui Jian, the 1980s Chinese rocker whose "Nothing to My Name" became a rallying anthem at the Tiananmen Square student protests 20 years ago.

Fiddling with a plastic toy keyboard as he awaited a sound check for the D-22 anniversary concert, Mr. Zhang says, "A lot of the young generation don't care about politics anymore." What interests him, Mr. Zhang adds in his hesitant yet fluent English, are his music and his friends. He writes not about revolution, but about everyday life.

Carsick Cars's first hit and the current "anthem" of the Beijing underground, "Zhong Nan Hai," shares a name with the Communist Party's central headquarters. But it's also a brand of Chinese cigarettes, and Mr. Zhang maintains the song is about tobacco. In support of this interpretation, audience members at D-22 threw cigarettes at the stage as Mr. Zhang sang "I only smoke Zhongnanhai...I can't live without Zhongnanhai...Who smoked my Zhongnanhai?"

This nihilistic attitude -- more reminiscent of 1980s punk than 1960s flower power -- comes through not only in Mr. Zhang's lyrics and indifference toward traditional song structure, but also in his attitude toward commercial viability. "You can't make money anyway, so just create new stuff, new sounds," he says.

Ironically, Mr. Zhang's success means he is one of the few musicians in this underground scene who doesn't need a day job. Originally a photoelectric engineering major at Beijing Institute of Technology, he left his studies last year and will most likely not go back. Beyond recording and touring with Carsick Cars, he produces music for Maybe Noise, a sublabel of Maybe Mars that focuses on experimental musicians. Mr. Zhang says he also plays with "another four or five bands" and has dabbled in composing. In 2008, he wrote "Xizhimen Traffic Lights" -- a work for cello, piano, guzheng (akin to a zither) and the lute-like pipa that evokes Beijing's downtown traffic -- for Eli Marshall's Beijing New Music Ensemble. Prominent New York critic and blogger Andy Beta sums up Mr. Zhang by calling him "one of the most-gifted musicians of any scene."

Without a political agenda to unify them, Beijing's young underground artists are perhaps best identified by their ambivalence toward their parents' dreams of wealth and upward mobility. As in 1960s America, there's a generation gap. Having lived through the instability of the decade-long Cultural Revolution that began in 1966, the parents remain anxious about economic success, while the ba ling hou or "post-1980" generation -- raised as only children because of China's one-child policy -- grew up feeling protected and secure, says Yan Jun, a soft-spoken experimental musician and critic who organizes shows at 2 Kolegas, a music venue in Beijing.

Many of the ba ling hou have started to second-guess what they've been taught, including "ideas about socialism and capitalism and getting rich and being patriotic and hating Japanese and all those things," says Mr. Zhang. But this doesn't mean that he is actively seeking a "different kind of society," he adds. "I am not a politician or a businessman. I just want to be free to do the things that are important for me...That is all."

Wang Xinjiu, a 19-year-old from Liaoning province who is a student at Bejing's China University of Mining and Technology, embodies the changing social tide. "The people in my university, I don't hate them; they are good boys, they are good girls. But they don't know how to think (outside the box)," he says. In pursuit of university, all they learned to do in high school was "study, study, study." For him, rock and roll -- which he fell in love with at the age of 14 after seeing the early Chinese punk band The Flowers on television -- offered an outlet. He took up the drums. And while his parents' goal for him is a graduate degree, Mr. Wang's own reason for wanting to go to university in Beijing was so he could be part of the capital's music scene. He's a member of a postpunk band called Birdstriking.

At May's three-day Strawberry Music Festival in Beijing's Tongzhou Canal Park -- put on by Modern Sky, the country's largest independent record label -- rock, indie and folk bands from across China and abroad played to thousands of Chinese, many wearing the indie-rock uniform of black-rimmed glasses, skinny pants and plaid shirts, or T-shirts bearing the names of such favorite bands as The Ramones, Velvet Underground and Carsick Cars.

Brought together by a common love for alternative music (and the power of the Internet), one group of about 30 high school and college students from across China was camped out near the main-stage mud pit. Asked why more Chinese youth are listening to rock instead of pop, the leader of the group, a 19-year-old high-school student nicknamed Da Mi, says with unmistakable sarcasm, "Gaige Kaifang," or economic reforms and opening, which is often given as the catch-all reason for China's material progress over the past three decades. For many of them, pop music represents the commercialism that has taken over Chinese culture.

Two qualities that define Beijing rock, says Mr. Pettis, the professor, are freshness and eclecticism. "In England and the States, it's so hard to make music because there's so much history that you can't get away from," he explains. "In China, they have no history." Musicians can pull from a broad repertoire spanning decades and genres without any associated baggage.

That's a draw for bands like The Offset Spectacles, a folk-rock trio that recently relocated from Hong Kong. Back there, says lead guitarist Vince Li, bands tend to sound alike. By contrast, the Beijing scene is "very healthy because the bands are unique. They have their own sound."

On the last night of the weekend anniversary celebration, D-22 was filled with university students, many sitting cross-legged on the floor. He Guofeng (also known as Xiao He) -- a well-known electronic musician -- played a piece on his laptop that incorporated the sounds of howling wolves and falling rain; other of his works bore the influence of Beijing opera. He was followed by Hanggai, an Inner Mongolian folk band playing traditional instruments and using throat singing -- a vocal technique that allows singers to produce two distinct tones at the same time.

Most of Beijing's underground bands still look to the West for inspiration; Mr. Zhang, for example, draws from minimalist composers Steve Reich and Philip Glass and the legendary 1960s band Velvet Underground. Yet like everything else in China, this is changing. Carsick Cars, Xiao He and others have planted the seeds for an organic music scene in Beijing, and younger bands are beginning to look locally for inspiration.

Birdstriking recently gave its first public performance at What Bar, a 20-seat venue near Tiananmen Square. Mr. Wang, the drummer, says the trio formed only a few months ago after he met lead guitarist He Fan, 19, at a concert, where they bonded over their mutual love for rock -- and Carsick Cars. The band ended their set with the Carsick Cars song: "Rock and Roll Hero."

Beijing is still no New York or Berlin, but the city's cultural influence is on the rise. What these bands don't understand, says Mr. Pettis, is "how quickly the culture is moving in their direction. In 20 years, there will be books written about these kids, defining what it is they did."

By JANIS FOO
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124831869681774897.html

Mexico's Banorte stumbles after downgrade

2009-07-25T17:46:00.000+07:00

LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) -- Mexican equities slipped Friday, with shares of banking firm Grupo Financiero Banorte sliding by the most in nearly three months in the wake of a ratings downgrade.

Mexico's IPC index slipped 0.6% to 26,646.37.

Banorte /quotes/comstock/!gfnorte o (MX:GFNORTE O 32.62, -3.06, -8.58%) shares tumbled 8.6% to 32.62 pesos ($2.47), their steepest fall since April 27 after Deutsche Bank cut its rating on the company to hold from buy, following "weak as expected" quarterly results, along with plans for a unit of the World Bank to take a $150 million stake in a Banorte unit.

"This seems like a defensive measure," as the current capital ratio of 15.6% is solid, "and is probably in anticipation of new regulation to force banks to boost their credit-card reserve coverage," wrote analysts Mario Pierry and Tito Labarta to clients. "We downgrade the stock to hold on limited upside to our [price target]" of 37 pesos."

Banorte late Thursday posted a 27% decline in second-quarter profit to 1.31 billion pesos, in line with the projection of analysts surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires. Loan-loss provisions during the period rose to 2.19 billion pesos.

Banking stocks had come under pressure earlier this week, after the central bank outlined rules that would block commercial banks from charging various fees to its customers.

Shares of Grupo Financiero Inbursa fell 4.8% and Banco Compartamos fell 1.2%.

Meanwhile, shares of Grupo Bimbo helped limit the decline on the benchmark. The shares rose 3.1% after the baked-goods maker reported a 70% jump in profit for the second quarter to 1.43 billion pesos.

Sales climbed 43% to 28.58 billion pesos, aided by the company's purchase of Weston Foods, a former U.S.-based unit of Canada's George Weston Ltd. /quotes/comstock/11t!wn (CA:WN 59.20, -0.55, -0.92%)

Brazil's Bovespa rose 0.4% to 54,457.29 in see-saw trades.

Shares of Vale /quotes/comstock/13*!vale/quotes/nls/vale (VALE 19.40, +0.08, +0.41%) rose 0.9% and Petrobras /quotes/comstock/13*!pbr/quotes/nls/pbr (PBR 42.46, -0.11, -0.26%) gained 0.3%.

Building-products company Duratex and home-builder Gafisa /quotes/comstock/13*!gfa/quotes/nls/gfa (GFA 24.72, +0.83, +3.47%) were among the strongest advancers, up 6.8% and 2.4%, respectively. But steel-maker Usiminas led decliners with a loss of 2.6%, cutting into its 4.3% gain in the previous session.

Argentina's Merval shed 0.2% to 1,677.44. Chile's IPSA picked up 0.3% to close at 3,251.03.
Weekly figures

All of the region's major equity indexes finished higher for the week, marking the second consecutive week of advances. The Bovespa rose 4.6% and Mexico gained 3.5%. Argentina rose 3.2% and Chile advanced 1.2%.

The gains were prompted in part by some improved regional and U.S. economic data, including a less-than-expected drop in Brazil's monthly unemployment rate, and better- U.S. corporate earnings than had been anticipated.

Global fund-research firm EPFR said in an update Friday that flows into emerging-market equity funds rebounded during the third week of July, as the start of the earnings season lifted optimism about recovery in U.S. demand for manufactured and commodity exports.

The funds absorbed $2.6 billion, the strongest weekly inflow since June 10, bringing year-to-date inflows to about $32 billion.

Inflows into Latin America and EMEA equity funds totaled $516 million. Brazil equity funds brought in $82 million, according to EPFR.

The week also saw an interest-rate cut in Brazil, leaving the Selic rate at a historic low of 8.75%, and policy-makers indicated that their rate-easing campaign -- during which the key rate was slashed by 500 basis points -- is nearing an end.

For the week, iShares MSCI Brazil Index Fund /quotes/comstock/13*!ewz/quotes/nls/ewz (EWZ 57.08, +0.16, +0.28%) rose 5.6%. The iShares Mexico Index Fund /quotes/comstock/13*!eww/quotes/nls/eww (EWW 40.24, -0.32, -0.79%) rose 4.7% and the iShares MSCI Chile investable index /quotes/comstock/13*!ech/quotes/nls/ech (ECH 47.57, +0.05, +0.11%) edged up 0.7%.

By Carla Mozee, MarketWatch
Carla Mozee is a reporter for MarketWatch, based in Los Angeles.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/mexicos-banorte-skids-lower-after-downgrade-2009-07-24?siteid=rss

European Shares End Mostly Lower

2009-07-25T17:42:00.000+07:00

LONDON -- European shares ended mostly lower Friday, breaking a nine-day rally as markets weakened in late afternoon activity amid sharp losses for telecommunications equipment maker Ericsson and Merck KgaA.

The pan-European Dow Jones Stoxx 600 index fell 0.1% to close at 219.67, ending a nine-session winning streak.

European markets had started the day on a weak note but had managed to push back into positive territory. U.S. stocks fell under pressure in the wake of disappointing earnings data after Thursday's close from Microsoft.

Ericsson fell 7.7%. The Swedish telecommunications equipment giant said second-quarter net income fell 56% to 831 million Swedish krona ($111 million), while revenue rose 7% to 52.1 billion krona. Losses at its two jointly held units, phone maker Sony Ericsson and chipmaker ST-Ericsson, as well as restructuring charges hurt the results.

Another big decliner in Friday's trading, shares of Merck skidded 14.7%. The German drug and chemicals firm revealed a negative decision on its Erbitux drug and reported a 48% drop in second-quarter net income to 108.5 million euros ($154 million).

Also lower, shares of Swiss agrichemicals firm Syngenta fell 6.7%. The company said first-half net profit fell 9% to $1.39 billion, missing market expectations.

The group said that achieving earnings growth for the year has "become more challenging" and that it's now targeting earnings close to the level achieved in 2008. It had previously been targeting earnings growth for 2009.

Banks bucked the trend, with shares of Societe Generale rising 1.7%. The sector is closely tied to perceptions about economic growth. Data out Friday showed that the Ifo Institute's German business-climate index rose to a better-than-expected 87.3 in July and the Markit euro-zone composite purchasing managers index rose to a 10-month high of 46.8 in July, also exceeding forecasts.

Earlier, a steeper-than-expected drop in second-quarter gross domestic product for the United Kingdom didn't derail the gains. At the regional level, the U.K.'s FTSE 100 index managed to hold on to gains to close 0.4% higher at 4576.61.

The German DAX index fell 0.3% to 5,229.36 and the French CAC-40 index slipped 0.2% to 3366.45.

The European earnings season is just getting started. Goldman Sachs strategists lifted their forecasts for adjusted net income for companies in the Dow Jones 600 Stoxx index on Friday.

The brokers now expecting a 19% fall in 2009, from a previous forecast of a 38% drop, and a 34% increase in 2010, from a previous forecast for a 19% rise.

"Better financial earnings, enhanced operational leverage and stronger emerging market growth are key factors," they said.

Of companies reporting Friday, shares of wireless giant Vodafone Group rose 2.9%.

First-quarter revenue rose 9.3% to 10.7 billion pounds ($17.6 billion) boosted by exchange-rate movements as well as merger and acquisition activity. The group reaffirmed its guidance for the full year.

By SARAH TURNER
Write to Sarah Turner at sarah.turner@dowjones.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124841741870378509.html

California Lawmakers Pass Budget Plan

2009-07-25T17:38:00.000+07:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- California's legislature on Friday approved a deal to close a $24 billion budget shortfall, agreeing to a spending plan that relies on sharp cuts in education and health care along with one-time accounting fixes that may only offer brief relief to battered state finances.

"This saves the state from financial ruin and from drowning in a financial abyss," said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. He said he would sign the budget by Monday.

The budget deal would bring some immediate relief to California's near-empty coffers. It would allow the state to approach Wall Street to obtain its annual short-term loans. And it would open the door for officials to stop paying creditors with the IOUs they have been issuing since July 2.

How soon that could happen was unknown, said Controller John Chiang, the state's top accountant. He said Friday that his office must get data from the governor and conduct a stress test to determine whether the budget provides sufficient revenue to stop the IOUs. The process would take at least a week and a half.

Even then, there are no guarantees the IOUs would stop right away. "If you've been out of a job, and you have mortgage bills, utility bills and credit-card bills and you suddenly get hired for a job, it doesn't immediately put cash in your pockets to pay for all of those bills," Mr. Chiang said.

Early Friday afternoon, passage by the Assembly had appeared to be in doubt, with Republicans opposing part of the plan requiring California to pay schools in future years the billions of dollars the state is cutting this year.

Mr. Schwarzenegger had wanted a $26 billion solution, with $24 billion to close the budget gap plus a $2 billion reserve fund. But lawmakers negotiated down to $24 billion.

The plan's $16 billion in spending cuts would compound the state's economic woes, economists say. By January 2010, joblessness would likely rise and consumption decline as hundreds of thousands of teachers, prison guards and other public-sector employees get furloughed and laid off, they say.

The plan would close the shortfall in a $92 billion general-fund budget through June 2010. The $16 billion in spending cuts include $8 billion from education and $1 billion each from salaries, prisons and health care.

In addition, the plan would take nearly $4 billion of local-government funds that have to be repaid, and use other one-time solutions and accounting gimmicks that would be impossible or difficult to replicate in the future.

Some public agencies have already made cuts. This month, more than 200,000 state workers began taking a 14% pay cut with their three-day-a-month furloughs. The two state university systems are also furloughing administration and faculty while boosting fees and class sizes.

Despite the budget's passage, the governor acknowledged the state's financial woes aren't over. Some economists predict an additional $5 billion to $10 billion shortfall will arise this fiscal year.

By STU WOO
Write to Stu Woo at Stu.Woo@wsj.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124844175762978995.html

Rio Tinto Sales Executive Found Success in China's Changes

2009-07-25T15:35:00.000+07:00

SHANGHAI -- For years, Stern Hu, the Australian mining executive detained here for allegedly stealing state secrets, has worked at the intersection of powerful economic and political forces.

Mr. Hu, manager of Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto PLC's iron-ore operations in China, and three colleagues who are Chinese citizens, are being held by the State Security Bureau in the Detention House of Shanghai, a red-brick compound next to farm fields on a small road not far from the city's financial center. Authorities allege they bribed steel-mill operators to obtain secrets related to iron-ore price talks, damaging China's "economic security."

No formal charges have been filed against Mr. Hu, who was detained July 5. Rio Tinto says allegations that its employees were involved in bribery are "wholly without foundation." Australian officials have called for China to move quickly with the case.

Mr. Hu couldn't be reached to comment. In China, suspects in state-secrets cases aren't accorded the right to meet with a lawyer while being investigated.

The detentions come amid China's mounting dissatisfaction with its lack of bargaining power in annual price talks with miners, and deep concern about its dependence on foreigners for economically vital raw materials.

For Mr. Hu, that would have complicated his job considerably. Mr. Hu, who is in his 50s, has been in charge of managing Rio Tinto's relationships with China's biggest state-owned steel mills.

Mr. Hu in many ways personifies China's recent history of marketization and opening to the outside world.

Mr. Hu, who was born in the northern port city of Tianjin, was among the first generation of students admitted to universities when they reopened after the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. He graduated from Peking University with a degree in history and then studied at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences -- and still maintains a scholarly mien, according to industry analysts who say he regularly attended research conferences. As a graduate student, Mr. Hu cowrote a book, "The Art of Entrepreneur Leadership," according to Chinese business magazine Caijing.

In the mid-1980s, he went to work at the China International Trust & Investment Co., now known as Citic Group. Citic pioneered business contacts between a cautiously reforming communist state and the capitalist outside world with the aim of obtaining foreign technology, capital and resources.

Mr. Hu left Citic after several years to join an Australian technology company in Beijing. Then, in the mid-1990s, he joined Rio as its main iron-ore salesman for northern China. In 1997, he became an Australian citizen.

"He was not quite typical for an iron-ore salesman," recalls Philip Kirchlechner, an Australia-based consultant who at the time was leading Rio Tinto's iron-ore sales effort for southern China from the Shanghai office. Unlike others in the business, "He was not into drinking," Mr. Kirchlechner says. "No alcohol, no smoking."

Mr. Hu's abstemious habits didn't hold him back. "He was energetic, diligent, conscientious," says Mr. Kirchlechner. "He was always very eager to make a sale."

In the late 1990s, after the Asian financial crisis hit, that wasn't always easy. "We really had to go out there, visit the mills, take people to dinner, build relationships," says Mr. Kirchlechner. Mr. Hu, he says, was able to use his north China heritage to establish strong bonds with the region's steel-mill executives.

The two men also spent considerable time trying to forecast steel mills' buying behavior. "We wanted to understand future iron-ore demand. It's perfectly legitimate, I think," Mr. Kirchlechner says. He says there was regular information-sharing between the mills and their suppliers that benefited both sides.

Mr. Kirchlechner left Shanghai in 2001, and around that time Mr. Hu became head of iron-ore sales for all of China. Mr. Hu and his wife and two children settled in Shanghai, just before the global iron-ore business was transformed by China's economic rise. In 2003, China surpassed Japan as the largest importer of iron ore.

Spurred in part by rising demand, iron-ore prices marched upward, driving sales and profits for Rio Tinto and other big miners. But China's steel mills continued to follow pricing deals reached first in other countries. Some in China complained Rio Tinto and Anglo-Australian miner BHP Billiton weren't doing enough to boost capacity to meet Chinese demand and keep ore prices from jumping.

Last year, according to figures compiled by Mr. Kirchlechner, China spent more than $57 billion on iron ore and the freight costs of bringing it to China -- equivalent to more than 1% of the nation's gross domestic product. In 2002, it spent less than $3 billion on iron ore.

Ensuring flows of the natural resources required to feed China's industrial-development machine has become a major preoccupation for the government.

"Economic security is viewed as a component of regime and state security in China in a way that it isn't in more advanced industrial countries," says M. Taylor Fravel, a political scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies Chinese national-security issues.

By GORDON FAIRCLOUGH
Write to Gordon Fairclough at gordon.fairclough@wsj.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124847745839780341.html

Gates: Technology Key to India's Challenges

2009-07-25T15:33:00.000+07:00

NEW DELHI -- Technology holds the key to solving many of India's health-care and education challenges, Microsoft Corp. co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates said in New Delhi Friday.

As computers and cellphones become more user-friendly and affordable, they can be used to modernize access to public services in rural parts of the country, for example delivering video lectures to villages without schools or letting doctors examine patients remotely, Mr. Gates said at a seminar.

Mr. Gates, who is on a trip through India, also said he is "very excited" about a recently formed Indian government agency tasked with creating a nationwide identity database, adding that Microsoft is interested to partnering with the agency on the project. Such an database, which would issue a national identity number to each Indian, would help health groups and doctors to track infants who need immunizations and also allow nearly all Indians to open a bank account, which few in the country currently have, he said.

Mr. Gates said he planned to meet Nandan Nilekani, the Indian tech guru who is heading the agency tasked with implementing the database, to offer his help. "It's a very ambitious project," Mr. Gates said. "But the government has picked somebody with a lot of energy and intelligence."

Mr. Gates was in India to receive the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development on behalf of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which Mr. Gates co-chairs with his wife. The organization, which has the largest endowment of any private philanthropic foundation in the world, is spearheading a $258 million effort to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS in India. On the eve of Mr. Gates's arrival in India, it announced an additional $80 million of funding.

In wide-ranging comments to Indian industrialists, health-care professionals and technology executives, Mr. Gates said that India's competition with China and the U.S. has proven "healthy" for the south Asian country because it's spurred India to invest in developing its infrastructure and encouraged India to continue the funding.

"Despite the tough times, it's amazing that this country has not pulled back" its spending on development, he said. "Basic infrastructure investments -- whether it is [public computer] kiosks, schools and roads -- you can't get away from it."

Technology could also help control "leakages" of public funds from India's massive bureaucracy, by letting people give their feedback on public services by cellphone or public computer terminal, Mr. Gates said.

Mr. Gates, 53 years old, removed himself last year from overseeing day-to-day operations at Microsoft to focus his attention on the foundation.

By NIRAJ SHETH
Write to Niraj Sheth at niraj.sheth@wsj.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124843256034678725.html

Closing Arguments Begin in Suu Kyi Trial

2009-07-25T15:30:00.000+07:00

Speculation over the fate of pro-democracy dissident Aung San Suu Kyi heated up as closing arguments began in her Myanmar trial on Friday.

Ms. Suu Kyi faces as many as five years in prison for allegedly violating the terms of a government-imposed house arrest in May, when she allowed an uninvited American well-wisher to visit her home in Yangon without state approval.

Many analysts say they expect the court to find her guilty, because they believe Myanmar's military regime wants to keep the Nobel laureate out of circulation until it holds a national election next year. The last time the junta held such elections, in 1990, Ms. Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy Party won a decisive victory, but the military ignored the results.

There is still a great deal of debate over how stiff the punishment will be, though, assuming Ms. Suu Kyi is found guilty. Many of her supporters say they believe the junta will try to curry international favor by agreeing to a relatively light sentence, such as a new one-year term under house arrest. The most optimistic among them say they believe the government might even agree to let her meet more regularly with political allies during the run-up to next year's vote, to boost the election's credibility.

But most analysts say they doubt the junta will be swayed by such considerations, because nothing short of a full release of Ms. Suu Kyi will placate the country's many international critics, especially in the West. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called for the unconditional release of Ms. Suu Kyi, and some countries, including Indonesia, have suggested they won't accept the results of the election if Ms. Suu Kyi isn't allowed to fully participate.

"I'm definitely expecting the worst" from the trial, said David Mathieson, a Thailand-based researcher at Human Rights Watch, an international advocacy group. "Even if they send her back to house arrest, that's not an acceptable result."

Ms. Suu Kyi's defense gave a 30-page closing statement on Friday, while the prosecution was given the weekend to prepare for its closing statements as early as next week, the Associated Press said

It isn't clear what the junta has in mind—or when a verdict will be reached. Foreign journalists usually aren't allowed into the country and high-ranking diplomats from the U.S. and other Western countries are rarely given access to top military leaders. The junta, which is also accused of a long list of human-rights violations, has confounded expectations in the past, releasing political prisoners unexpectedly, only to crack down on dissidents again later.

The junta has also taken much longer than expected to finish the trial, which some analysts believe suggests the government wasn't prepared for the level of international opprobrium that came with the case. The government has also put on trial two of Ms. Suu Kyi's attendants, as well as the American visitor, John Yettaw of Missouri; he has claimed he dreamed Ms. Suu Kyi was going to be assassinated, and swam to her lakeside residence to warn her.

Government officials have said they are only trying to follow the law, and had little choice but to prosecute Ms. Suu Kyi for letting Mr. Yettaw in her home, even though international activists believe the government had no right to have her under house arrest to begin with. Ms. Suu Kyi has lived under house arrest for 14 of the past 20 years. An editorial in the state-controlled New Light of Myanmar newspaper on Friday warned that calls for Ms. Suu Kyi's release showed "reckless disregard for the law" and suggested outsiders should not to interfere with Myanmar's internal affairs.

Ms. Suu Kyi's lawyers don't dispute the facts of the case, and say local laws have been misapplied, because Ms. Suu Kyi didn't invite Mr. Yettaw. "We have the law on our side, but we don't know if the judges are on our side," Ms. Suu Kyi's main lawyer Kyi Win said, according to the Associated Press.

The worst-case scenario, Ms. Suu Kyi's supporters say, is that the government will sentence her to a full five years in prison -- an outcome they believe would be life-threatening. Ms. Suu Kyi is 64 years old and recently has suffered from poor health. Given the harsh conditions of Myanmar's jails, her backers say, it is possible she wouldn't survive the full term.

Many analysts doubt the regime will go that far for fear of triggering public protests. Internal voices of dissent have remained largely silent throughout the trial -- which analysts say is hardly surprising given the heavy presence of riot police in Yangon's streets -- but tensions could escalate if Myanmar citizens believe Ms. Suu Kyi's life is in danger.

By a WALL STREET JOURNAL Staff Reporter
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124842254622578519.html

As Clinton Ramps Up Policy Blitz, Hurdles Abound

2009-07-25T15:28:00.000+07:00

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is accelerating a campaign to place her stamp on U.S. foreign policy, co-hosting a high-profile summit with China next week and arguing her case in a blitz of policy speeches and television appearances.

But the emerging structure of the Obama administration's foreign-policy team could challenge the secretary's influence on some of the pressing issues Washington faces in the coming months.

The U.S. point man on Iran, Dennis Ross, recently shifted to the White House from the State Department because, White House officials say, President Barack Obama wanted Mr. Ross's expertise on the Middle East to help develop regional strategies inside the National Security Council. Foreign-policy power has traditionally rested with the White House and National Security Council.

Meanwhile, the State Department's special envoys on Arab-Israeli peace and Central Asia, George Mitchell and Richard Holbrooke, have been given broad autonomy and power to make policy decisions -- though the Obama administration stressed that both men report through Mrs. Clinton.

These moves have prompted questions about how much input Mrs. Clinton has in several of Washington's major national-security issues.

"She's acquiesced in creating an empire of envoys on hot-button issues (Pakistan, Iran, Arab-Israeli) and in doing so ceded a lot of diplomatic real estate to high-level negotiators," said Aaron David Miller, who worked at the State Department from 1978 to 2003 and is a Mideast expert at the nonpartisan Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. "And that's not good if you want to be an effective secretary of state."

Aides to Mrs. Clinton say she is playing a critical role in formulating Washington's diplomatic response to the Iranian nuclear threat. A White House official said the personnel decisions haven't eroded Mrs. Clinton's power, and were made to strengthen policy making.

In recent weeks, Mrs. Clinton has given a string of addresses focused on outlining her vision for U.S. foreign policy. She is scheduled to appear Sunday for an hourlong interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," where she will lay out her views on issues ranging from North Korea's nuclear program to global warming, according to her aides. And next week, Mrs. Clinton, with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, will lead the U.S. side in the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, placing her at the forefront of shaping perhaps the U.S.'s most important bilateral relationship.

These activities follow a month during which the secretary was recuperating from a broken elbow, had to forgo foreign travel, and thus had a lower profile. Mrs. Clinton's absence fed the perception that she had been marginalized.

Mr. Obama has often assumed the role of America's chief diplomat, traveling widely and enjoying popularity abroad. And Messrs. Mitchell and Holbrooke's globetrotting has placed them regularly in the international spotlight.

Mrs. Clinton's aides stress that the secretary continued working through her surgery and rehabilitation. Members of her staff say she has hosted a string of private lunches and meetings with foreign-policy thinkers to highlight the tenets of her strategic vision.

"We've obviously also worked with special envoys, the White House, the bureaus to develop a framework that does, I think, guide our policy," said a senior State Department official who has worked on Mrs. Clinton's policy outreach.

A number of former U.S. officials and foreign diplomats said they believe Mrs. Clinton's naming of special envoys has marked an improvement from previous foreign-policy structures. They note that former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice directly engaged in the Arab-Israeli dispute during her last two years in office, drawing her away from other issues. They also say Mr. Holbrooke's involvement in issues in Afghanistan and Pakistan has given a civilian a major role in a U.S. policy that has been dominated by the Pentagon.

"There's a much clearer articulation of what they want to do in the region," said Teresita Schaffer, a South Asia expert at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former U.S. diplomat.

Mrs. Clinton's framework focuses on traditional global challenges such as nuclear proliferation and terrorism, while also broadening U.S. diplomacy to address issues such as global warming, economics and women's rights. Mrs. Clinton has also emphasized her preference for advancing U.S. interests through what she calls "soft power": partnerships with businesses, women's groups and other nongovernment bodies to induce lasting change.

"We'll go beyond states to create opportunities for nonstate actors and individuals to contribute to solutions," Mrs. Clinton said this month.

On a trip to India this week, Mrs. Clinton was already putting her philosophy into action. She met with film stars, corporate chieftains and environmental groups before holding any of her high-level discussions with Indian government officials.

By JAY SOLOMON
Write to Jay Solomon at jay.solomon@wsj.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124846010740779623.html

Sri Lankan Loan Is Cleared by the IMF

2009-07-25T15:26:00.000+07:00

WASHINGTON -- The International Monetary Fund approved a $2.6 billion loan to Sri Lanka, despite opposition by the U.S., Britain and France, which were concerned about human-rights violations and skeptical of Sri Lanka's commitment to change.

The IMF doesn't take specific votes from its member countries on loan programs, which are regularly approved by consensus. Instead, countries "abstain" from approvals -- and even that is done rarely. The last time Britain abstained, for instance, was in 2004, concerning a measure related to Argentina. Several other countries also abstained in the Sri Lanka vote, IMF officials said.

IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn generally won't push a loan deal that has significant opposition. But in this case, IMF officials said a "clear majority" of the membership backed the loan, particularly Asian countries. A number of IMF members were worried that scrapping the loan, or delaying it much longer, could provoke a financial crisis in Sri Lanka.

Following the board's approval, the IMF's deputy managing director, Takatoshi Kato, issued a statement saying the global financial crisis had a "significant impact" on Sri Lanka's economy and the IMF loan was intended "to restore fiscal and external viability and address the significant reconstruction needs of the conflict-affected areas, thereby laying the basis for future higher economic growth."

In May, Sri Lanka's army finished off the Tamil Tigers, a rebel group that had been fighting for decades in a civil war marked by alleged atrocities committed by both sides.

Around that time, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the U.S. opposed an IMF loan, which she said should wait until the conflict was fully resolved.

Even so, the IMF began to negotiate the economic-overhaul program that came up for board approval on Friday. A Treasury representative said the U.S. opposed the loan based on skepticism of "ability and commitment of the government to carry out necessary policy adjustments."

Britain cited concern about the humanitarian situation in the refugee camps, according to a British government document. "Our objectives for Sri Lanka remain to work to secure long-term peace and prosperity for the country through reconciliation between Sri Lanka's communities -- Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims and others -- and a fully inclusive political settlement."

France cited human-rights concerns and a lack of confidence that Sri Lanka would carry out needed overhauls, IMF officials said.

By BOB DAVIS and MEENA THIRUVENGADAM

Write to Bob Davis at bob.davis@wsj.com and Meena Thiruvengadam at meena.thiruvengadam@dowjones.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124848621909480655.html

Police Corner Protesters at Seoul Car Plant

2009-07-24T15:02:00.000+07:00

SEOUL -- Police said they would try to wait out a group of fired workers who took control of part of a Ssangyong Motor Co. factory complex, in hopes of avoiding a violent end to a seven-week standoff at a company hit hard by the global recession.

About 500 workers and 200 sympathizers remained holed up with makeshift weapons in the South Korean auto maker's painting facility after police earlier this week drove them from the main factory.

The demonstrators used giant slingshots to fire nuts, bolts and other projectiles at police again Thursday. They spray-painted a message on the building that said, "If you are not going to talk, kill us all."

The fired workers took over the complex in suburban Seoul on May 31 and shut down production. They want Ssangyong, the smallest of South Korea's five main auto makers by sales, to give back their jobs.

Though South Korea has a history of labor unrest, the trouble at Ssangyong stands out in a time when the government has persuaded many companies and unions to avoid confrontation during the economic downturn. The government pressed companies to use pay freezes, job-sharing and other methods rather than layoffs to curb costs, and pushed unions to accept such measures.

That effort contributed to a sharp rise in South Korea's economic output in the second quarter, up 2.3% from the first quarter, the Bank of Korea said Friday, making it the nation's best quarterly performance in more than five years.

But Ssangyong, which chiefly makes sport-utility vehicles, has long suffered financial difficulties and, like other struggling auto makers, was pushed to the brink by the global recession that began last year. It recorded its second-biggest loss ever -- 710 billion won, or about $567 million -- in 2008 when demand plunged as consumers coped with high fuel prices and the slowing economy. Vehicle shipments fell to 81,000, down from 122,000 in 2007.

This January, Shanghai Automotive Industrial Corp. of China, which bought Ssangyong in 2003, put the company into bankruptcy restructuring and gave control to a team of South Korean managers and bank creditors. The firm had a loss of 265 billion won in the first quarter.

Under a restructuring plan approved by the bankruptcy court in February, Ssangyong planned to lay off 2,600 of its 7,100 employees. About 1,600 accepted a severance package. An additional 1,000 workers decided to protest by taking control of the company's manufacturing complex. They posted signs around the complex that said, "Layoffs are murder."

The shutdown damaged Ssangyong's ability to emerge from bankruptcy restructuring. Car designers resorted to working on their laptops and meeting in storefront computer shops. In June, Ssangyong produced no cars and sold 217, just 20 outside South Korea.

By last weekend, the number of fired workers still occupying the complex had dwindled to about 500, but they were reinforced by about 200 people from other unions and companies, government officials say.

On Monday, more than 2,000 police in riot gear moved in to the complex and cleared the way for several thousand other workers to restart assembly lines. The fired workers retreated to the paint facility and have turned it into a fortress.

Police have used metal barricades to shield themselves as they have moved closer to the paint facility since Monday. They decided not to forcibly enter because the building is filled with flammable liquids. "We're waiting, for the time being," a police spokesman said Thursday.

The clash in part reflects the inflexibility of labor conditions that has long been one of the most troublesome issues in the South Korean economy. Because promotions follow a strict hierarchy and pay is based on seniority, South Korean workers in white-collar and blue-collar jobs tend to stay at one company.

By EVAN RAMSTAD
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124837489036876593.html

Jakarta Bomb Suspect Eludes Dragnet

2009-07-24T14:57:00.000+07:00

Indonesian police detained several people in connection with last week's Jakarta hotel bombings as they intensified their search for a Malaysian fugitive believed to be the mastermind behind the attacks.

Police said one of the people, whose identity wasn't released, confessed to having trained as a suicide bomber, the Associated Press and state media reported. It was unclear whether police suspect the man of a role in the bombings at the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels, which killed nine people and injured several dozen more, or if they thought he was being trained for future attacks.

Authorities say they continue to believe the main architect of the bombings was Noordin Mohamed Top, an alleged terrorist who has worked with Jemaah Islamiyah, a local offshoot of al Qaeda and who is linked to attacks in Indonesia in 2002 to 2005 that killed more than 200 people.

Police raided a house belonging to Mr. Noordin's father-in-law a few days before the latest attacks and uncovered explosive material similar to an undetonated bomb found in the JW Marriott, senior antiterrorism officials have said.

The police have picked up several other people, including a married couple in the central Java town of Cilacap, where Mr. Noordin's father-in-law lived, and two other people believed to be his wife and his child.

It was unclear whether any of the people were being charged with crimes, or if they were just being questioned for information that could lead to Mr. Noordin.

Analysts said the dragnet suggested authorities may have already had good intelligence on Mr. Noordin's activities before the Jakarta bombings, allowing them to quickly identify his relatives and possible associates in the aftermath.

"I think they've got real material -- the information they've been able to piece together from people they arrested in Cilacap both before the bombing and afterwards I think is producing leads," said Sidney Jones, an adviser to the International Crisis Group, a Brussels peace-advocacy body.

"I really am convinced they are making some key arrests" that could lead to Mr. Noordin, she said.

Mr. Noordin has eluded police before, though, including at least one instance in which authorities identified his location only to have him slip away moments before they arrived.

Last week's bombings were the first major terrorist attack in Indonesia since 2005, and they shattered the widely held belief that Indonesia had rooted out the last of its serious terrorists, many of whom studied in hard-line Islamic religious schools in the 1990s.

Intelligence experts say they believe Jemaah Islamiyah remains a shadow of its former self, and investors for the most part have shrugged off the bombings on the assumption that there won't be a string of copycat attacks in months ahead.

Analysts say the risk of bombings remains as long as Mr. Noordin and any of his associates are at large. Some say they believe he has tried to develop terrorist cells in communities such as Cilacap in recent years.

Details about the man who allegedly confessed to training as a suicide bomber are sketchy. State media reported that a man confessed to being recruited by Mr. Noordin and groomed as a suicide bomber, but it was unclear when or for what specific purpose.

The report said police picked the man up in central Java.

Police are still working to identify the two suicide bombers who actually carried out last week's attacks. Authorities have released sketches of their reconstructed faces; one was identified as a man about 17 years old; the other was a man 20 to 40 years old.
—Linda Silaen and Reuben Carder contributed to this article.

By PATRICK BARTA and TOM WRIGHT
Write to Patrick Barta at patrick.barta@wsj.com and Tom Wright at tom.wright@wsj.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124836059373775977.html

AmEx Net Drops 48% as Charge-Offs Increase

2009-07-24T07:21:00.001+07:00

American Express Co. said customers reduced their spending by 16% in the second quarter, sending the company's quarterly net income down 48% amid rising charge-offs, as more consumers buckle under the recession.

Still, the news wasn't as dismal in several important measures as AmEx expected, adding to tentative hopes a turnaround is coming. "Although it is still too early to point to any sure signs of an economic recovery, the number of cardmembers who are falling behind in their payments, the volume of bankruptcy filings and the level of loan write-offs were better than we had expected," Kenneth I. Chenault, ...

BY APARAJITA SAHA-BUBNA
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124838009658476871.html

Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto

2009-07-24T07:15:00.000+07:00

Like something out of a science-fiction movie, the robot stands 18 meters tall and towers above the tree line. But to the thousands of visitors who have come by Odaiba's Shiokaze Park just outside Tokyo, it is a familiar sight. It's Gundam.

The statue, a "life-size" replica of the television anime (Japanese slang for animated series) character created in 1979, was erected this month and will stand in the park through August. It was built by Bandai, the parent company of Sunrise, the animation studio that created the original series, "Mobile Suit Gundam," to celebrate the iconic cartoon's 30th anniversary and acknowledge the $528 million franchise of spin-offs, toys and books it has spawned in that time. Some fans even say the fictional robot has played a part in Japan's rise in the world of robotics engineering and technology.

Set 100 years in the future on extraterrestrial mining colonies (colonies established on other planets or moons for the purpose of extracting minerals) as well as on Earth, "Mobile Suit Gundam" imagines a radical future, where robots are commonplace. A renegade faction, the principality of Zeon (an extraterrestrial colony), has declared war on Earth Federation (a global government of the future) in a bid to become independent. The weapon of choice (created by Zeon but quickly replicated by Earth) is a "mobile suit," a robot driven by a human pilot who sits inside. The RX-78 Gundam -- named for the fictional alloy, Gundanium, from which it is made -- is used by a young pilot in defense of Earth.

Since the first series aired -- and the many other series, movies and made-for-the-Web shows that followed -- children and adults have been hooked on the melodrama featuring these giant martial robots. The mania has fueled several animated series and original Internet animations, films, manga and novels, videogames and plastic models (called pura-mo), merchandise including clothing, costumes, beach towels and even government-issued postage stamps.

Yasuo Miyakawa, 53 years old, a producer of several "Gundam" TV shows and movies, contends the cartoon series has had a significant effect on shaping Japan's technologies. "The strong originality and the dramatic story of Gundam have had a strong influence not only on the creators of animation but also the other kind of creators, engineers, artists and so on," he said.

In some ways, the Shiokaze Park exhibit reveals a uniquely Japanese way of thinking. Other countries erect edifices of political, historical or religious figures. A five-story-tall robot is less tangible, a whimsical expression of the place that imagination holds in Japanese life.

Yoshiyuki Tomino, 68, the creator of Gundam and an executive director at Sunrise, told a collection of journalists at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan this month, "Gundam reminded viewers and fans of the potential power of humans."

In mid-June, two weeks before the statue in Shiokaze officially opened to the public, the grass surrounding the robot statue had been turned into marshland by the typical June rains and the incessant trampling of feet, as curiosity prompted thousands of people to come for a sneak preview.

A straggly line of elementary school children wended into sight, all wearing identical blue hats. They were corralled by teachers placed at judicious intervals, and as the robot loomed into view, the voices started to clamor. "It's so cool!" shouted one boy excitedly.

Yuji Sota, 5, was at Shiokaze Park with his brother and his parents. He couldn't contain his excitement and rushed up to the statue, which on this day was still fenced off with construction barriers. (The fences were later removed.) "It's Gundam!" he shouted. "It's huge!" His father, Takeshi, said he introduced his sons to the shows he watched as a child, but added that the boys would have discovered it on their own soon enough.

Gundam has become a collective term for seven different story lines set in different eras, with a few common denominators and war machines called Gundam. The latest series showing on TV is "Mobile Suit Gundam 00."

"It's moved on from when I was a kid," said Mr. Sota. "It's gotten a lot more complex, but it'll always be something that I love." Seigo Tanaka, a digital animator who worked on Gundam animated series such as "SD Gundam Force" and "Gundam Evolve" from 2003 to 2006, said, "Like 'Star Trek,' I think it has a vast base of fan groups, from your extreme fanatics, who look at Gundam as a form of religion, to your general audience who have at least have heard of the name."
—Euan McKirdy is a writer based in Hong Kong.

By EUAN MCKIRDY
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124832768211375055.html

South Korean Riot Police Wait Out Factory Seizure

2009-07-24T07:10:00.000+07:00

SEOUL -- Police said they would try to wait out a group of fired workers who have taken control of part of a factory complex at South Korean auto maker Ssangyong Motor Co., in hopes of avoiding a violent end to a plant takeover that has lasted nearly two months.

About 500 fired workers and 200 sympathizers remained holed up on Friday with homemade weapons in the company's car-paint facility after police earlier this week moved them out of the main factory.

The demonstrators used giant slingshots to fire nuts, bolts and other projectiles at police again Thursday. They spray-painted a message on the building that said, "If you are not going to talk, kill us all."

The fired workers, part of a group of 2,600 laid off in a bankruptcy restructuring this year, took over the complex in suburban Seoul seven weeks ago and shut down production. They want Ssangyong, the smallest of South Korea's five main auto makers by sales, to give back their jobs.

Though South Korea has a history of labor unrest, the trouble at Ssangyong stands out in a time when the government has persuaded many companies and unions to avoid confrontation during the economic downturn. The government pressed companies to use pay freezes, job-sharing and other methods rather than layoffs to curb costs, and it pushed unions to accept such measures.
Ssangyong's Saga

Key events in the company's history and performance.

View Interactive

* More interactive graphics and photos

But Ssangyong, which chiefly makes sport-utility vehicles, has long suffered financial difficulties and, like other struggling auto makers, was pushed to the brink by the global recession that began last year. It recorded its second-biggest loss ever -- 710 billion won, or about $567 million -- in 2008 when demand plunged as consumers coped with high fuel prices and the slowing economy. Vehicle shipments fell to 81,000, down from 122,000 in 2007.

This January, Shanghai Automotive Industrial Corp. of China, which bought Ssangyong in 2003, put the company into bankruptcy restructuring and gave control to a team of South Korean managers and bank creditors. The firm lost 265 billion won in the first quarter.

Under a restructuring plan approved by the bankruptcy court in February, Ssangyong planned to lay off 2,600 of its 7,100 employees. About 1,600 accepted a severance package. An additional 1,000 workers decided to protest by taking control of the company's manufacturing complex on May 31 and halting production. They posted signs around the complex that said, "Layoffs are murder."

The shutdown damaged Ssangyong's ability to emerge from bankruptcy restructuring. Car designers resorted to working on their laptops and meeting in storefront computer shops, which are usually filled at night with students playing online games. In June, Ssangyong produced no cars and sold 217, just 20 outside South Korea.

By last weekend, the number of fired workers still occupying the complex had dwindled to about 500, but they were reinforced by about 200 people from other unions and companies, government officials say.

On Monday, more than 2,000 police in riot gear moved into the complex and cleared the way for several thousand other workers to restart assembly lines. The fired workers retreated to the paint facility and have turned it into a fortress.

Police have used metal barricades to shield themselves as they have moved closer to the paint facility since Monday. They decided not to forcibly enter because the building is filled with flammable liquids. "We're waiting, for the time being," a police spokesman said Thursday.

The clash in part reflects the inflexibility of labor conditions that has long been one of the most troublesome issues in the South Korean economy. Because promotions follow a strict hierarchy and pay is based on seniority, South Korean workers in white-collar and blue-collar jobs tend to stay at one company.

In an interview before the plant takeover, Lee Chang-kun, a leader of the Ssangyong union who has become a spokesman for the fired workers, said, "We can't agree that the solution is cutting people's jobs. We would like to keep the total number of jobs and share the hardship together."

By EVAN RAMSTAD
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124837489036876593.html

U.S., Israel Abort Missile Test

2009-07-24T07:07:00.000+07:00

TEL AVIV -- Israeli and U.S. military officials this week aborted a test of a missile-defense shield under development by the two countries, raising questions about the reliability of Israel's defenses against a potential Iranian attack.

The news, which military officials were careful not to characterize as a failure of the Israeli missile-defense program, comes amid heightened tensions in the Middle East over the strengthening of Iranian hawks loyal to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Mr. Ahmadinejad's recent electoral victory has fueled renewed debate in Washington and European capitals about whether to rely on continued diplomacy to curb what the U.S. and Israel see as Iran's intention to build nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

The Obama administration has said it is keeping open all options, including a military strike, to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. On Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton raised eyebrows when she said that the U.S. could extend a "defense umbrella" in the Middle East if Iran succeeds in obtaining nuclear capability.

U.S. military officials confirmed that the joint test was partially scrapped. They reported success on the part of the exercise meant to test how well the Arrow antimissile system would function with other elements of the U.S. ballistic-missile network, including the Terminal High Altitude Area Program, the defensive system recently moved to Hawaii in preparation for a possible North Korean missile launch.

In the past year, Gulf Arab allies of the U.S. have signed contracts worth several billion dollars to buy upgraded Patriot military missile-defense systems from Raytheon Co., based in Waltham, Mass., as a potential deterrent to an Iranian attack.

Iran's military capabilities include the Shihab III ballistic missile, which has a range of about 1,200 miles and has the capability of carrying a nuclear warhead.

Israel has spent more than a decade developing a homegrown missile-defense solution after the failure of the U.S. military's Patriot missiles to intercept Iraqi Scud rockets aimed at Israel in the 1991 Gulf War.

The Arrow II interceptor is being jointly developed by Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. and Chicago-based Boeing Co. Israel already has deployed at least two Arrow II batteries at unknown locations in the country.

Boeing says in a fact sheet about the Arrow system that it passed two successful test flights in 2007. Israeli media have reported that the military has tested the Arrow at least 17 times and that 90% of those tests have been successful. However, it is unclear how many of those tests included a simulated missile interception, which was the goal of Wednesday's test, according to the U.S. Missile Defense Agency.

The Pentagon agency said that during the initial stage of the test, Arrow's radar identified a dummy enemy missile fired from a C-17 aircraft. But the interceptor missile wasn't launched because "not all test conditions to launch the Arrow Interceptor were met," the agency said in a statement. It didn't elaborate on what those conditions were.

An Israeli Defense Ministry spokesman said the launch was aborted due to a "glitch," but declined to clarify what that meant.

"It's not a failure," Defense Ministry spokesman Schlomo Dror said of the test. "Part of it was a success, and part of it was not executed."

U.S. military officials confirmed that the joint test was partially scrapped. They reported success on the part of the exercise meant to test how well the Arrow antimissile system would function with other elements of the U.S. ballistic-missile network, including the Terminal High Altitude Area Program, the defensive system recently moved to Hawaii in preparation for a possible North Korean missile launch.

By MARGARET COKER and JOSH MITNICK
Write to Margaret Coker at margaret.coker@wsj.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124839126653577459.html

Porsche CEO, Finance Chief Resign; Supervisory Board Backs Qatar Deal

2009-07-23T23:13:00.000+07:00

FRANKFURT -- Porsche Automobil Holding SE Thursday said Chief Executive Wendelin Wiedeking is leaving the German sports-car maker with immediate effect, hours after the company's supervisory board approved his plan for a capital increase of at least €5 billion ($7.1 billion) and unanimously backed talks with Qatar over a capital injection.

Porsche Chief Financial Officer and Wiedeking confidant Holger Haerter also resigned.

"Wiedeking and Haerter have come to the conclusion that the further strategic development of Porsche ... is better off, if they are not on board as acting persons," the Stuttgart-based company said in a statement following an extraordinary board meeting that started Wednesday evening.

The move -- along with the announcement that Porsche will seek to raise funds – is expected to make it easier for Volkswagen and Porsche to merge given that Mr. Wiedeking opposed such a move.

"The measure shall create the foundation of building an integrated car manufacturing group with Porsche SE and Volkswagen AG," a company statement said.

Porsche has been locked in a fierce power struggle with Volkswagen. Its attempt to gain full control over its much larger German peer backfired when credit markets dried up amid the financial crisis.

Porsche said Mr. Wiedeking accepted a compensation package of €50 million for his contract expiring in 2012. Mr. Haerter will receive €12.5 million as compensation, Porsche said, adding that both executives "waived rights deriving from their current contracts in a substantial amount." Mr. Wiedeking said in a statement that he will donate a substantial amount of money to social projects and charity organizations.

Messrs. Wiedeking and Haerter will "provide advice to both companies as wished by the supervisory board" and will "support their respective successor in their tasks."

The head of production and logistics at Porsche's core sports-car operations, Michael Macht, will replace Mr. Wiedeking as the operation's chief executive.

Thomas Edig, the operation's head of human resources, will become his deputy. Messrs. Macht and Edig have been appointed as executive board members at Porsche's holding company as well, with Mr. Macht being in charge of technology and products and Mr. Edig with responsibility for commercial issues and administration.

Mr. Wiedeking, Germany's highest-paid executive, had come under fire from Volkswagen's influential supervisory board chairman and Porsche co-owner Ferdinand Piech, Volkswagen's powerful labor unions and the German state of Lower Saxony, which can block important decisions at the Wolfsburg-based auto maker through its 20.1% stake.

Speculation about Mr. Wiedeking's departure has swirled since Mr. Piech said May 11 in Italy during one of his rare public appearances that he favored Volkswagen Chief Executive Martin Winterkorn, one of his closest confidants, as head of a combined company.

Mr. Piech advocated an outright sale of Porsche's coveted sports-car operations to Volkswagen, which would make it the 10th brand of Europe's largest auto empire, comprising vehicles ranging from the super-luxury Bugatti Veyron sportscar to Scania AG's heavy trucks.

Mr. Wiedeking boosted the families' wealth by saving Porsche from the brink of bankruptcy in the early 1990s and transforming the closely held firm into the world's most profitable car maker. Porsche reaped huge windfall profits from its holding in Volkswagen after launching its stealth takeover in 2005 by bypassing disclosure rules through a complex set of stock options. Porsche is still Volkswagen's majority shareholder with a stake of almost 51% and controls options to hike its stake by another 20%.

But Porsche's plan to boost its stake to 75% and access Volkswagen's cash reserves went wrong as credit markets tightened and a steep fall in demand ate into the sportscar operation's earnings. Tables turned in the two companies' power struggle when Porsche's net debt ballooned to around €10 billion as it built its holding in Volkswagen and the Wolfsburg-based company in March had to grant its parent a €700 million loan.
—The Associated Press contributed to this article.

By CHRISTOPH RAUWALD
Write to Christoph Rauwald at christoph.rauwald@dowjones.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124832455323475045.html

Job Cuts Outpace GDP Fall

2009-07-23T20:45:00.000+07:00

WASHINGTON -- The job market is doing even worse than the overall economy, prompting concern inside and outside the government that deeper-than-expected joblessness could persist once the recession ends.

Breaking from historical patterns, the unemployment rate -- currently at 9.5% -- is one to 1.5 percentage points higher than would be expected under one economic rule of thumb, says Lawrence Summers, President Barack Obama's top economic adviser. Since the recession began in December 2007, the economy has lost 6.5 million jobs, 4.7% of total employment. The unemployment rate has jumped five percentage points, while the economy has contracted by roughly 2.5%.

In recent days, Mr. Summers, White House budget director Peter Orszag and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke have all talked publicly about the unusual disconnect between growth and employment. Stubborn unemployment could be a political problem for Mr. Obama, who pushed hard for a $787 billion stimulus plan this year and has already been criticized by Republicans for failing to stem the rise in the joblessness.

Though today's disparity between growth and jobs is especially stark, a jobless recovery wouldn't be new: The past two recessions were marked by firms reluctant to resume hiring right away after demand recovered. The current disconnect could reflect an unanticipated surge in productivity -- companies finding ways to increase output with fewer workers. That could set up the economy to grow rapidly in future years. Rising productivity is the linchpin of economic growth and rising living standards.

But there are darker scenarios. Struggling workers, whose wages also are being squeezed, could drag a fragile economy back into deep recession.

"Final demand and production have shown tentative signs of stabilization," Mr. Bernanke told lawmakers this week as part of the Fed chairman's semiannual report to Congress. "The labor market, however, has continued to weaken."

Job insecurity could lead consumers to further pull back spending, he said, calling it "an important risk to the outlook."

The latest data imply productivity is pushing higher. Macroeconomic Advisers, a St. Louis forecaster, estimates productivity grew at a rapid 5% annual rate in the second quarter. While painful for workers who lose jobs, advances in productivity could help get the economy on steadier footing. When productivity rose in the 1990s -- thanks partly to technological advances -- the economy boomed, lifting wages.

Some companies are reaping gains as they clamp down on labor costs. While corporate profits are down from a year ago, many of the biggest companies reporting income figures for the second quarter are ahead of expectations because they have cut costs so aggressively.

Caterpillar Inc. this week raised its profit forecast for the year, crediting cost-cutting efforts. The company's second-quarter profits were $371 million, down from $1.106 billion a year earlier, but it said it squeezed operating costs by $4.5 billion from a year earlier. Layoffs and early retirements have reduced its work force this year by 17,100, 15% of the total, and it is instituting "rolling layoffs" in which it has been furloughing workers a few weeks at a time.

"When the economy turns around and demand picks up, we're much better suited to ramp back up because we're not looking at bringing on many new people and getting them up to speed," says Jim Dugan, a Caterpillar spokesman.

Kellogg Co. said in May that net income for its first quarter rose 1.3% as cost-cutting offset falling revenue. International Business Machines Corp. said second-quarter profit rose 12% despite falling revenue. The secret: It is cutting costs by $3.5 billion this year.

The latest data imply productivity is pushing higher. Macroeconomic Advisers, a St. Louis forecaster, estimates productivity grew at a rapid 5% annual rate in the second quarter. While painful for workers who lose jobs, advances in productivity could help get the economy on steadier footing. When productivity rose in the 1990s -- thanks partly to technological advances -- the economy boomed, lifting wages.

Some companies are reaping gains as they clamp down on labor costs. While corporate profits are down from a year ago, many of the biggest companies reporting income figures for the second quarter are ahead of expectations because they have cut costs so aggressively.

Caterpillar Inc. this week raised its profit forecast for the year, crediting cost-cutting efforts. The company's second-quarter profits were $371 million, down from $1.106 billion a year earlier, but it said it squeezed operating costs by $4.5 billion from a year earlier. Layoffs and early retirements have reduced its work force this year by 17,100, 15% of the total, and it is instituting "rolling layoffs" in which it has been furloughing workers a few weeks at a time.

"When the economy turns around and demand picks up, we're much better suited to ramp back up because we're not looking at bringing on many new people and getting them up to speed," says Jim Dugan, a Caterpillar spokesman.

Kellogg Co. said in May that net income for its first quarter rose 1.3% as cost-cutting offset falling revenue. International Business Machines Corp. said second-quarter profit rose 12% despite falling revenue. The secret: It is cutting costs by $3.5 billion this year.

By JON HILSENRATH and DEBORAH SOLOMON
http://online.wsj.com/public/quotes/main.html?type=djn&symbol=IBM

HCL Head Says Taxes May Harm India Tech

2009-07-23T20:40:00.000+07:00

NEW DELHI -- One of India's leading technology entrepreneurs warned that rising taxation in India threatens to undermine gains that the information technology industry could reap as the global recession prompts multinationals to outsource more.

Shiv Nadar, founder and chairman of HCL Technologies Ltd., said in an interview that in the wake of the downturn large clients are reassessing which functions they need to keep in-house and what can be moved elsewhere.

"When the economy is hurting they are going back to say, 'What is our core, what is the purpose for which we exist?'" said Mr. Nadar, 64 years old.

But he warned that the Indian government's increasing taxation of the industry threatens to curb its cost advantage and boost smaller-country competitors trying to challenge India's dominance.

Since 1999, the Indian government has given the tech industry an income-tax holiday to foster growth. The holiday was scheduled to end this year until the government, in its new budget unveiled earlier this month, extended it for one year -- a move widely welcomed by the industry.

Separately, however, the government last year introduced a new tax called the minimum alternative tax that, in effect, imposed a 10% tax on profits in cases where companies were paying no taxes under India's income tax regulations. In the recent budget, that tax rate was increased to 15%. Mr. Nadar said the increased burden would give countries like Egypt, Sri Lanka, South Africa and the Philippines an advantage. "On the side there are a bunch of alternative countries that are waiting," he said.

Mr. Nadar has been a pioneer in India's technology industry since 1976, when he founded Hindustan Computers Ltd. HCL Technologies has since grown into one of India's largest tech companies. In the quarter ended March 31, it reported net income of $43 million, down 50% from a year earlier. Revenue increased 18% to $564.4 million.

India's technology industry, which has become a major driver of India's economic success over the past decade, hasn't escaped the downturn. Many big companies rely heavily on the global finance industry for clients, and the financial crisis has curtailed spending on new initiatives at many banks.

A key question for the future is whether the industry can pick up enough new work, either from other industries looking to rationalize their operations or from existing clients outsourcing more functions to offset a prolonged financial-services slump. Mr. Nadar said he is optimistic.

Mr. Nadar said big, international clients would drive consolidation in India's IT industry by demanding that tech companies handle an ever-greater number of tasks. Technology companies that don't have those capabilities, or the geographic spread required by multinationals, either have to acquire them or be acquired.

Big clients are saying, "Look, we are not going to sit here and cut this into pieces of contracts [for] 10 different people," Mr. Nadar said. "They are going to give it to one organization, and that one organization should have at least 70% to 80% of what the services are."

Earlier this month, Mr. Nadar named his daughter, Roshni, 27 years old, as executive director and chief executive of HCL Corp., the holding company that controls HCL Technologies and another publicly listed company, HCL Infosystems Ltd., which focuses on the Indian market.

By PAUL BECKETT
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Asian Makers Ship PCs With China Web Filter

2009-07-23T19:51:00.001+07:00

BY LORETTA CHAO IN BEIJING, TING-I TSAI IN TAIPEI AND DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI IN TOKYO

Some Asian computer makers have begun to include China's Green Dam Web-filtering software in products shipped to Chinese customers, even after Chinese government officials last month indefinitely delayed efforts to make the software mandatory in the face of industry and international opposition.

Taiwan-based Acer Inc., the world's third-largest PC vendor by shipments, said it started shipping computers bundled with CD-ROMs that contained Green Dam this month. Acer said it was complying with requests from government officials that it make the software available, even if they weren't making it a requirement.

"This is based on the Ministry ...
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Top Kurdish Parties Face Poll Challenge

2009-07-23T19:47:00.000+07:00

By GINA CHON

BAGHDAD -- The two political parties that have long dominated life in Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish enclave are facing their first real challenge in years as they head into elections this weekend.

More than 500 candidates from 24 parties or alliances are running for the Kurdish Regional Government's 111-member parliament, in polls slated for July 25. Residents also will vote for president of the region, with current President Masoud Barzani, who is running for a second term, the hands-down favorite.

The parliament represents the three provinces of Iraqi Kurdistan. The region was awarded a measure of United Nations-enforced autonomy from Saddam Hussein in 1991. It held on to its semi-independence after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 that ousted him.

The region has long been dominated by the Kurdistan Democratic Party, headed by Mr. Barzani, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, led by Jalal Talabani, president of Iraq. The KDP and PUK run as a coalition called the Kurdistani List. In 2005, the two parties swept area elections, capturing all but seven seats, which two smaller parties and independents share.

Candidates outside the List are trying to change that equation and capitalize on dissatisfaction with the status quo.

"The most important issue for our people is the totalitarian control of the leadership of the two dominant political parties over all sources of the economy, media and government, and all aspects of life in Kurdistan," says independent presidential candidate Kamal Mirawdeli, who is far behind in some polls but is pulling in double-digit rankings.

The biggest threat to the List is a group of former PUK members, fed up with the party's leadership, who have cobbled together an alliance to challenge the old guard. Calling themselves the Change slate, they are poised to capture several seats, analysts say.

They are attracting voters who are frustrated with what they say has been corruption, curbs on democracy and the neglect of basic services in recent years. "They made so many promises and told us so many lies," says Omer Mahmud Salih, a resident of the Kurdish regional capital of Irbil. "Corruption exists in every country, but ours is beyond limits."

Any weakening of the two parties' hold on power could have repercussions beyond the enclave's border. Tensions between KRG officials and the federal Iraqi government -- long a cause for concern in both Baghdad and Washington -- have been heating up.

The Kurdish parliament recently approved a draft constitution that has angered Baghdad because it claims several bits of contested land, including the oil-rich Kirkuk region. Kurdish officials had hoped to include a constitutional referendum in the July 25 ballot, but Iraqi federal officials overruled them.

Many Kurdish voters say they are tired of this bickering with Baghdad, too, and blame it for distracting leaders from more-pressing domestic issues, such as developing basic municipal services. President Talabani has tried to play mediator, brokering meetings between the two sides, including a current attempt to get Mr. Barzani to sit down with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Dependable polling data aren't available, but some recent surveys suggest an opening for the Change slate. A June poll by the Solidarity with Students Organization, an independent nongovernmental group that works with Kurdish youth, suggests the race could be close. The Change slate was polling 29.5% of the vote in the survey, not far behind the Kurdistani List's 32.7%.

A KDP spokesman, speaking for the Kurdistani List, acknowledged that the Kurdish region has a problem with corruption and that the government hasn't accomplished enough in providing services. He said the government has done the best it could considering the challenges it faced, such as inadequate infrastructure. The two parties, he said, have been successful in attracting foreign investment to help rebuild Kurdistan and create jobs.
—Zaineb Naji contributed to this article.

Write to Gina Chon at gina.chon@wsj.com
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North Korea Lashes Out at Clinton, Rejects Six-Party Talks

2009-07-23T19:45:00.000+07:00

By JAMES HOOKWAY

PHUKET, Thailand -- As U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton continued to seek support among Asian leaders for a tougher stance against North Korea's weapons ambitions, Pyongyang lashed out at her by name for comparing the country to an attention-seeking child.

Ms. Clinton, meeting with Asian leaders at the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations at the Thai island of Phuket, said she was "gratified" by how many countries directly expressed their concerns with North Korea, which sent a roving ambassador to the annual gathering.

"There is now no place to go for North Korea. They have no friends left," Mrs. Clinton said at a press conference on the last day of the meeting of the group, known as Asean.

The U.S. and China, South Korea, Russia and Japan have been trying to persuade North Korea to return to six-party talks on denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. Mrs. Clinton said the U.S. wants North Korea to make an "irreversible" commitment to abandon its nuclear program and is prepared to offer a "comprehensive package" of incentives to coax North Korea back to the negotiating table.

Mrs. Clinton, however, stopped short of threatening "offensive action" action North Korea if it refuses to resume talks.

Meanwhile, North Korea fixed its attention on comments Monday by Mrs. Clinton in an interview with ABC News. Mrs. Clinton said the U.S. took a low-key response to North Korea's missile tests earlier this month because it didn't want to give Pyongyang "the satisfaction they were looking for, which was to elevate them to center stage."

She added, "Maybe it's the mother in me, the experience I've had with small children and teenagers and people who are demanding attention: Don't give it to them."

In response, a spokesman for the North Korean foreign ministry said the country "cannot but regard Mrs. Clinton as a funny lady as she likes to utter such rhetoric, unaware of the elementary etiquette in the international community," the spokesman said. "Sometimes she looks like a primary schoolgirl."

The statement marked the first time North Korea has criticized Mrs. Clinton by name, though it routinely blames the U.S. for most of its problems.

While North Korea scorned the entreaties to return to the six-party talks, Mrs. Clinton could point to a few concrete steps reached during the Asean conference.

Japan Thursday said it would freeze the assets of North Koreans to comply with new U.N. sanctions because of their links to North Korea's nuclear program. Japanese foreign ministry spokesman Kazuo Kodama said five individuals would be barred entry to Japan as well as being barred from any transit visits.

The measures were mandated under U.N. Security Council resolution 1874, adopted on June 12, to increase pressure on Pyongyang after an underground nuclear test in May. If North Korea succeeded in attaching a nuclear warhead to their missiles, "Japan will be an easy target," Mr. Kodama said.
—Piyarat Setthasiriphaiboon in Phuket, Thailand, and Evan Ramstad in Seoul contributed to this article.

Write to James Hookway at james.hookway@wsj.com
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Mumbai Gunman Reveals New Details

2009-07-23T11:02:00.000+07:00

By SONYA MISQUITTA in Mumbai and MATTHEW ROSENBERG in New Delhi

The surviving gunman from last year's terrorist assault on Mumbai said he was ready to be executed and expected no leniency for providing details of the plot in a lengthy confession to his role in the attack.

"If I am hanged for this, I am not bothered. I don't want any mercy from the court," Mohammed Ajmal Kasab told a Mumbai court Wednesday, the third day of his trial.

Reuters

After entering a plea of not guilty, Mr. Kasab, a 21-year-old Pakistani, stunned the court Monday with a lengthy confession of his part in November's three-day assault on luxury hotels, a train station, a Jewish center and other targets, which left more than 170 people dead.

"I don't think I am innocent," he told the court Monday, and then proceeded to tell the story of how he went from being a poorly paid shop assistant in small-town Pakistan to the face of the carnage in Mumbai.

At first, he said, all he wanted was to be a bandit. So he and a friend headed for Rawalpindi, a city near Pakistan's capital and the country's military headquarters. They searched for bearded men, figuring Islamist militants could train them to use weapons and fight, according to the court's record of Mr. Kasab's confession, which offered no indication of when the events took place.

The two friends were directed to a house on the corner of a narrow lane. A man answered the door. "I told him we had come for jihad," Mr. Kasab said, according to the court record. The man was from Lashkar-e-Taiba, a major Pakistani militant group that has repeatedly launched terrorist strikes in India.

The next day, they were on a bus heading to Muridke, the small town where Lashkar, along with its associated charity, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, were based before a crackdown by Pakistani authorities in the weeks after the Mumbai attack. There, he said, he learned how to pray. Then, in hills nearby, he and 19 other young men went on a basic training of sorts: they exercised and learned to shoot. After that, Lashkar did some background checks. Then he was taught to use AK-47s, rocket launchers, grenades and mortars.

Associated Press

File photo of Ajmal Kasab

A few months later, Mr. Kasab found himself in Karachi where he and the nine others selected for the Mumbai mission learned to navigate a boat and studied their targets. Six weeks later, the 10 men embarked in a small boat to a bigger boat, Mr. Kasab said. The bigger boat's four sailors were sent back to Pakistan, along with some Lashkar operatives, Mr. Kasab said. The navigator remained aboard.

On Nov. 26, Mr. Kasab said he overheard the man who would be his partner during the attack, Abu Ismail, talking on a mobile phone. "'You ate those four goats?'" Mr. Kasab recalled Mr. Ismail saying. "'Can I eat the fifth one?'"

The context suggested that Mr. Ismail was discussing the murder of the sailors of the bigger boat. Some time later, the boat's navigator disappeared and another one of the attackers, a man Mr. Kasab identified as Soheb, emerged from the engine room with a bloody knife. "Soheb was looking little scared," Mr. Kasab told the court.

The following day, Mr. Kasab and the other attackers piled into an inflatable dinghy. Each carried an AK-47, a pistol, eight hand grenades, ammunition, a Nokia mobile phone and dried fruit and bottled water.

They split into pairs after landing in Mumbai. Mr. Kasab said he and his partner hailed a taxi and headed to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus train station.

They ducked when Mr. Ismail threw the first grenade. Then they started spraying bullets into the crowd. A video still showing Mr. Kasab moving through the train station, holding a gun at his hip, has become one of the attack's enduring images. More than 50 people died at the train station. Then the pair walked to the nearby Cama Hospital and opened fire again. There, 16 people died.

Soon after, in a stolen Skoda car, Messrs. Kasab and Ismail ran into a police roadblock near Chowpatty Beach. Mr. Ismail was killed in gunfire by the officers, and Mr. Kasab was captured.

During his testimony, Mr. Kasab identified his Lashkar handlers, naming two of the men currently awaiting trial in neighboring Pakistan for their alleged role in the plot.

The judge sealed Mr. Kasab's testimony about how he was indoctrinated by Lashkar, and banned news organizations from reporting the sealed testimony for fear it could stoke violence between India's Hindu majority and Muslim minority.

On Wednesday, Mr. Kasab effectively invited India to execute him. "Whatever I have done, I have done in this world. It would be better to be punished in this world. It would be better than God's punishment," Mr. Kasab said.

The judge, M.L. Tahiliyani, has said he will decide Thursday whether to accept the confession.

His decision is likely to affect another case being heard in India: the trial of two Indians who allegedly aided the 10 attackers, and the Pakistani case, which is scheduled to begin shortly. Chief Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam argued Wednesday that the judge should accept parts of the confession -- such as the details of the train station violence -- that matched the evidence collected by investigators. But he urged the judge to dismiss testimony that contradicted evidence of how the plot was put together and carried out, saying the defendant was trying to minimize his role in the attack to avoid the death penalty.

That argument prompted Mr. Kasab's statement that he wasn't seeking leniency.

Mr. Kasab's attorney, Abbas Kazmi, urged the judge to accept the entire confession, saying there was no point in prolonging the trial.

Write to Matthew Rosenberg at matthew.rosenberg@wsj.com

Top Kurdish Parties Face Poll Challenge

2009-07-23T09:07:00.000+07:00

By GINA CHON

BAGHDAD -- The two political parties that have long dominated life in Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish enclave are facing their first real challenge in years as they head into elections this weekend.

More than 500 candidates from 24 parties or alliances are running for the Kurdish Regional Government's 111-member parliament, in polls slated for July 25. Residents also will vote for president of the region, with current President Masoud Barzani, running for a second term, being the hands-down favorite.

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Supporters of the Kurdish Change List rally in Sulaimaniyah on Wednesday, ahead of this weekend's elections for the Kurdish Regional Government.
Associated Press

Supporters of the Kurdish Change List rally in Sulaimaniyah on Wednesday, ahead of this weekend's elections for the Kurdish Regional Government.
Supporters of the Kurdish Change List rally in Sulaimaniyah on Wednesday, ahead of this weekend's elections for the Kurdish Regional Government.
Supporters of the Kurdish Change List rally in Sulaimaniyah on Wednesday, ahead of this weekend's elections for the Kurdish Regional Government.

The parliament represents the three provinces of Iraqi Kurdistan. The region was awarded a measure of United Nations-enforced autonomy from Saddam Hussein in 1991. It held on to its semi-independence after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 that ousted him.

The region has long been dominated by the Kurdistan Democratic Party, headed by Mr. Barzani, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, led by Jalal Talabani, president of Iraq. The KDP and PUK run as a coalition called the Kurdistani List. In 2005, the two parties swept area elections, capturing all but seven seats, which two smaller parties and independents share.

Candidates outside the List are trying to change that equation and capitalize on dissatisfaction with the status quo.

"The most important issue for our people is the totalitarian control of the leadership of the two dominant political parties over all sources of the economy, media and government, and all aspects of life in Kurdistan," says independent presidential candidate Kamal Mirawdeli, who is far behind in some polls but is pulling in double-digit rankings.

The biggest threat to the List is a group of former PUK members, fed up with their own party's leadership, who have cobbled together an alliance of candidates to challenge the old guard. Calling themselves the Change slate, they are poised to capture at least several seats, analysts say.

They are attracting voters who are frustrated with what they say has been corruption, curbs on democracy and the neglect of basic services in recent years. "They made so many promises and told us so many lies," says Omer Mahmud Salih, a resident of the Kurdish regional capital of Irbil. "Corruption exists in every country, but ours is beyond limits."

Any weakening of the two parties' hold on power could have repercussions beyond the enclave's border. Tensions between KRG officials and the federal Iraqi government -- long a cause for concern in both Baghdad and Washington -- have been heating up.

The Kurdish parliament recently approved a draft constitution that has angered Baghdad because it claims several bits of contested land, including the oil-rich Kirkuk region. Kurdish officials had hoped to include a constitutional referendum to the July 25 ballot, but Iraqi federal officials overruled them.

Many Kurdish voters say they are tired of this bickering with Baghdad, too, and blame it for distracting leaders from more-pressing domestic issues, such as developing basic municipal services. President Talabani has tried to play mediator, brokering meetings between the two sides, including a current attempt to get Mr. Barzani sit down with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Dependable polling data aren't available, but some recent surveys suggest an opening for the Change slate. A June poll by the Solidarity with Students Organization, an independent nongovernmental group that works with Kurdish youth, suggests the race could be close. The Change slate was polling 29.5% of the vote in the survey, not far behind the Kurdistani List's 32.7% showing.
—Zaineb Naji contributed to this article.

Write to Gina Chon at gina.chon@wsj.com
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Biden Faults Ukraine Over Energy Failings

2009-07-23T09:06:00.000+07:00

KIEV, Ukraine -- U.S. Vice President Joe Biden chastised Ukraine's political leadership on Wednesday, saying Kiev risks squandering its celebrated Orange Revolution through governmental infighting that has stalemated needed economic reforms, including liberalizing Ukraine's gas market to end dependence on foreign powers and their suppliers.

As he has throughout his three-day visit to Kiev, Mr. Biden reiterated the Obama administration's commitment to strengthen ties with Ukraine and rejected Russian claims that the former Soviet republic was part of Moscow's "sphere of influence."

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U.S. Vice President Joe Biden chastised Ukraine's political leadership, in a significant departure reflecting Washington's growing frustration with Kiev.
Sergei SupinskyAFP/Getty Images

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden chastised Ukraine's political leadership, in a significant departure reflecting Washington's growing frustration with Kiev.
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden chastised Ukraine's political leadership, in a significant departure reflecting Washington's growing frustration with Kiev.
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden chastised Ukraine's political leadership, in a significant departure reflecting Washington's growing frustration with Kiev.

But in sometimes harsh tones, Mr. Biden said the 2004 revolution, in which pro-democracy protesters overthrew a Russian-backed leadership accused of electoral fraud, was one "whose promise remains to be fulfilled" by Ukraine's current leaders.

Ukraine's political paralysis has dragged on for months, with former Orange Revolution allies President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko trading accusations and preventing key energy and government reform measures from moving through Parliament.

In a significant departure reflecting Washington's growing frustration with Kiev, Mr. Biden cast the infighting in both historical and national-security terms, saying future generations would hold the current leadership accountable if it doesn't take needed but painful steps to overhaul an economy and political system sputtering in the wake of an economic recession.

"The time for inertia and neglect has long passed," Mr. Biden said in his 20-minute speech at the Soviet-era Ukraine House. "The leaders of this country came together once in 2004 because they knew a free and prosperous Ukraine was more important than any one politician or any one political party. I have no doubt Ukrainians will come together again."
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* Wash Wire: Biden Pushes Energy Efficiency in Ukraine

Mr. Biden saved his toughest criticism for the government's handling of the energy sector, where the government provides large subsidies on imported natural gas that is sold domestically. Analysts have argued the disparity between market prices and the cheap government-sold gas has created a black market where corruption is rampant.

In addition, analysts said, the large subsidies have forced Kiev to rely on below-market-price imports from Russia, which allows Moscow to directly influence Ukraine's domestic economy. Twice in the past three years, disputes between Russia and Ukraine over gas payments have shut down a major gas pipeline that transits from Ukraine to the rest of Europe, leaving parts of Eastern and Central Europe shivering during the winter.

Although he didn't mention Russia by name, Mr. Biden said reform of the energy sector was essential to Ukraine's independence and national security, saying only if the country liberalized its gas market would it be free of dependence on foreign powers and their suppliers.

"Your economic freedom depends more, I suspect in this country, on your energy freedom than on any other single factor," Mr. Biden said, urging conservation as well as reform. "That will be a boon to your economy and an immeasurable benefit, I respectfully suggest, to your national security." Mr. Biden also announced the establishment of a joint U.S.-Ukrainian working group on energy security.

Ukraine has already implemented some painful economic reforms, including an agreement to gradually increase energy prices, as part of an emergency $16.4 billion aid deal with the International Monetary Fund.

Mr. Biden, who traveled to nearby Georgia on Wednesday, also told the BBC the U.S. might be open to joining an unarmed European Union mission that monitors Georgia's borders with its pro-Russian breakaway regions, a move favored by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. But Mr. Biden emphasized no decision had been made since there hasn't been a direct request for U.S. assistance.

Mr. Biden was noncommittal, however, on whether the U.S. would supply Georgia with defensive weapons, another move sought by Mr. Saakashvili.

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Afghan Democracy Bares Its Rough Edges

2009-07-23T08:46:00.000+07:00

KABUL -- Afghanistan is expected to put its rough-edged new democracy on display in a televised debate between candidates vying to lead one of the world's poorest, most turbulent countries.

But only three of the 41 presidential candidates were asked to appear for the event Thursday evening, and only one looked certain to show up, reflecting the disarray of a nascent system that still lacks political parties and general ground rules for debates.

On Wednesday evening, a spokesman for the heavily favored incumbent, President Hamid Karzai, said the president wouldn't participate because he didn't have enough notice and more candidates weren't invited.

Two former senior government officials were slated to take part: Abdullah, 49 years old, an ophthalmologist and former foreign minister, and Ashraf Ghani, a 60-year-old academic and ex-finance minister who has hired U.S. political strategist James Carville as an adviser. Both candidates were expected to lambaste the record of 51-year-old Mr. Karzai, their former boss.

But after Mr. Karzai's pullout, an aide to Dr. Abdullah said the candidate would review his commitment to participate. Mr. Ghani couldn't immediately be reached for comment late Wednesday. In an earlier interview, he said he will direct his criticism to an empty lectern if the president doesn't show.

Under Mr. Karzai's leadership, he says, Afghanistan's development has sputtered, the opium trade has boomed and corruption has spiraled out of control. "President Karzai has been an extremely bad president," says Mr. Ghani. "He hasn't delivered."

The Karzai campaign spokesman, Waheed Omar, said the criticism was typical of candidates who overlooked the progress the country had made in the past eight years. "All they want to do is take credit for the achievements and blame President Karzai for the shortcomings," said Mr. Omar.

Despite the nation's long list of economic and security woes, the debate also is expected to showcase the growth of Afghanistan's young democracy. The election, set to take place Aug. 20, has helped to foster a nascent civil society of political activists and interest groups. Women's and veterans organizations have caught the attention of candidates and elevated their grievances. A raft of presidential challengers -- more than 40 -- has spotlighted other problems, from police corruption to the effectiveness, or lack of it, of billions of dollars in foreign aid.

Afghanistan faces the formidable task of holding an election when swaths of the country are at war. July has been the bloodiest month for foreign troops since the war against Afghanistan's Taliban began in late 2001. Taliban guerrillas continue to operate freely in large parts of the country's Pashtun-dominated south, and there are growing concerns that insurgents will disrupt next month's polls.

Mr. Karzai has led Afghanistan since the U.S. and other North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries toppled the Taliban in late 2001. He was chosen then to head Afghanistan's interim government. In 2004, he won the first direct presidential elections in the country's history, but the results were marred by allegations of fraud by his opponents, though the charges never went to court.

This time, Mr. Karzai has been able to strike deals with regional commanders who earlier opposed him. Such support has tipped him as the election favorite, though many experts say the race has tightened in recent weeks.

A big question mark is voter turnout. There have been problems with voter registration. And without paved roads in much of rural Afghanistan, thousands of donkeys will be needed to deliver election materials to polling sites, according to Margie Cook, the chief electoral adviser for the United Nations Development Program.

It is also unclear how widely the campaigns of various candidates are followed. Only 7% of rural Afghanistan has electricity, thereby limiting Thursday's debate mainly to an urban minority. The private Tolo television channels will host the broadcast.

Mr. Ghani says he is targeting young people -- about 70% of the country is under 30 years old -- and women. He promises programs that will spawn one million jobs and provide wider access to education. He also has used social networking on the Internet to recruit 8,000 volunteers around the country, he says.

For political polish, Mr. Ghani has hired Mr. Carville, the strategist for Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign for the U.S. presidency. Mr. Carville has focused partly on toning down the candidate's intellectually haughty reputation. "He's telling me not to be too smart," says Mr. Ghani, arching a dark eyebrow. "Great advice," he adds.

Mr. Carville says he is urging Mr. Ghani to play to his strengths, including an expertise in development, so he can connect to those who worry about food, electricity and jobs.

Dr. Abdullah, who goes by one name, is taking a different tack. The former diplomat has sought to highlight his Pashtun heritage and his past as a mujahedeen fighting the Soviet Union.

Most of the 40 candidates running against Mr. Karzai -- almost double the number that contested the last presidential election -- have virtually no chance of winning.

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