Views from the Left Coast

Dead and dying coral reefs in Gulf of Mexico blamed on April oil spill

2010-11-05T21:48:00.000-07:00

News that large swaths of dying coral reefs have been found southwest of the wrecked oil rig responsible for the largest offshore spill in U.S. history should come as no surprise to anyone. Logic dictates that the effects of the colossal April 20 blowout and spill will be far-reaching and catastrophic, the protests of oil and fishing interests in the Gulf of Mexico notwithstanding. Scientists studying the spill's aftermath said the damage to the reefs was almost certainly due to exposure to toxic chemicals like oil, according to the New York Times. “I think that we have a smoking gun,” said Charles Fisher, a marine biologist from Pennsylvania State University heading a U.S. government-sponsored scientific mission to the Gulf. “The circumstantial evidence is very strong that it’s linked to the spill.” The damaged coral was found Tuesday by the government expedition, which launched a submersible robot to view the coral and obtain samples. Scientists expect to return to the Gulf floor in December using a Navy submersible that can carry three people to depths of 15,000 feet, the newspaper said. An estimated 5 million barrels of crude flowed into the Gulf for months after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in April, killing 11 workers.

Obama blames economy for election losses but misses the point

2010-11-03T20:58:00.005-07:00

U.S. President Barack Obama's statement yesterday that the majority Democrats had taken a "shellacking" in Tuesday's election because of the tepid economic recovery was shocking. Sure, if in the two years since Barack Obama took office with Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, the U.S. economy had completely turned around and U.S. industries were crying for more workers, the opposition Republicans probably would not have won 60 seats to control the House of Representatives. Economic success would most likely have enabled the Democrats to retain a portion of the popularity they achieved in 2008, when Obama led his party back into the White House on a wave of public disgust over the performance of the Bush administration. But for all his vaunted political skills, Obama has repeatedly misread the American public since taking office. U.S. voters did not turn the Republicans out of the White House merely because the economy had been disastrously mishandled by his predecessor, they elected the first black president to repudiate the seemingly gleeful lawlessness of the Bush administration. The George W. Bush presidency broke a long list of the country's most-cherished legal principles and traditions -- eviscerating the constitutional separation of powers, overruling the U.S. Bill of Rights, disrespecting the sovereignty of other nations, ignoring the Geneva Conventions. For all the good Obama has been able to accomplish in reforming the way the country regulates itself, he has decidedly failed to address the biggest problem -- the one that has left the United States unsure of how to function. Bush and other officials in his administration, including former Vice President Dick Cheney, must be called to answer for their abuses of power. An investigation doesn't necessarily mean anybody is guilty of anything, although it seems so, it just means the United States is not afraid to examine its conduct and make corrections when warranted. The Congress should set up a commission, with the power to compel witnesses to testify, to figure out what went wrong during the Bush administration and how to prevent it from happening again. That is the only way for the United States to regain its footing as an international leader and for Obama to redeem his presidency.

Blackwater still swirling in aftermath of Iraq invasion

2010-10-20T21:50:00.000-07:00

Word from Washington that the Justice Department decided Monday not to charge a Blackwater Worldwide employee with murder for a killing in Baghdad that he admitted appears to spell the end of U.S. efforts to address the some of the excesses that have come, sadly, to characterize the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The decision followed a line of failures in high-profile cases brought against employees of companies that were armed contractors for the U.S. State Department in Iraq, a still-questionable arrangement with dire constitutional implications that still have not been adequately examined. The most notable prosecution that failed, of course, resulted in the acquittal of five former Blackwater guards who opened fire on civilians in Baghdad's Nisour Square in 2007, killing 17, according to the New York Times. The Justice Department decision came in a case involving Andrew Moonen of Seattle, who killed a guard protecting Iraq's vice president on Christmas Eve in 2006. The case was complicated by a blanket grant of immunity to State Department contractors, like Blackwater, but not to Defense Department contractors, immunity granted to Andrew Moonen, the Blackwater employee, by a U.S. Embassy official and by Moonen's claim of self-defense. The Justice Department has investigated the case for four years, and already paid damages to Moonen's family. But the murky legal environment that finally prompted Justice to drop the case is no accident. The government of George W. Bush went to war on dubious evidence and corrupted longstanding legal and constitutional principles along the way. The only real surprises here are that is has taken so long for these cases to be dismissed and the subsequent Obama administration's refusal to investigate misconduct by his predecessor. It will take decades to repair the damage to the legal system of the United States, and may take even longer for the country to regain its moral footing unless such an investigation is undertaken. The issue is not whether anyone will have to prison, although it may come to that. The future of the United States is on the line here -- the sooner the reckoning begins, the better for everyone.

Clinton: U.S. wants to increase help for Mexico's fight against drug cartels

2010-10-16T02:43:00.003-07:00

Can the United States really help Mexico succeed in its battle against drug cartels that have expanded their influence farther and farther south from the border between the two countries? From the safety of Northern California, hundreds of miles from Tijuana, it used to look as if the Mexican government was forced to fight corruption it its own police forces before it could engage the drug traffickers that had turned even peaceful cities into dangerous places. But years of unabated violence have made the lines of power a lot easier to understand. That's why U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the other day that the powerful Mexican drug cartels were behaving a lot like political insurgent groups than mere gangs. "This is one of the most difficult fights that any country faces today," Clinton told San Francisco's nonpartisan Commonwealth Club in a speech Friday, according to Cable News Network (CNN). "We are watching drug traffickers undermine and corrupt governments in Central America, and we are watching the brutality and barbarity of their assaults on governors and mayors, the press, as well as each other, in Mexico." Clinton said the United States could help Mexico rebuild its criminal justice system and retrain its police forces to fight the cartels, which she said were acting like terrorists. "For the first time, they are using car bombings," she said. "You see them being much more organized in a kind of paramilitary way." Clinton's comments were no doubt a reference to U.S. efforts to find the body of David Hartley, a U.S. resident believed to have been shot by drug traffickers on Mexico's border with Texas, CNN said.

French ban on Islamic face coverings ruled constitutional

2010-10-07T15:12:00.001-07:00

So, is it merely nervy or something worse that France has made it a crime for women to wear Islamic face coverings in public? The county's top legal authority, the French Constitutional Council, decided Thursday that the so-called burqa ban, approved overwhelmingly by the legislature earlier this year, was legal under the country's constitution. Councilmembers ruled that the ban, which makes the wearing of the burqa full-body covering or the nigab face-covering punishable by a fine, was constitutional because it did not prevent the free practice of religion in a place of worship, according to Cable News Network (CNN). How could this happen in a place as modern and aware as France, which had the wisdom to oppose the United States' occupation of Iraq from the outset? Easily, it turns out. More than 80 percent of the country supported the ban in a poll by the Pew Global Attitudes Project earlier this year, CNN said. Residents of Germany, England and Spain also backed the ban by large majorities but those countries have not imposed one, CNN said. Nearly 70 percent of U.S. residents oppose such a ban. The French government, which backed the ban, called the wearing of Islamic head coverings by women "a new form of enslavement that the republic cannot accept on its soil." France barred the wearing of all overt religious symbols, including Islamic headscarves, in the nation's public schools in 2004. CNN said 3.5 million Muslims -- 6 percent of the population -- live in France.

Passage of NASA funding bill highlights doubts about space program

2010-09-30T20:25:00.003-07:00

Congressional approval of a $19 billion reauthorization bill for NASA on Wednesday would be a lot better news if the space agency were not proceeding with planned layoffs on Friday nor with President Barack Obama's plans to focus future efforts on commercial endeavors. Much of the $19 billion will be used for a last shuttle mission in June, to extend the life of the space station five more years and to build a new launch vehicle, according to Cable News Network (CNN)on. That's okay on the surface, but not beyond that. Overtly focusing the program toward commercial development is troubling, because that is a corruption of the space agency's purpose and what has repeatedly gotten NASA into trouble before. "We want to thank Congress for NASA's future," Lori Garver, NASA's deputy administrator, said on Thursday. "It puts NASA programs on a more sustainable future." That is disingenuous at best, because it is classic bureaucrat-speak. NASA gets into trouble, and astronauts die, when it thinks of itself as a business geared toward profit and not as an agency using public resources to advance scientific exploration. In the past, NASA generated huge public support because people were willing to use the nation's financial resources in quest of cosmic understanding. The first person on the moon, the first teacher in space -- these developments were embraced by the public in the interest of knowledge, not profits. And when things occasionally went tragically wrong, like when Apollo 13 burned on the launchpad in 1967 or the shuttles Challenger and Colombia were destroyed in 1986 and 2008, the entire nation mourned the loss. But the new NASA, trying to generate income by hiring itself out to major companies instead of advancing science, has managed to generate primarily indifference from the public. The shuttles blew up in flight because inspectors missed things or made bad decisions -- were these errors mere bad luck or at least partially the result of time pressure felt by NASA managers trying to complete no-gravity experiments being funded by U.S. or overseas corporations? We'll never know, because we allow federal bureaucrats nearly total immunity for bad decisions and their agencies try harder to protect their annual budget allocations than serve the public that pays for them. What is needed is a reordering of priorities that puts commercial applications at the bottom, not the top of the list. Commercial applications are fine, but they must be studiously kept behind safety and science -- and anyone, even senior government officials -- should be fired if they ever forget that again.

Obama government retreats to Bush-era state secrets dishonesty

2010-09-25T03:01:00.001-07:00

Just how important is it that the United States, with the world's most powerful military and the world's most enduring democracy, engage in conduct overseas that would be patently illegal within its own borders? That question arose again yesterday, as it has repeatedly in the rather disturbingly slow dismantling of widely discredited George W. Bush-era policies, when the Obama administration invoked the state secrets doctrine in an effort to convince a federal judge in Washington to dismiss a lawsuit accusing the military of trying to kill a U.S. citizen in Yemen. According to the New York Times, the New Mexico-born citizen, Anwar Al-Awlaki, is living in Yemen and is associated with al-Qaida, the radical Islamic terrorist group blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. that killed thousands. His father, Nasser al-Awlaki, filed the lawsuit seeking an injunction to block the U.S. government from killing the son, the Times said. U.S. government lawyers completed a legal brief Friday contending the lawsuit should be dismissed because litigating the could result in the disclosure of confidential information -- the so-called state secrets -- and other grounds. The doctrine was invoked successfully numerous times during the last administration to short-circuit claims against the government for allegedly illegal activities in the war on terror. No one seriously questions whether the government has the right to keep secrets when disclosures would put innocent lives at risk. But that does not give the government the right to maintain secrecy when it wants merely to escape consequences for illegal activity. What we saw during the last administration, when the federal government eviscerated long-established constitutional principles to advance a dubious political agenda, should give everyone pause. There has to be a serious accounting. The Obama administration's most serious mistake so far was its refusal to review the previous government and to bring alleged lawbreakers to trial. Everything that happens now, including the Al-Awlaki case, is built upon that miscalculation. This time, the Times said, Obama-appointed Attorney General Eric Holder personally approved invoking the state-secrets defense. “It strains credulity to argue that our laws require the government to disclose to an active, operational terrorist any information about how, when and where we fight terrorism,” said Matthew Miller, a Justice Department spokesman. That's logical, but only in the abstract, and it's a bad mistake to invoke it merely to justify other bad mistakes. If this is going to continue to be a government of laws, those laws are going to have to be enforced -- even if it means some well-known government officials will have to stand trial.

FDA seems willing to gamble on introducing gene-altered animals

2010-09-21T17:28:00.000-07:00

News that U.S. food safety regulators were preparing to authorize the introduction of genetically altered salmon into the nation's food supply is another obvious failure on the part of the deteriorating Obama administration. Rather than order the Food and Drug Administration to be sensible and undertake an exhaustive examination of risks posed by the new science of altering animals genetically, the Obama administration apparently plans to sit this one out, too. FDA officials have scheduled a hearing Monday on the application by AquAdvantage Salmon to produce salmon injected with growth hormones that mature twice as fast as salmon without the hormones, according to Cable News Network (CNN). The altered salmon would grow faster and mature earlier than wild or farmed salmon. "The food from AquAdvantage Salmon that is the subject of this application is as safe as food from conventional Atlantic salmon and that there is a reasonable certainty of no harm from the consumption of food from this animal," FDA officials concluded, CNN said. But let's think for a minute. Even if what the FDA says is true, is a "reasonable certainty" justification enough to gamble the future of the ecosystem that supports life? That's crazy thinking, right? The executive director of the nonprofit Food and Water Watch called the decision "rushed" and said the FDA can't even protect the safety of the food supply without adding gene-altered foods to its already overcrowded agenda. "It's impossible to talk about the risks other than saying they haven't been properly assessed, other than process has been rushed and we don't know," Wenonah Hauter told CNN. Hauter also said the FDA based its decision on information provided by AquAdvantage and should be thoroughly checking the data instead of simply accepting it. That doesn't seem to be an unreasonable request, considering what's at risk if anyone makes a mistake.

U.S. officials say BP oil well in Gulf of Mexico has finally been plugged

2010-09-19T19:03:00.000-07:00

Finally, there's some good news from the Gulf of Mexico. After a nearly five-month nightmare of uncertainty, the U.S. Interior Department has confirmed that the BP oil well that spewed millions of gallons of crude oil into coastal waters has been permanently plugged, according to the Cable News Network (CNN). The largest oil spill in U.S. history devastated one of the richest fishing and tourism regions in the United States, and years of even more uncertainty remain over whether Gulf wildlife and the area's fishing industry will ever recover. "We can finally announce that the Macondo 252 well is effectively dead," said former Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, who is overseeing the U.S. response to the disaster. The spill began April 20 with an explosion on the BP-leased oil rig Deepwater Horizon that killed 11 workers. BP, the international oil company formerly known as British Petroleum, has agreed to pay the costs of capping the well, cleaning up the environment and compensating the thousands of people and businesses whose livelihood depended on the Gulf. BP put up $20 billion to compensate individuals and companies in the region at the request of U.S. officials, but the final cost of the spill and resulting damage has been estimated at $32 billion. Of course, the economic cost of the disaster is not the only cost to the United States. The spill exposed gaping holes in U.S. regulation of offshore drilling, the effects of which will likely reverberate in the industry for decades. Investigations into the cause of the disaster and the federal government's response are ongoing by members of Congress and at least two U.S. agencies, and lawsuits seeking damages are likely to be in court for years.

Iran releases one of three U.S. hikers allegedly captured across border

2010-09-18T20:16:00.000-07:00

Tehran insisted this week's release of U.S. hiker Sarah Shourd, imprisoned for more than a year after she and two friends allegedly crossed the border from Iraq illegally, reflected Iran's respect for women and was not an attempt to elicit favorable treatment from the United States. "We have no expectations," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on state-run television, according to Cable News Network (CNN). But there is reason to doubt. More likely, Iran is trying again to tweak "the Great Satan," like the leader of the country's 1979 Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, used to call the United States. That would be typical of Ahmadinejad, who came to power and has stayed in power despite his embarrassingly self-serving and contradictory views. In fact, Ahmadinejad also said, "naturally, morally, the expectation would be that the U.S. government would take a step to release a number of Iranians they took from other countries." Hmmm, that sure sounds like a quid pro quo, doesn't it? Not only that, Ahmadinejad said Shourd had been released after more than a year in prison without trial because Iranians had "a very special respect for women." That would be preposterous if it wasn't so serious. Iran has held Shourd for more than a year out of respect? Ahmadinejad also said he had given U.S. officials a list of Iranians behind held in U.S. prisons, and expected them to be released. That's just what U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said about the two other hikers arrested with Shourd in July 2009. "It would be a very significant humanitarian gesture for the Iranians to release them as well," Clinton said in Washington.

Protests threaten Greece's financial stability plans

2010-09-12T10:33:00.001-07:00

Greeks took to the streets again yesterday after Prime Minister George Papandreou announced new austerity measures designed to keep Greece from defaulting on its international obligations, which include a new 110 billion euro loan from other European Union countries. The unrest appeared to be led by the country's powerful labor unions, which feel under threat from proposals to end their control of some of Greece's most vital professions. "The battle we are waging is for the survival of Greece," Papandreou said in the northern city of Thessaloniki, according to Cable News Network (CNN). "This is not a battle that the prime minister or his government will win or lose. This battle, we will either all win it together or we will all sink together." Greece's huge civil servant union, ADEDY, called a nationwide strike Monday to protest the latest austerity measures, which include thousands of layoffs at the national rail company, OSE, CNN said. "Unions don't agree with the social and economic politics of the government," said Spyros Papaspyrou, ADEDY's leader, CNN said. Other measures put forth by Papandreou include cuts in corporate income taxes aimed at halting the decline of the Greek economy, which is expected to contract by 4 percent in 2010 and 2 1/2 percent next year. As a condition of the EU loan, Greece is obligated to bring its massive budget deficit, now around 14 percent of its gross national product, down to the European Union limit of 3 percent by 2014, CNN said.

Florida pastor cancels Koran burning after call from Pentagon

2010-09-09T20:45:00.004-07:00

News from Florida that a Christian pastor had canceled a planned Koran-burning spectacle on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks that had attracted worldwide attention should give everyone pause. Sure, it's great that this obviously outrageously provocative and disrespectful act did not go forward, even if it took a call from the Pentagon to stop it, according to the Reuters international news service. The very justification for the creation of the United States was and is religious tolerance -- and that is how we became a worldwide symbol of freedom and why we became rich and powerful. Why change our basic understandings because there are people who don't like us? And it's not as simple as that Muslims don't like us, since there are millions of Muslims who live in the United States and other countries who don't bear us any ill will or, if they do, are able to put those feelings into proper context. The simple truth is that all religions think they're correct and, by logical extension, think other religions are not. Why would anybody follow sometimes inexplicable traditions and practices if they thought they were wrong? Maybe the problem is that people like Terry Jones, the pastor of Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, have grown accustomed to looking only at the surface of things and have forgotten that everything really has meaning. On the surface, yes, a group of Muslim radicals destroyed the World Trade Center in New York. But the real problem is much, much deeper. The al-Qaeda operatives were men -- does that mean all men destroyed the World Trade Center and killed thousands of people? Of course not. They were religious zealots -- does that mean all religious zealots destroyed the buildings? Of course not. Let's not be stupid about this. The United States has proven that human beings can form democratic societies based not on ethnicity or religion or even proximity, but on shared desires and values. We exist as a country because we wanted to, and continue to want to. But let's not sacrifice the very things that made us great out of some misguided and poorly considered lurch toward self-preservation. We're a lot better than that, and have always been.

Oh no -- Castro says Cuba's government control of economy no longer works

2010-09-08T10:07:00.001-07:00

Could it be? Has the world's foremost nonconformist thrown in the red towel? That's certainly what it seemed like this week with news that Fidel Castro, the former ruler of Cuba whose 1959 revolution toppled a U.S.-backed dictator and whose Communist government proved a thorn in the side of every U.S. president since Eisenhower, said his country's economic model would have to be changed. Castro, who ceded power to his brother, Raul Castro, in 2006 because of failing health, made the statements to a reporter from The Atlantic magazine, according to Cable News Network (CNN). "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore," Castro said in the interview, CNN said. The 84-year-old Castro's remarks might be an endorsement of changes undertaken by his brother, who has expanded private enterprise for farmers and barbers in Cuba and has warned his citizenry that they should work harder and expect less from the government. Cuba's centrally controlled economy pays workers around $20 a day but guarantees free health care and education, and nearly free housing and transportation.

U.S. taxpayers could lose money on General Motors stock offering

2010-09-05T19:21:00.000-07:00

Reports from New York that insiders say U.S. taxpayers stand to lose money on the bailout of General Motors should come as no surprise to anyone. In agreeing to refinance the largest U.S. automaker back in 2009, albeit accepting a majority of the common stock of the bankrupt company, the federal government was obviously taking a huge risk and entering uncharted economic waters. But preparations for the expected return of General Motors shares to public trading later this year reveals a long list of unanswered questions that really should have been anticipated long before now. U.S. taxpayers still have more than $40 billion invested in the automaker, according to the Reuters international news service. Should shares in the revamped GM be sold at a discount to early investors in ordinary Wall Street practice, even though taxpayer money is at risk? Should shares in GM be pulled from trading if they fall to below the break-even point for taxpayers? If not, and shares fall, how much money should the government be willing to lose on the stock before halting trading? GM was able to eliminate $40 billion in debt and other obligations in bankruptcy, including its most unprofitable car lines, Reuters said, but still owes $26 billion to its employee pension fund. The new company needs to have a capitalization of at least $70 billion after its first public offering for taxpayers to recoup all of their investment, the news service said.

New Israeli-Palestinian talks are doomed to failure

2010-08-29T03:28:00.004-07:00

Nothing constructive is likely to emerge from the latest talks between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas because both leaders are too weak and the two sides are too far apart. Netanyahu cannot maintain his majority in Israel's parliament without the support of conservative settler parties that oppose further territorial concessions, and Abbas does not even have authority over all the territory he expects to make part of the Palestininan-dominated new country to emerge from a comprehensive peace agreement. The talks, which would not have even been scheduled without diplomatic pressure from the United States, have started just in time to resolve the still widely misunderstood issue of Israeli settlements when Israel's freeze on such construction expires Sept. 26, according to the Reuters international news service. The Abbas-led Palestinian Authority considers a freeze extension to be a necessary condition of its continued participation in the talks; Israel insists on continuing to build housing for its population, and obviously considers such construction to be its prerogative as a conquering power. But these people have been over this same issue for decades. It should be obvious to everyone involved that somebody is going to have to blink first. But whom? It doesn't help, of course, that both sides think they have already blinked numerous times with questionable results. Israel has maintained its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip for more than 40 years, and the Palestinians -- people who did not even exist as a people until they were disowned by their Arab brethren after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war -- have a functioning government and observer status at the United Nations. Complicating matters is the breakaway Hamas government in Gaza, which broke off from the West Bank government in 2007 to protest the PA's moves toward settlement with Israel. In the midst of the pessimism is U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who said recently that her view is that the issues could be settled within one year. Good luck with that.

Iran's first nuclear reactor caps decades of living dangerously

2010-08-21T00:23:00.001-07:00

What in the world is the West going to do about Iran? News that Iran had started loading fuel into its first nuclear power plant in Bushehr is a reminder of the limits of muscular foreign policy. Decades of confrontation with Tehran, including economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation, have served only to get us where we are now: less control over events combined with deepening mistrust and growing animosity. "Despite all the pressures, sanctions and hardships imposed by Western nations, we are now witnessing the start-up of the largest symbol of Iran's peaceful nuclear activities," Iranian nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi told a news conference on Iranian television as technicians prepared a fuel rod assembly at the plant, according to the Reuters international news service. Iran completed the plant with the help of Rosatom, Russia's state nuclear corporation, over the objections of the United States. But a U.S. State Department spokesman said Washington did not consider the Bushehr reactor to be a proliferation threat because Russia would be providing fuel and taking back spent fuel rods for reprocessing. "Russia's support for Bushehr underscores that Iran does not need an indigenous enrichment capability if its intentions are purely peaceful," spokesman Darby Holladay told Reuters. Russia backed a U.N. Security Council resolution in June that imposed a fourth round of economic sanctions on Iran to discourage Tehran from trying to develop nuclear weaponry. Construction of the reactor at Bushehr was started in the 1970s, before the Islamic revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed Shah of Iran and started what has now been more than 30 years of animosity between Tehran and Washington.

Billions earmarked for Haiti rebuilding projects

2010-08-17T16:36:00.003-07:00

News that an international commission announced $1.6 billion in projects to help build new homes, improve agriculture and rebuild schools in earthquake-ravaged Haiti is welcome, albeit late, news. The quake that killed 300,000 and reduced cities to rubble in the poor Caribbean nation was in January, after all, and hurricane season is approaching. The news was announced Tuesday during a meeting of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission in the nearly destroyed capital city of Port-au-Prince, according to the Reuters international news service. The commission, chaired by Haiti's prime minister, Jean-Max Bellerive, and former U.S. President Bill Clinton is responsible for distributing more than $5 billion dollars in international aid pledged to the relief effort in the next two years. Foreign governments and nongovernmental aid agencies pledged a total of nearly $10 billion for Haiti's recovery in March, Reuters said. Projects approved Tuesday included $200 million to create 50,000 jobs in agriculture and increase production, a United Nations rubble-removal program and construction of a teaching hospital to train new doctors and nurses. More than 1.5 million people are still living in refugee camps in Port-au-Prince, Reuters said.

Myanmar plans election for Nov. 7 but bars pro-democracy leader

2010-08-13T15:06:00.000-07:00

Do the military rulers of Myanmar, the southeast Asian country formerly known as Burma, really think the rest of the world thinks they have created a democracy? That's apparently the purpose of Friday's Myanmar National Radio announcement Friday that the country will hold general elections on Nov. 7 despite refusing to allow leading democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kui to participate. Suu Kui has been under house arrest for more than 14 of the past 20 years since her party won a landslide victory in the 1990 election that the ruling junta refused to recognize. "There is no illusion about freedom and fairness in this election," Aung Zaw, the Thailand-based editor of The Irrawaddy magazine told Cable News Network (CNN). Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962, CNN said. Suu Kui's party, the National League for Democracy, decided not to compete in this year's election after she was barred from running for office. "Everything is just so convenient for the regime since the NLD is out, Suu Kyi is not running," Aung Zaw told CNN. "Plus USDP (Union Solidarity and Development Party, the government-backed party) is the largest, strongest party in this country. There is no way any other political parties could compete with them." Members of NLD who formed another party, National Democratic Force, have been allowed to meet but have not been permitted to campaign, CNN said.

Wonder of wonders -- Venezuela and Colombia still recognize each other

2010-08-10T16:19:00.000-07:00

Actually, the only surprise in what Venezuela does anymore is that its radical leftist leader, President Hugo Chavez, hasn't gotten into any new trouble internationally. To the contrary, Venezuela appears to have become a more-or-less responsible member of the South American community of nations. Case in point: Tuesday's agreement to restore full diplomatic relations with its oft-estranged neighbor, U.S. ally Colombia. Chavez was in Santa Marta for Tuesday's ceremony announcing the resumption of relations and agreement to form commissions for economic and security cooperation between the two countries, according to Cable News Network (CNN). "I think we've taken a step forward in re-establishing confidence, which is one of the basic tenets of any relationship," Colombia's newly elected president, Juan Manuel Santos, said at the announcement, CNN reported. The countries have been arguing for years over allegations by former President Alvaro Uribe that Venezuela was harboring Marxist guerrillas seeking to overthrow Colombia's pro-U.S. government. Chavez was particularly aggrieved by Colombia's 2008 raid on rebel camps across the border in Ecuador, and by last year's military agreement between Colombia and the United States. Santos was Colombia's defense minister in the Uribe government. But both countries' leaders were all smiles Tuesday. "I came here to turn the page," Chavez said, according to CNN. There are billions of dollars in trade at stake. Bilateral trade between Caracas and Bogota reached $7.3 billion in 2008 but has fallen sharply since then as relations between the countries soured, CNN said.

Not everything goes -- U.S. tobacco companies to pay $30 million for bribing officials

2010-08-08T16:43:00.001-07:00

News that two U.S. tobacco companies had agreed to settle charges that they bribed their way into overseas sales contracts is a timely reminder that laws against excessive avarice are an unfortunate necessity of a capitalist economic system. Competition works -- the best products and the best companies will prevail over lesser competitors -- but only when everybody is playing by the same rules. The two companies, Universal Corp. of Richmond, Va., and Alliance One International of Morrisville, N.C., are going to be paying nearly $30 million for violating this most-basic of capitalist principles, according to the New York Times. The two companies, which supply tobacco leaves to cigarette and cigar makers, agreed to pay to avoid a civil trial and criminal charges that they bribed officials in eight countries. Universal was accused of bribing government officials in Thailand, Malawi and Mozambique, and Alliance One with bribing officials in Thailand, China, Greece, Indonesia and Kyrgyzstan. Universal issued a statement saying that it had reported the misconduct to authorities and had cooperated with the investigation, the Times said. “We have absolutely no tolerance for this type of activity,” the chief executive, George C. Freeman III, said in the statement, the Times said. Universal said the U.S. Justice Department agreed not to prosecute the company any further if it follows the terms of the agreement for the next three years. Alliance One could not be reached for comment, the Times said.

Isn't it time to give up on banning gay marriage?

2010-08-05T09:47:00.000-07:00

Does anyone really think life would not be worth living if gay people were allowed to marry? That seems to be just what anti-gay marriage partisans have been saying since a San Francisco federal court struck down California's Proposition 8, a ban on such unions approved by voters in 2008. “This is going to set off a groundswell of opposition,” prominent Prop. 8 backer Jim Garlow, pastor of Skyline Church in La Mesa, Calif., told the New York Times. “It’s going to rally people that might have been silent.” The ruling applies only to the parts of Northern California included in Walker's district, and not to the rest of California nor to any other U.S. states that already have banned gay marriage. So, what's the big deal? It's not like the court is requiring people in Northern California to enter into gay unions, is it? No, the court simply said the government cannot make laws that extend benefits to some people while excluding them from others on the basis of who they love. “Proposition 8 cannot withstand any level of scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause,” highly respected Judge Vaughan Walker of the Northern District of California said in his ruling. “Excluding same-sex couples from marriage is simply not rationally related to a legitimate state interest.” This is the kind of ruling we expect from our courts when the government does something outrageous, particularly when that something reflects the passion of the moment. We have rules that protect minorities precisely for this reason -- the government is barred from enacting discriminatory provisions. The disconnect here is that the opponents of gay marriage try to use the government to advance a religious-oriented agenda, not the other way around. Why did they even go to court in the first place? A rational judiciary could not decide this case any other way, and the fact that some courts have allowed states to ban gay marriage is both preposterous and insulting.

General Motors, Chrysler and Ford sales rise, perhaps

2010-08-03T11:00:00.000-07:00

Could it possibly be true that U.S. automobile companies General Motors, Ford and Chrysler are reporting sales gains and, assumedly, profits instead of more red ink?
That is what U.S. automakers said Tuesday, even though many of the figures were adjusted to allow for corporate changes, like Ford's sale of its Volvo brand, and the bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler, according to the Reuters international news service. The announcements were not well-received by stock market investors, who sent Ford shares down nearly 2 percent, even though normally buoyant Toyota and Honda sales fell in July. But the sales increases were met with enthusiasm by some industry analysts, who had feared the U.S. economy was facing a double-dip recession. "In June, you had the feeling that maybe the industry wasn't out of the woods, and there was a lot of talk of a double dip. But June really seems to have been a blip," Al Castignetti, the head of Nissan sales in the U.S. market, told Reuters. Yeah, maybe. The big problem is that auto industry players talk on and on but what they say may not have anything to do with what's really going on. GM and Chrysler have been allowed to take billions of dollars worth of debt off their balance sheets -- without paying the money back, of course, and eventually sticking the taxpayer with the bill -- and to re-enter the world of real companies even though the U.S. taxpayer owns major amounts of their shares. How can anyone ever trust company reports again? Ford did not take bailout money or file for bankruptcy but have shown little resiliency going forward. Where are the new U.S. car models? Where are the new head-turning designs? Doesn't anyone in the industry care that nobody talks about American cars anymore unless they work for the Justice Department? "We are certainly optimistic about our prospects for the third quarter," Ford's U.S. sales chief, Ken Czubay, told Reuters. Yeah, right.

Florida church announces Quran burning event

2010-07-31T21:47:00.002-07:00

Maybe the tea partiers have found a new hero. News that a Florida pastor was planning a Quran-burning event to mark the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks is typical of the kind of ignorant thinking that characterizes the tea party movement and its over-publicized icon, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin. The announcement of the Islamic good book burning that Terry Jones, pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, says is to remember the victims of attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., and to express outrage against that religion, has sparked cries of outrage from leaders of U.S. religious denominations, according to Cable News Network (CNN). As we all know, the 19 9-11 hijackers were Muslim and the United States blames the attack on al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, also a Muslim. "We believe that Islam is of the devil, that it's causing billions of people to go to hell, it is a deceptive religion, it is a violent religion and that is proven many, many times," Jones said on CNN this week. Jones is the author of a book entitled "Islam is of the Devil" and his church sells T-shirts and coffee mugs bearing the phrase. But many Muslim and Christian leaders urged Jones to call off his event because it would just aggravate tensions, Reuters said. "American Muslims and other people of conscience should support positive educational efforts to prevent the spread of Islamophobia," said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American Islam Relations. The CAIR called on Muslims and others to hold 'Share the Quran" dinners to educate the public during Ramadan, the month-long fast that begins in August, and began a campaign to distribute copies of the Quran to U.S. leaders, Reuters said. An evangelical Christian group issued a statement promoting "relationships of trust and respect" with members of other religions. "God created human beings in his image, and therefore all should be treated with dignity and respect," the statement said. But "dignity and respect" for others is not what the Dove World Outreach Center is selling. Tellingly, the group also said it was promoting a rally on Monday to protest as "godless" Gainesville's openly gay mayor, Craig Lowe. At least we know this group has nothing to offer. The planet seems always to have been overpopulated with people who claim to know precisely what god is thinking.

Arab League rhetoric ignores the facts

2010-07-30T07:33:00.000-07:00

Thursday's declaration by the Arab League that it favored direct negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel whenever PA President Mahmoud Abbas agrees to participate is the height of arrogance. After all, the intransigence of the very 21 countries that make up the League of Arab States is responsible for the perpetually unsettled political situation in the Middle East and the political and economic isolation of the Palestinian people. Of course, the league is free to continue to blame the situation on Israel, but false rhetoric does not become truthful merely by how often or how vehemently it is repeated. The league issued its declaration after Abbas briefed members of its peace process committee at a meeting in Cairo, according to the Reuters international news service. League members agreed to send a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama outlining Palestinian concerns over the negotiating process with Israel in the face of that country's refusal to extend a 10-month partial ban on settlement construction after Sept. 25, Reuters said. "There is a green light from the Arabs to go to direct negotiations if we receive terms of reference (for the negotiations) in line with the letter," Nabil Abu Rdainah, a senior Abbas aide, told Reuters. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants direct negotiations with Abbas to begin immediately, but his coalition is tied to pro-settler political parties that adamantly oppose extending the partial settlement freeze. The prospects for a breakthrough in such talks is, of course, unclear. But nobody should forget how the situation got to this point. Instead of accepting Palestinians and Jews as brothers and neighbors, which they clearly are, Arab states have chosen to keep Palestinians who fled the three wars they started in refugee camps for decades and to keep maintain a constant state of hostilities against Israel, first as warring enemies and now through radical proxy groups.

BP's defense of Alaska pipeline safety is not reassuring

2010-07-26T11:20:00.005-07:00

Assurances from British Petroleum, owner of the largest stake in the Alyeska consortium that operates the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, that the 800-mile oil pipeline is not deteriorating dangerously have apparently not satisfied congressional investigators looking into reports of inadequate maintenance. After all, the consortium's managing partner is BP, the company responsible for the catastrophic oil spill caused when a deep-water drill rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in April, killing 11 workers. To its credit, BP has agreed to cover the cost of restitution and placed $20 billion in escrow for expected damage claims stemming from the Gulf spill. But BP has made no such offer for the deteriorating pipeline. According to Cable News Network (CNN), a little-reported spill of 5,000 gallons of oil on the ground near Delta Junction, Alaska, has reignited concerns about the safety of the pipeline. "There's incident after incident within the last six months (that) might seem like small things, but when you put them all together, in a relatively short period of time, it really tells you how poorly this pipeline is being maintained," Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Michigan, told CNN. The news service also said an unnamed source said deferred maintenance year after year was endangering the pipeline. Officials have refused to allow CNN to videotape near the site of the spill, the news service said. Alyeska's vice president of operations, Mike Joynor, told CNN that the pipeline was safe and said he was unaware of any incident involving a CNN news crew. Joynor said Alyeska was investigating the spill. He said Alyeska was developing rules to avoid such incidents in the future but that the rules would not be made public. "We stick to what our core values are: safety, integrity, environmental protection and protection of a safe workforce," Joyner said.

Big surprise -- no prosecutions in U.S. attorney firings

2010-07-23T12:41:00.004-07:00

News out of Washington that the U.S. Justice Department has decided not to prosecute former Bush administration officials for improperly firing nine U.S. attorneys in 2006 is disheartening to Americans who believe the country needs to understand what went so terribly wrong when George W. Bush was president, but it is no shocker. The timidity with which the Obama administration has approached the question has not inspired any confidence in the new president's leadership -- in fact, the contrary is true. The breathtaking damage done to the basic law of the United States by the last administration and the acquiescence by the very officials who had taken solemn oaths to defend the Constitution demands action, not further timidity. The people of the United States have the right to have confidence in their government, not the persistent sense that their leaders are willing to sacrifice the country's founding principles to preserve their own lives of privilege. At the very least, the people should demand to know why civil liberties were curtailed, why the country's treasure was compromised by wars without end, why the White House was allowed to amass virtually unlimited power and why almost no one in office is talking about how to start putting things back to the way they should be. The legal system is a very good place to start this re-examination, especially if the White House is not willing or able to lead a process that will surely lead to limitations on presidential authority. President Obama should reject the decision by Attorney General Eric Holder not to prosecute former Bush administration officials in the U.S. attorneys case, as Cable News Network (CNN) reported, and rethink his earlier reluctance to pursue other officials. Obama seems destined to be a one-term president no matter what he does at this point; at least he can leave a legacy we will always remember and be proud of.

City of Oakland OKs large medical marijuana farms

2010-07-21T19:46:00.000-07:00

News that the San Francisco Bay Area city of Oakland had approved large-scale medical marijuana farming for medical use was met by silence by opponents of such cultivation and by U.S. authorities who have eased up on enforcement of a federal ban since the 2008 presidential election. The city council of Oakland, a city of 350,000 across the bay from San Francisco, passed a provision Tuesday legalizing "industrial" marijuana cultivation and agreed to issue as many as four permits for large operations next year, according to the Reuters international news service. Medical marijuana has been legal in California under a state law approved by voters in 1996, but it is still illegal under federal law and cultivation has only been allowed by individuals in small garden operations. But Oakland officials said the city would profit by allowing and taxing large-scale cultivation. "This is going to grow as an industry," City Councilwoman Jean Quan said during the debate. "And someone is going to have a high-tech producer." The city plans to impose an array of new taxes on growers and sellers next year, Reuters said. The council approval has no relation to a ballot initiative on the November ballot that would, if passed, make California the first state to legalize marijuana use. But law enforcement officials complain that underground marijuana cultivation in California have been dominated by criminals.

Troubled border with Mexico gets White House attention

2010-07-19T16:13:00.000-07:00

News that hundreds of U.S. National Guard soldiers and border protection agents have been sent to the Mexico border to prevent illegal immigrants and illicit cargo from crossing into the United States is both welcome and unwelcome at the same time. While a stronger U.S. response to rising reports of drug-related violence in border regions is long overdue, excessive reliance on the military to resolve the nation's problems is extraordinarily ill-advised. Nobody can seriously oppose using soldiers to stop violence from heavily armed drug gangs that is spilling over into U.S. border cities, as the Reuters international news service is reporting, but using soldiers to do what diplomats should have been doing in talks with the Mexican government should be prevented. The United States has plenty of leverage with Mexico City to pressure that government to better its border enforcement and to direct more of its oil wealth to better the lives of its citizens so they won't be forced by economics to flee. That people are forced to leave their country and live second-class lives in another place to provide food for their families should be an issue of paramount importance to countries around the world. But excessive reliance on the military has taken an unacceptable toll on the United States both economically and philosophically. This country has compromised some of its most basic principles in pursuit of military dominance in other parts of the world. The historic changes in Washington have so far been unable to reverse that trend, and we will all be a lot worse for it.

Former Bush adviser defends decision to abuse detainees

2010-07-16T09:27:00.001-07:00

Anyone -- including, unfortunately, U.S. President Barack Obama -- who thinks the long nightmare that was the George W. Bush administration is behind us should consider what the former official who approved brutal interrogations of terror suspects said the other day. According to transcripts released Thursday, Judge Jay Bybee, who headed the Office of Legal Counsel from 2001 to 2003 and recommended the use of "enhanced" interrogation techniques, told Congressional investigators that he stood by his advice. “We took a muscular view of presidential authority,” Bybee said, according to the New York Times. “We were offering a bottom line to a client who wanted to know what he could do and what he couldn’t do. I wasn’t running a debating society, and I wasn’t running a law school.” Bybee's deputy, John Woo, now a law professor at the University of California in Berkeley, wrote the infamous memos approving the use of waterboarding and other invasive techniques and Bybee approved them. Bybee made his comments in closed-door testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, which is still investigating the conduct of the Central Intelligence Agency during the Bush administration. Bybee was appointed to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco after he left the White House but before the contents of the torture memos were revealed publicly. Many of the memos were withdrawn by the government after the contents were leaked to the media. Bybee and Yoo were accused of misconduct after a Justice Department investigation, but its conclusions also were withdrawn. Of course, the point is not only that Bybee was in the middle of some of the worst abuses of power in the nation's history -- it's also that he still thinks he was right. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney also believe they were right to erode respect for the rule of law that has made the United States a great nation, as if ruining the country's great traditions and sacrificing its founding principles could ever be the way to keep it safe.

International alarm sounds on food inspections in China

2010-07-15T23:55:00.002-07:00

Word from China that officials were stepping up food inspections in the wake of last week's seizure of 64 tons of milk powder contaminated by the flame retardant melamine sounds like too little, far too late. This is not the first time contaminated milk has gotten through China's vast and varied food regulatory system; residents have not forgotten the 2008 incident in which contaminated milk killed six kids and sickened hundreds of thousands. The milk seized last week could have resulted in a similar toll or worse -- China still does not have a uniform system of regulating food safety for the entire country. "China attaches great importance to food safety, particularly dairy quality and safety," Chen Rui, a top Ministry of Health official told reporters on Tuesday, according to Cable News Network (CNN). "The ministry will continue to organize the national dairy safety standards to track evaluations, listen to the food production companies and consumer opinion, and constantly revise and improve the national dairy safety standards." If only China's trading partners could believe that. China is usually extremely guarded about such matters and the health ministry did not offer much information beyond saying an investigation was under way. But investigations in China usually get results. In 2008, 21 people were convicted of criminal charges and two were executed in the aftermath of that tainted milk scandal.

Palestinian rhetoric on Israeli settlements is just talk

2010-07-11T13:50:00.000-07:00

Anybody can say anything about whatever they want to about anything, and it is with that understanding that Sunday's statement by former Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei about Israeli "settlements" in Jerusalem being a "time bomb" should be viewed. Qurei and Israeli opposition leader Tsipi Livni, the former foreign minister, urged moderates on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to work harder to settle their differences. "The Jerusalem situation, I think, is a time bomb if it continues in this way," Qurei said a meeting of academics in Jerusalem, according to the Reuters international news service. "It has an impact on the Palestinian people . . . and on trust on both sides." Qurei was discussing Israel's continuing construction of housing for its citizens in formerly Jordanian-controlled East Jerusalem, often after demolishing Palestinian-owned housing. "It is 19 years since Oslo and things remain as is," Qurei said, referring to the historic agreement that recognized Palestinian sovereignty over the West Bank of the Jordan River, which Israel captured, along with East Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast war, and led to the return from exile of Yasir Arafat. Arafat, the Palestinian leader, and then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for reaching the Oslo Accords. But the lasting peace that seemed within reach in 1993 no longer appears at hand, not after the years of violence and mistrust that supplanted what turned out to be naive optimism -- on both sides. If the Israelis assumed that their Arab enemies, with whom they had already fought three all-out wars, were now willing to accept their Jewish neighbors as equals, and if Palestinian leaders assumed they were on the fast-track to statehood without having to undo the hatred they had been planting in the hearts of their people and convince them to work for peace, they both were tragically mistaken. The repeated failure of all parties to accept these realities are responsible for the current situation.

Appeals court does what oil industry wants in Louisiana

2010-07-08T17:03:00.001-07:00

If you know what you're doing in the legal world and you have plenty of resources, you can pretty much always find a judge, or judges, willing to do whatever you want. So it was no surprise Thursday when a federal appeals court in New Orleans enjoined the Obama administration from implementing a six-month moratorium on deep-water oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. The three-judge panel upheld a judge's ruling last month that struck down the moratorium as too broad and unfair to the fishing industry, and agreed that it should not even be enforced during the months it will take for the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case, according to the New York Times. Lawyers for the U.S. Department of the Interior had argued that the catastrophic BP oil rig explosion and massive leak made the moratorium necessary; industry representatives contended the suspension of drilling was crippling economically and should not be enforceable while their lawsuit challenging it was pending. Of course, ordinary people may find it impossible to imagine a situation where immediate and drastic government intervention is more appropriate -- a highly technical operation on a mass scale gone awry, causing incalculable and continuing environmental damage. Ordinary people might think that such a situation is precisely why the government is necessary. But the oil industry is not ordinary people; apparently, neither is Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who opposed the stay on economic reasons even though the leak has rendered the Louisiana coast virtually unusable and, apparently, destroyed the Gulf fishing industry. Then again, the appeals court ruled that the Interior Department had not proven that it would suffer irreparable injury if drilling operations were not halted like the administration was demanding. It's hard to argue against that proposition, even though the sea bottom drilling operation that blew up and killed a dozen workers has so far resisted all efforts at repair. After all, there are 3,000 drilling platforms in the Gulf, and only one of them has ever exploded and caused a catastrophic oil spill.

Refusing to sell fuel would be step toward war

2010-07-05T12:17:00.000-07:00

Has it become the official position of the United States that war with Iran is considered the best way to move beyond the current stalemate over Tehran's suspected nuclear weapons development? That's how it seemed Monday after Iran complained that three U.S. allies had refused to permit Iranian planes to refuel at airports in their countries. If it's true, it's an extremely hostile and provocative act -- especially since it comes just days after the United States and European Union imposed a wide-ranging array of sanctions against Iranian business and government interests. "Since last week, our planes have been refused fuel at airports in Britain, Germany and UAE because of the sanctions imposed by America," the secretary of the Iranian Airlines Union, Mehdi Aliyari, told Iran's ISNA news agency, according to the Reuters international news service. "Refusing to provide fuel to Iranian passenger planes by these countries is a violation of international conventions." The governments in Britain, Germany and the United Arab Emirates immediately denied the allegation and said they were complying with worldwide agreements and fulfilling contracts with Iranian airlines. But will they when current contracts expire, and how much pressure will Iran endure before lashing out against its neighbors or against Israel? The new sanctions are aimed at restricting Iran's ability to import refined oil products, like gasoline, that it does not produce on its own, even though it is the world's fifth-largest exporter of petroleum. An Iranian lawmaker, Hesmatollah Falahatpisheh, told ISNA that his country would retaliate against any country refusing to service its airplanes, Reuters said. "Iran will do the same to ships and planes of those countries that cause problems for us," he said. But more countries and companies are agreeing to comply with the new sanctions regime. This summer, United Arab Emirates froze more than 40 accounts of Iranian individuals and companies suspected of helping Iran evade current U.N. sanctions, which are not as strict. Western countries think Iran is trying to use its civilian nuclear power program to advance its development of nuclear weapons, but Iran denies the allegation.

Obama grows into commander-in-chief role

2010-07-01T15:16:00.001-07:00

Today's White House ceremony marking the signing of new economic sanctions against Iran illustrates the recognition by U.S. President Barack Obama that his well-meaning leftist ideology does not always translate well to international affairs. The kind of world Obama envisioned when he spoke so hopefully in Cairo just after taking office in 2009 is not the kind we have. Iran has not responded forthrightly to U.S. efforts to convince Tehran to abandon nuclear weapons development and, instead, has threatened the United States and its allies -- notably Israel. Iran denies trying to develop nuclear weapons and insists its program is for peaceful purposes. But Tehran has lied before and, given the tense relations between Iran and the United States almost continuously since the violent 1979 revolution that replaced the U.S.-backed Shah of Iran with an Islamic government, could reasonably be expected to do so again. Previous rounds of sanctions imposed by Western nations have not been effective in getting Iran to honestly discuss its nuclear ambitions. Obama's endorsement of further sanctions -- this time, expected to restrict Tehran's import of oil for domestic purposes and severely penalize private companies that enable Iran to get around them -- indicates that he, too, is frustrated by the lack of progress and convinced of the need to take determined action short of outright war. "There should be no doubt -- the United States and the international community are determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons," Obama said at the signing of the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act. "With these sanctions -- along with others -- we are striking at the heart of the Iranian government's ability to fund and develop its nuclear programs. We are showing the Iranian government that its actions have consequences." Iran has already starting feeling the effects of the newly toughened sanctions, Reuters said. French oil giant Total announced it would stop selling refined fuel to Tehran and Spain's Repsol withdrew from a contract to help develop Iran's South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf, the news service said.

ACLU challenges government's no-fly list -- 10 years late

2010-06-30T19:50:00.001-07:00

News that the American Civil Liberties Union had filed suit to challenge the federal government's "no-fly list" should be regarded as both good news and bad news for U.S. residents concerned about Washington's growing authority over their lives. That it has taken so many years to assemble a credible constitutional challenge to what assuredly was an immense power grab by federal authorities speaks quite loudly about the passivity of most Americans and their lack of involvement in governing their country. To be sure, the circumstances that led the feds to closely monitor airplane travel after the Sept. 11 attacks were unprecedented and outrageous. But the emergency that arguably justified the imposition of such a draconian regulatory regime -- barring U.S. citizens from traveling on airplanes based on possibly incorrect but still secret information -- has surely passed. And that it took a citizens group to mount that challenge, and not any of the array of federal agencies whose taxpayer-funded mission is to defend the U.S. Constitution, is nothing short of disgraceful. Even the lawsuit filed Wednesday tacitly accepts the legality of the restrictions, since it argues on behalf of 10 residents that the rules are unconstitutional because they do not permit people on the list to challenge their inclusion, according to the Reuters international news service. An ACLU lawyer told Reuters that the lawsuit was the first filed on behalf of legal U.S. residents challenging the no-fly list system. A lawsuit by a non-citizen seeking to get removed from the list is still pending, Reuters said. "The Constitution does not permit such a fundamental deprivation of rights to be carried out under a veil of secrecy and in the absence of even rudimentary process," the suit filed Wednesday says. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Portland, Ore., and names Attorney General Eric Holder, FBI Director Robert Mueller and Timothy Healy, director of the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center, Reuters said.

Aquino election could jumpstart government reform in Philippines

2010-06-29T00:48:00.001-07:00

Of course, it's not the first time that the election of a new government in the Philippines captured the imagination of people hoping for honesty and integrity in the southeast Asian country. But the landslide victory of Benigno Aquino III, son of two of the country's most beloved leaders, could be the start of something extraordinary for the traditional ally of the United States. Aquino, who has promised to eliminate corruption and protect Philippine democracy, takes office June 30. He also has promised to negotiate with Marxist and Islamic rebels in the county's south, whose long-running insurgency threatened to disrupt the presidency of his mother, Corazon Aquino, who replaced longtime dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986. She survived seven coup attempts before her term expired in 1992, according to Cable News Network (CNN). Aquino's father, Benigno, known as Ninoy, was murdered in 1983 upon his return from exile to the Philippines, where he was planning to lead a campaign against Marcos. Aquino easily defeated eight other candidates in May's presidential election, including former President Joseph Estrada, and the day of his inauguration, planned for a seaside park in Manila, has been declared a national holiday. Aquino has promised a truth commission to ferret out corruption in government, and pledged to appoint a former chief justice to look into fraud allegations arising during the term of his predecessor, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, CNN said.

Federal judge blocks moratorium on deepwater drilling in Gulf

2010-06-22T00:34:00.001-07:00

Of course the White House is planning to appeal a federal judge's ruling Tuesday that blocked U.S. President Barack Obama from imposing a six-month freeze on deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Obama ordered the moratorium after British Petroleum was unable to stop a massive oil leak that followed an explosion aboard an undersea drilling platform off the coast of Louisiana in April. And, of course, companies that supply boats and other equipment to oil exploration companies went to court to try to block Obama's decision. U.S. District Court Judge Martin Feldman granted a preliminary injunction to stop the federal government from enforcing the moratorium, despite the catastrophic and still-growing damage being done to the region's environment and economy. Government officials estimate more than 2 million gallons of oil are flowing unimpeded into the Gulf every day, according to Cable News Network (CNN). The moratorium stopped all companies from drilling in waters deeper than 500 feet and stopped any new permits from being issued until authorities can figure out what went wrong on the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform and how to ensure it doesn't happen again. That sounds like common sense, doesn't it? But common sense has become, like beauty, a matter of personal perspective. How else to explain why Louisiana's Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal and Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu urged the feds not to appeal the ruling. "I'm going to strongly urge the administration not to appeal this ruling, but to try to find a way forward that would achieve the president's goals for safety and responsibility, but at the same time would not jeopardize and threaten a very vibrant and necessary industry for decades," Landrieu told reporters, CNN said. In his ruling, Feldman sided with industry-support companies that contended they would be irreparably harmed by the moratorium, even though the explosion and spill already had done catastrophic harm to the environment and to the 11 workers who were killed. "An invalid agency decision to suspend drilling of wells in depths of over 500 feet simply cannot justify the immeasurable effect on the plaintiffs, the local economy, the Gulf region, and the critical present-day aspect of the availability of domestic energy in this country," the judge wrote. Justice Department attorney Brian Collins had argued on Monday that the moratorium was necessary to allow federal authorities to review the safety of deep-water oil drilling operations. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the president would file an immediate appeal of the ruling. "The president strongly believes, as the Department of Interior and Department of Justice argued yesterday, that continuing to drill at these depths without knowing what happened does not make any sense," Gibbs said. In a statement Monday, BP said it had already spent $2 billion responding to the spill, including payment of 32,000 individual claims.

Use of military contractors continuing in Afghanistan

2010-06-19T10:31:00.005-07:00

How quickly they forget! News from Washington that a subsidiary of the private security company formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide had been awarded a contract worth as much as $120 million to protect U.S. diplomats in two cities in Afghanistan should be a cause of alarm to people of principle everywhere. A U.S. State Department official confirmed Saturday that U.S. Training Center had won the 18-month contract, according to Cable News Network (CNN). It could very well be that, on some level, U.S. Training Center was the most qualified bidder, like the official said. But it doesn't take a genius to realize that hiring the former Blackwater to do anything else in U.S. war zones overseas raises the specter of the horrific 2007 shooting of 17 civilians by company guards in Baghdad. Military prosecutors are still pursuing criminal charges against five guards in connection with the shooting, which forced the military to reconsider the use of private contractors in Iraq. But, apparently, not seriously enough, if the military is using them in Afghanistan, too. Why the guards are even necessary has not adequately been explained, not with tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers on the ground, and soldiers of many other nations, in both countries for years. Americans who had hoped for more accountability from their government after the dangerously secretive Bush administration are surely disappointed by the new Obama administration's lack of candor about the continuing troop deployments. Employing another subsidiary of Blackwater, even though it changed its name to Xe Services. It's time for the U.S. government to come clean with the American people about how many contractors are operating in both countries and how much more money it is costing to use them instead of U.S. soldiers.

Gruesome execution of convicted murderer makes the point

2010-06-18T05:33:00.001-07:00

U.S. residents, especially those in Utah, probably feel a lot safer today after the firing-squad execution of a convicted killer. Ronnie Lee Gardner, 49, had been on death row since 1985, when he shot and killed an attorney during an escape attempt from a Salt Lake City courthouse, where he was on trial for killing a bartender in 1984. It was the third execution by firing squad in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Gardner's execution came hours after his appeal for a stay was denied by Utah Gov. Gary Herbert and the U.S. Supreme Court denied his last-minute appeal, according to the Reuters international news service. Herbert does not have the power to commute a death sentence but can issue a temporary stay. Gardner was shot in the chest by a 5-man firing squad and declared dead at 12:20 a.m. at Utah State Prison in Draper, Reuters said. He had been strapped to a metal chair and hooded, and a target was placed over his chest. The execution was witnessed by Jason Otterstrom, the son of the slain bartender, Melvyn Otterstrom, while Gardner's relatives held a vigil outside the prison. Gardner has asked his relatives not to witness the execution, Reuters said. Attorney Michael Burdell was the fatal victim in the courthouse shooting. A bailiff also was shot and recovered, but suffered health problems until his death in 1995. A Salt Lake City bishop called the firing squad execution "barbaric," Reuters said. "If you're going to do the death penalty, lethal injection would be the more human way," said Bishop John Wester of the city's Roman Catholic Diocese. "It emblazons in our consciousness the violence that guns wreck on our lives." But Gardner chose the firing squad himself, under the death penalty rules in effect at the time, Reuters said. Utah no longer offers the firing squad as an option for a condemned person.

North Korea's risky bargain for attention from West

2010-06-15T13:24:00.001-07:00

Why would North Korea be trying to start a catastrophic war with South Korea and the United States? That must be what Western leaders are wondering after Pyongyang flatly rejected findings of an investigation by five nations that blamed North Korea for the sinking of a South Korean warship in March. "War may break out at any time," North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations told the UN Security Council on Tuesday, after accusing South Korea of "fabricating" the findings, according to Cable News Network (CNN). Of course, there's a simple answer to the question. It wouldn't be, bombastic rhetoric to the contrary. What countries say is not always what they mean, at least not exactly. North Korea had to say something in response to the very public accusations and pressure for economic sanctions by the United States, although outright denial might not have been the best course of action in the face of damning evidence presented to the Security Council, and 46 dead sailors. "If the Security Council releases any documents against us, condemning or pressuring us ... then myself as diplomat, I can do nothing," North Korean Ambassador Sin Son Ho said, according to CNN. "The follow-up measures will be carried out by our military forces." But North Korea's military is no match for South Korea's, and certainly not for United States forces pledged to support Seoul. Any North Korean attack would be a true suicide bombing. So, the threat of war is a hollow one, perhaps designed either distract attention from Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program or to cover for a tragic mistake by North Korea's financially stretched and, obviously, questionably competent military. Maybe North Korea is just posturing to accept emergency food assistance again this winter, only this time as a peace offering instead of as charity. Or, maybe, Pyongyang thinks it can make Western nations forget about financial sanctions that are sure to be adopted to punish North Korea for the sinking of the Cheonan. But Pyongyang would receive a lot more assistance from the West if it stopped all the pretenses and started behaving like a modern country interested in cooperation with the rest of the world.

New British leader reluctantly endorses Afghanistan war

2010-06-10T20:28:00.001-07:00

Maybe David Cameron's endorsement of the U.S. and NATO mission in Afghanistan would have been more convincing had the British prime minister not been forced to re-route his helicopter because of threats from insurgent forces. Or maybe, just maybe, it would have been more convincing had it been an actual endorsement and not a bad facsimile of one. Cameron's remarks, delivered at a Kabul news conference with Afghani President Hamid Karzai, were apparently intended to reassure the war-ravaged country's leaders that the British were not planning to withdraw its 10,000 troops from the U.S.-NATO force fighting the Taliban. “This is the year when we have to make progress — progress for the sake of the Afghan people, but progress also on behalf of people back at home who want this to work,” Cameron said, according to the New York Times. "What we want — and in our national security interest — is to hand power over to an Afghanistan that is able to take control of its own security." Well, sure, but that's hardly the same thing as saying that Britain, like the United States, is committed to supporting NATO forces battling the Taliban until the government in Kabul is strong enough, and trustworthy enough, to stand on its own. The fact that Cameron left that part out is what's noteworthy. He didn't say it because Britain apparently doesn't think about Afghanistan in those terms. The British are fulfilling the commitment former British Prime Minister Tony Blair must have made to former U.S. President George Bush, but that's it. England is pulling out of the international force next year, success or failure notwithstanding. That probably doesn't come as news to current U.S. President Barack Obama, who recently increased the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and who probably talks honestly with whomever lives at 10 Downing St., but may be a source of consternation for the soldiers who are doing the actual fighting and risking their actual lives. Then again, Cameron's trip to a military base in Afghanistan's Helmand Province had to be called off because of intelligence reports of threats against his helicopter. Maybe Western leaders, U.S. officials included, will eventually have the good sense to be embarrassed about having to sneak in and out of countries being occupied at a cost of billions of dollars and thousands of lives -- for the benefit, of course, of the people who already lived there long before Western soldiers arrived.

Swiss lawmakers miss opportunity to perpetuate banking secrecy

2010-06-08T09:18:00.003-07:00

Do legislators in Switzerland have more sense than Swiss negotiators who reached a deal with the United States in 2009 to reveal the names of nearly 4,500 U.S. clients of Swiss banking giant UBS thought to be hiding assets overseas? It's hard to understand why the National Council voted to reject the deal, which had been demanded by the U.S. government despite Switzerland's long tradition of banking secrecy. The U.S. Department of Justice had already fined Switzerland nearly $800 million for keeping secret the names of thousands of UBS depositors suspected of evading billions of dollars in taxes, and the upper house, the Council of State, approved the deal earlier this week. Apparently, the lower house was bowing to pressure from Swiss banking interests, who wanted to hang onto the illogical secrecy tradition, when it voted to kill the agreement. The bankers certainly understand that the 4,500 names would only be the beginning of the eventual dismantling of the entire secrecy system, an anachronism in the global economy. But the deal seemed an overly generous compromise that would have endorsed the continuation of the strange system. After all, why should any depositors' names be secret? There may be legitimate reasons to conceal assets, but they're hard to think of offhand. And avoiding taxes should certainly not be one of those reasons. Swiss bankers have hidden behind the secrecy system long enough -- the world wants to know what happened to the billions of dollars and precious artwork deposited by Nazi officials when they looted the vaults and museums of Europe during World War II.

Justice delayed in India

2010-06-07T07:36:00.001-07:00

It's hard to know what to think about news from India that seven former employees of Union Carbide, the U.S. chemical giant that owned the plant in Bhopal blamed for the world's worst industrial accident, had been sentenced to jail terms for negligence. The seven plant officials received two-years in jail and fines of 100,000 rupees, about $2,100 in U.S. currency, in contrast to the severity of the 1984 accident, which killed at more than 3,000 people immediately and as many as 25,000 in subsequent years, according to the Reuters international news service. The former Union Carbide subsidiary that owned the plant, Union Carbide India Ltd., was fined 500,000 rupees for the release of toxic gases near Bhopal's teeming slums. Union Carbide has since paid $479 million in fines to the Indian government, was acquired by Dow Chemical Co., and sold its stake in the Indian subsidiary to another company, which renamed it Eveready Industries. But it isn't very hard to empathize with hundreds of protesters who gathered outside the Bhopal courthouse to complain that the sentences were too light and took far too long -- more than 25 years -- to be handed down. Some of the protesters carried signs that said "hang the guilty" and "they are traitors of the nation," Reuters said. "They may have been punished, but what about us? There are so many of us who have not received any compensation," one of the victims, Shanta Bai, told Reuters. Activists told Reuters that as many as 100,000 people who were exposed to the toxic gases suffer from cancer, blindness, immune and neurological disorders, and female reproductive disorders, and that some women living near the plant gave birth to children with birth defects.

Pope Benedict's visit to Cyprus could start reconciliation process

2010-06-05T21:59:00.003-07:00

Could religion be the catalyst for settling the decades-long dispute between Turkey and Greece over Cyprus? That prospect was raised Saturday when the leader of the Roman Catholic Church met with Sheikh Nazim, head of the northern Cyprus-based Islamic Sufi Nagshbandi sect in Greece-controlled southern Cyprus. On a trip that had been billed as nonpolitical, Benedict found a way to meet with Nazim, who had to travel from Turkey-controlled northern Cyprus, according to the Reuters international news service. Cyprus has been split nearly in half since Turkey invaded the island in response to a coup by Greek Cypriots in 1974; a U.N. peacekeeping force patrols a buffer zone between the two Mediterranean countries. The Greece-aligned government in the south is recognized internationally while the Turkey-controlled government in the north is recognized only by Ankara. The European Union only recognizes the southern Cyprus government, complicating Turkey's long effort to join Europe's market. The two religious leaders made conciliatory statements to each other, with Nazim saying Benedict was "a great man" and that he hoped "our hearts are moving in the same direction," according to the Reuters international news service. They met in the Holy Cross Church in the U.N.-guarded buffer zone, Reuters said. In an earlier speech in southern Cypress, Benedict told Archbishop Chrysostomos, the head of the Greek Orthodox Church in Cypress, that he wanted everyone to "find the wisdom and strength to work together for a just settlement." But even earlier in the day, Benedict heard charges from Cyprus President Demetris Christofias that churches and heritage sites in the north were being destroyed by Turkish forces, Reuters said. Turkish Cypriot leaders acknowledged some of the damage and said they were trying to restore the historic places, but also complained that Muslim places of worship in the south had been desecrated. On Friday, Chrysostomos accused Turkey of "ethnic cleansing" in northern Cypress, Reuters said.

New GM venture raises uncomfortable questions

2010-06-04T14:47:00.001-07:00

Is anyone else uncomfortable about Friday's announcement by post-bankruptcy General Motors, still the largest U.S. automaker, that it would create new venture capital firm to invest in new technologies? The new GM, now 61 percent owned by the U.S. government, said it would put $100 million into a new company to help startup companies working on renewable fuels, advanced materials and other automobile-related ventures. The announcement, reported by the New York Times, came amid an almost unbelievable run of good fortune for the company, which was able to shed a list of troubled subsidiaries in its short trip to bankruptcy court. GM reported its first quarterly profit in three years while its chief rival, the usually unimpeachable Toyota Motor Co. -- is still preoccupied with the discovery of manufacturing defects that caused the recall of millions of cars worldwide and resulted in millions of dollars in fines, so far. “We are constantly looking for ways to deliver the best technology for our customers,” Stephen Girsky, a G.M. executive, said in a written statement. “Our goal is to nurture these innovative technologies to help bring them to market, and to ensure our customers have access to the best technology available.” Spokeswoman Sherrie Childers-Arb told the Times that the new subsidiary, General Motors Ventures, had already identified companies to invest in. But will it be the new, nimble, embarrassed and chastised GM that will be buying into startups with promising ideas, or the old GM that wants to buy new companies to block their products from gaining market share? That's what happened, we still can recall, to the early electric car and, even earlier, to transit systems across the country.

China puts the brakes on torture of suspects, witnesses

2010-06-01T15:31:00.003-07:00

News that China had issued new rules discouraging the use of torture to encourage suspects to confess or witnesses to testify in court is a great development for the criminal justice system there, but should be a giant stop sign for western governments trying to open trade routes to the world's most populous country. Sure, the new regulations announced Sunday bring China more in line with western ideas of justice and human rights, and are welcome, but they are long overdue. China executes more people -- 1,700 a year is Amnesty International's estimate -- than the rest of the world's countries combined, according to the New York Times. Mistreatment of suspects and, sometimes, of reluctant witnesses is common in China, the Times said. What that says about Western companies and governments doing business with China is not good, since they are supporting a terrible system. Apparently, the central government's previous attempts to liberalize the system have met with mixed results, the Times said. So, the latest pronouncement by top Chinese law enforcement and judicial bodies, while positive on the surface, will only mean improvement if enforced nationwide. The new regulations, which bar the use of confessions obtained by torture and require police officers to testify in court if a defendant alleges mistreatment, were issued a few weeks after a farmer was released from prison after 10 years after he was convicted using a confession obtained through torture. The case came to light after the alleged victim turned up alive, and caused an uproar in the normally closed society -- a huge concern for the government in Beijing, which puts a premium on social order. “Judicial practice in recent years shows that slack and improper methods have been used to gather, examine and exclude evidence in various cases, especially those involving the death penalty,” the central government said in a statement, the Times said. Legal observers in China were optimistic over the new rules. “They have come just in time because the necessity is so great,” said Zhang Xingshui, a Chinese defense lawyer. “It is a good cure for loopholes, because legal workers are often under so much pressure to get cases closed no matter what it takes.” A professor at the government-owned Chinese People's Public Security University in Beijing told the Times that the provision requiring police to testify in court was revolutionary for China. “This may be common practice for police in the West or in Hong Kong, but it is a new thing for Chinese policemen to testify in court,” Cui Min said. “We have to cultivate a new mindset, one that accepts the idea of possibly setting free a criminal over wrongfully convicting an innocent man.” Of course, it would have been a lot better if Western countries had insisted on major reforms in China before opening their markets and integrating Beijing into the world economic system. But China appears to have fully embraced the idea that there is more to be gained from peaceful relations with the rest of the world than from aggressive isolation, even if it means liberalizing how the Communist Party runs the country. And that is very good news.

Israeli move to stop flotilla explodes into shooting and damaging rhetoric

2010-05-30T17:49:00.001-07:00

It looks like Israel has a lot to answer for after its commandos killed at least nine activists trying to outmaneuver the county's blockade of the Gaza Strip territory controlled by Hamas. The commandos staged a predawn raid to try to stop the six-ship flotilla of 700 activists after it refused orders to stop. The flotilla was bringing thousands of tons of supplies to Gaza's isolated Palestinian population, but violence broke out before the boats could be secured and brought to the Israeli port of Ashdod to be searched, according to the Reuters international news service. European countries that had been steadily warming to Israel for two decades were quick with condemnations including, as expected, the usually hostile General Assembly of the United Nations. Turkey, the Muslim country that has been trying to join the European Union for years and has recently been facilitating negotiations between Israel and Syria, also joined the anti-Israel chorus. But Israel rightly contends that it had a right to enforce its blockade, which was imposed to prevent material that could be used to make weapons from reaching Gaza. Militants have fired thousands of missiles from the territory into southern Israeli cities. Egypt has cooperated with Israel in officially sealing the territory, but there have been reports of massive amounts of smuggling through tunnels under the border between Egypt and Gaza. But Israel is being sadly unrealistic if it ignores the magnitude of its miscalculation. That the commando raid went awry is not entirely Israel's fault, since the supposedly peaceful activists had obviously expected something to happen and came armed with, at least, crude weapons. But Israel did send paratroopers to seize control of the flotilla instead of using navy vessels to force the activists into Ashdod so the cargo could be searched. Israel will investigate the conduct of its soldiers and, hopefully, figure out what went wrong. But Israel will be forced to do it alone, since the rhetoric coming from the Palestinian Authority and other Arab states shows they are less interested in preventing violence than in scoring propaganda points against the Jewish state. Turkey called Israel's actions "terrorism," a comment so illogical it precludes any reasonable response. The Palestinian Authority called the attack on the flotilla "a massacre," which it obviously wasn't. Israel certainly did not expect its commando raid to go so terribly wrong. U.S. President Barack Obama got it exactly right when he said he regretted the loss of life and demanded a full accounting of what transpired at sea.

Obama's proposals for NASA fail to gain much altitude on Capitol Hill

2010-05-27T14:34:00.000-07:00

Plans hatched in the Bush era for a new NASA moon landing may not have seemed terribly logical, since U.S. astronauts already visited there in the 1960s and 1970s. But changing those plans to advance human space travel in the future is turning out to be a lot harder than it should be. What else would explain the chilly reception the Obama-appointed head of the United States space agency -- Gen. Charles F. Bolden Jr. -- faced, even from Democrats, when he went before Congress on Wednesday to explain the new administration's proposed 2011 budget? Obama has proposed boosting NASA's budget by $6 billion over five years and directing the extra funds toward aeronautic and climate research, and science missions using robotic ships, not astronauts, according to the New York Times. But U.S. Rep. Bart Gordon of Tennessee told Bolden that Obama's proposed spending was nowhere near enough to achieve the president's loftier goals, and it makes no sense to cancel the existing program to return to the moon without the money to do anything else. Obama proposed in a speech last month that NASA gear up to put astronauts on an asteroid by 2025 and on Mars by 2035, and to cancel the existing Constellation program and open travel to the moon and the international space station to private companies instead. “So far we have not seen any hard analysis from the administration that would give us confidence that it can be done for the amount budgeted,” Gordon said. Gordon said the administration's projections were far less than a NASA panel had estimated human travel to an asteroid and Mars would cost. “It does no good to cancel a program that the administration characterizes as ‘unexecutable’ if that program is simply replaced with a new plan that can’t be executed either,” he said. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, also a Democrat, said she was "very dubious" that NASA would continue to work on the Constellation program while Obama's proposals were pending, the Times said. But Obama also proposed that the Constellation program's proposed Orion crew capsule that was going to return astronauts to the moon be redeveloped into a "lifeboat" for space station astronauts. Bolden said at the hearing that NASA estimates the capsule will take five years and $4.5 billion to develop, the Times said.

Arrest of Indian leader sparks concern over U.S. ally Peru

2010-05-27T14:26:00.001-07:00

Word from Lima that Indian leader Alberto Pizango had been taken into custody upon his return to Peru raises new worries about the future of one of South America's staunchest U.S. allies. Pizango was arrested at the airport after 11 months of exile in Nicaragua, where he fled to avoid sedition charges stemming from anti-development protests in the Amazon that turned violent, according to the Associated Press in an article published in the New York Times. More than 30 police officers and demonstrators were killed last June during protests against government decrees allowing exploration of potential oil and gas resources in the Peruvian rainforest, the Indians' ancestral lands. Violence broke out after authorities tore down roadblocks set up by the demonstrators in Bagua to block access to the rainforest, and Pizango was charged with fomenting the violence. Nicaragua's president, Daniel Ortega, granted Pizango political asylum. But Pizango said he had been away from Peru long enough. "I think that I have waited too long and will make this enormous sacrifice that has cost me and is costing me so much," Pizango said before he left Nicaragua. Groups of Pizango supporters rallied at the airport as his plane came in, backing his contention that the government should have consulted native groups before allowing the planned exploration. Opponents of Pizango also protested at the airport, urging the government to press charges against the Indian leader. Government officials claim potential discoveries could generate enough money to end poverty in Peru but, hopefully, not at the cost of the country's vibrant democracy.

Top U.S.official 'frustrated' by failure of oil spill cleanup

2010-05-23T14:41:00.001-07:00

Nice to see that U.S. regulators are "frustrated" by the failure of oil giant BP to stop the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico from one of its wells, but it's nothing short of astounding that the people who were supposed to be overseeing production by the oil companies operating in this country apparently weren't doing so. Why else would the massive U.S. regulatory apparatus been caught so unprepared? Yes, the oil spill was an accident and is a tragedy of probably incalculable proportions. And yes, a gusher at such a depth -- nearly a mile under the ocean -- is unprecedented. But no one in the industry or at the regulatory agencies should be permitted to pretend that it should not have been anticipated. The oil industry -- in this case, BP, formerly known as British Petroleum -- had to apply to the government for permission to operate in the Gulf of Mexico, they had to offer production estimates and pay taxes and they had submit plans for the drilling and for how they were going to take care of any emergencies that were sure to result. What were those plans? Where are those plans? If they didn't include what to do in the event of an explosion on a drilling platform, as occurred in April on the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon platform, what did they include? What about other companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico or elsewhere? Do they have such plans? Why not, if their plans included drilling at such depths? And, if not, will they be required to have them now? What we're discussing, of course, is Sunday's statement by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar that he no longer has confidence that BP officials "know exactly what they're doing," according to Cable News Network (CNN). Add to that comments by Marcia McNutt, the director of the U.S. Geological Survey, that BP's plans for stopping the gusher were probably infeasible. "I think everyone has to understand that the kinds of operations they're doing in the deep sea have never been done before," McNutt told CNN. But the problem is not that "everyone" has to understand that -- the problem is the regulators seem not to have understood it. Why even regulate oil production at all if obvious risks are not being planned for? Why have the regulators been doing all this time if we have to ask these questions now, when oil has begun washing up on some of the country's most beautiful beaches and contaminating some of the country's richest fishing and wildlife areas? If U.S. President Barack Obama's plans to revamp the federal government do not include better regulation of some of the country's biggest and most vital industries, he had better start explaining why not.

Indefinite detentions overseas become Obama administration's dilemma

2010-05-21T18:05:00.001-07:00

U.S. citizens who thought last year's change at the top meant a return to the days before al-Qaida and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington got another reality check Friday when a federal appeals court in Washington ruled that terror suspects captured overseas may not challenge their detentions in U.S. courts. The unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel means that three detainees held for years without trial at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan did not have the same right of appeal that suspects being held by the U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, won in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2008, according to the New York Times. The ruling reversed a trial judge's decision that the Bagram detainees -- in this case, two men from Yemen and one from Tunisia who claimed they were captured outside Afghanistan and brought to the U.S. base -- had the same rights as prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay. Critics and supporters of the Bush administration's aggressive post-9/11 detention policies, which Obama criticized while campaigning but has defended in court, reacted to the ruling with expected vehemence. A lawyer for the detainees, Tina Foster of the New York-based International Justice Network, said the appeals court ruling would allow U.S. presidents to “kidnap people from other parts of the world and lock them away for the rest of their lives” without ever having to prove that they were guilty of anything, the Times said. “The thing that is most disappointing for those of us who have been in the fight for this long is all of the people who used to be opposed to the idea of unlimited executive power during the Bush administration but now seem to have embraced it during this administration,” she said. “We have to remember that Obama is not the last president of the United States.” But U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), a backer of the Bush-era detentions, told the Times that the ruling was a "big win" for the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan. “Allowing a noncitizen enemy combatant detained in a combat zone access to American courts would have been a change of historic proportions,” he said. “There is a reason we have never allowed enemy prisoners detained overseas in an active war zone to sue in federal court for their release. It simply makes no sense and would be the ultimate act of turning the war into a crime.” A spokesman for the U.S. Justice Department, Dean Boyd, declined to comment on the decision, the Times said. The three prisoners say they are not terrorists and are being held by mistake.

High-profile federal investigation into gulf oil spill won't answer the big questions

2010-05-17T11:05:00.005-07:00

At least U.S. President Barack Obama has decided to heed calls from lawmakers for an investigation into the potentially catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but even the authority of the White House won't be enough to resolve the problem unless
the young government is willing to ask the questions nobody wants to answer. An unnamed White House official said Monday that Obama will establish a commission to investigate the massive spill, which started in late April and now threatens to contaminate some of the nation's richest fishing areas and most beautiful beaches, according to Cable News Network (CNN). Eight senators had formally requested an investigation to determine whether oil giant BP, which used to go by British Petroleum, violated any laws leading up to the explosion that destroyed its Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico and started the oil leaking more than a mile under the surface. "The commission will take into account the investigations under way concerning the causes of the spill and explore a range of issues," the official told CNN, including industry practices, rig safety, federal governmental oversight and environmental review. That's fine in theory, and Obama has raised a lot of hopes with his harsh criticism of companies involved with the Deepwater Horizon and his pledge to break up the often incestuous relationship between the oil industry and government regulators. But solving the basic problem raised by the Gulf of Mexico spill, and the Exxon Valdez and hundreds or thousands of spills before that, will be a lot harder. If we're drilling for fossil fuels, spills are unavoidable. They don't have to be as bad as this one, but they're going to happen. The relationship that needs to change is the one between U.S. citizens and their automobiles, and that will require the government to raise prices by imposing new taxes, reducing petroleum imports through tariffs, stopping the construction of so many highways and starting to invest in the kinds of public transportation that will make automobiles less of a necessity.

Toyota makes it look easy -- automaker races back in the black

2010-05-12T13:43:00.005-07:00

Well, maybe that's why it pays to hire a good accountant. Toyota Motor Corp. announced Monday that it is profitable again despite being accused of safety lapses, paying millions of dollars in fines and being forced to recall millions of cars around the world. Toyota, the world's largest automaker, reported a profit of $1.2 billion in the first quarter of 2010 after losing millions of dollars in 2008 and 2009. “After taking over amid a storm, I wanted to do anything to avoid a third straight year in the red,” said Akio Toyoda, Toyota's president, according to the New York Times. Toyoda said the automaker had made "tough and anguishing decisions" to return to profitability, including cost-cutting and layoffs in Japan and in other countries where Toyota cars and trucks are manufactured. The company said it expected to make more than $3 billion this year as its worldwide sales surged, particularly in the United States and China. The rebound surely is good news for slumping U.S. automakers General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, if it reflects worldwide trends. GM and Chrysler borrowed billions of dollars from the U.S. and Canada to stay afloat during the global recession. But Toyota's good news could not completely obscure problems looming in the near future for the automaker. The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced this week that it was investigating the company's handling of a steering defect in its popular Tacoma truck after denying it for a year. “We’re still in a storm — there’s been no change on that front,” Toyoda said. “But from the storm, we’ve begun to see glimpses of sunny but faraway skies. I feel that we’re starting to approach safer waters.” Toyota still faces lawsuits from car buyers claiming injuries causes by acceleration problems and a series of shareholder suits. U.S. regulators also are considering imposing additional fines on the automaker, which paid a $16.4 million fine -- the largest permitted under U.S. law -- to the Transportation Department in April.

Obama administration resorts to Bush path on detainees

2010-05-09T17:37:00.003-07:00

News from Washington that the Obama administration is proposing exempting terrorism suspects from constitutional protections guaranteed to U.S. citizens raises troubling questions about the president's commitment to undoing the worst abuses of the last administration. There is nothing in the Bill of Rights to suggest that it is negotiable, or that it only was intended to apply to some of the people some of the time. Yet that is undeniably the basis of Attorney General Eric Holder's proposal that terrorism suspects -- in this case, the Pakistani immigrant who stands accused of trying to set off a bomb in New York's Times Square on May 1 -- no longer be allowed the protection of the so-called Miranda rule, according to the New York Times. The Miranda rule, which bars authorities from questioning suspects until they are advised of their right against self-incrimination -- comes from a landmark 1966 U.S. Supreme Court decision interpreting the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Fifth Amendment prohibits the government from forcing citizens to testify against themselves, and the Supreme Court held in Miranda that police must advise suspects of this right before questioning begins to give full effect to its protection. But the Fifth Amendment is not the government's protection to give: it was made part of the basic law of the United States to prevent the government from accumulating too much power. As we well recall, Obama was elected in 2008 because the Bush administration developed the nasty habit of selectively enforcing rights that the United States previously knew to apply to everybody. Yet there was Holder on the NBC-TV show Meet the Press on Sunday, touting "big news" and recommending new limits on people's constitutional rights. “We’re now dealing with international terrorists,” Holder said, “and I think that we have to think about perhaps modifying the rules that interrogators have and somehow coming up with something that is flexible and is more consistent with the threat that we now face.” Holder also indicated for the first time that the United States now believes that bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad, who was arrested as he boarded a plane to leave the United States, had been trained by the Pakistani Taliban. Anthony Romero of the American Civil Liberties Union told the Times that Congress did not have the authority to limit the Miranda ruling since it merely interprets the U.S. Constitution. “What’s troubling is that this is coming from the Obama administration,” Romero said. “The irony is that this administration supposedly stands for the rule of law and the restoration of America’s legal standing, and now they are trying to negotiate away fundamental Fifth Amendment rights that have been the cornerstone of our democracy.”

High court gets it wrong in church-state case

2010-05-08T15:18:00.002-07:00

There was a time in this country when most people understood what the U.S. Constitution said, even on controversial and evolving legal situations like the separation of church and state. States and municipalities did whatever they wanted, pretty much, whether constitutional or not, like they still do sometimes, but the U.S. Supreme Court always had the last and most reasonable word. Of course it wasn't always so -- there have, as we all know, been some amazing doozies over the years. But that was then, before the likes of Byron White and William Rehnquist were on the court. Now, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas in four of the panel's nine seats, the high court can no longer be relied on for sound reasoning in the face of the kind of blatant partisanship that comes from highly paid advocates. Each yearly term of the current panel reveals further examples of this, from the utterly regrettable Bush v. Gore decision in 2000 (the constitutional way to determine who won a presidential election is to stop counting the votes!) to the shockingly unrealistic Citizens United decision (Congress is constitutionally barred from placing reasonable limits on campaign contributions!) earlier this year. So, it came as little more than rueful surprise to see the court rule 5-4 Wednesday that a Christian religious cross erected on national parkland as a war memorial in California's Mojave Desert did not violate the First Amendment, as the New York Times reported. It wasn't just that the cross itself was on public land, or that the government had tried to relieve itself of responsibility by selling the tiny bit of land under the Sunrise Rock cross to a veterans' group, but that U.S. officials refused to allow representatives of other religions to place their own memorials there! The First Amendment's prohibition on laws "respecting an establishment of religion" has come to bar the United States from favoring any religions over others. It is a tribute to the soundness of this reasoning that such disputes rarely reach the high court, even with the loud and often overbearing religious leaders that populate the country. Yet favoring is clearly what the government did at Sunrise Rock. "The Constitution does not oblige government to avoid any public acknowledgment of religion's role in society," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court majority. "Here one Latin cross in the desert evokes far more than religion. It evokes thousands of small crosses in foreign fields marking the graves of Americans who fell in battles, battles whose tragedies are compounded if the fallen are forgotten." But in dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens, the only war veteran on the court, said "I certainly agree that the nation should memorialize the service of those who fought and died in World War I, but it cannot lawfully do so by continued endorsement of a starkly sectarian message." The case is entitled Salazar v. Buono, No. 08-472.

Democracy in the new Iraq -- loser could prevail in parliamentary elections

2010-05-04T12:03:00.005-07:00

News from Baghdad that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has formed a coalition government to rule his U.S.-supported country for the next four years sounds like good news. For the continuation of Maliki's role as prime minister of Iraq, it could be. But since Maliki finished second in the March election to the secular and Sunni coalition led by Ayad Allawi, the prospect of four more years of a Shiite-dominated government despite the election results could be problematic for the fragile Iraqi society, according to the New York Times. An unpopular government also could complicate the planned withdrawal of 100,000 U.S. soldiers by the end of August, particularly if the current parliamentary standoff continues and is accompanied by an escalation of violence. But if Maliki's State of Law coalition holds and it results in Allawi's Iraqiya party being completely excluded from power in the next government, despite its narrow victory in the election, there is almost certain to be political resentment in addition to the simmering Shiite-Sunni religious friction that seems to almost always be present. Minority Sunnis held power in Iraq during the brutal reign of Saddam Hussein but the majority Shiites have been in power since the 2003 U.S. invasion. "No doubt this could lead to a resurgence in violence and provide a fodder for extremism," said Sheik Abdul-Rahman Munshid al-Assi, leader of a Sunni political council in the disputed region of Kirkuk, the Times said. "There must be participation in the government by any means. Otherwise, we will return to square one." There is only one Sunni politician in Maliki's coalition, the Times said. "The fear is this alliance will have a sectarian color," said Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni allied with Allawi. "That is how Iraqis and the world will see it, whether we like it or not. This development will be a tragic step backward." One hopeful sign -- the Shiite coalition invited Allawi's Iraqiya group to join a national unity government. But the details of such a government -- surely the most important factor -- have not been made clear, the Times said.

Someone's not telling the truth in U.S.-Iran nuclear dispute

2010-05-03T18:15:00.003-07:00

Lingering mistrust over the imperial attitude of the United States during the last administration no doubt took at lot of the sting off Monday's trade of hyperbole between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the United Nations in New York. After Ahmadinejad delivered his expected tirade against the United States, which is trying to put together international economic sanctions to penalize Iran for trying to develop nuclear weapons, Clinton accused Tehran of ignoring its obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and called for "a strong international response," according to Cable News Network. The two leaders spoke at the opening of a monthlong conference on nuclear nonproliferation, which has taken on additional urgency of late due to Iran's apparent progress toward developing nuclear weaponry and North Korea's detonations of two nuclear warheads since 2006. Diplomats from the United States, Britain and France walked out of Ahmadinejad's speech a few minutes after he began speaking, CNN said. But the diplomats no doubt heard Ahmadinejad denounce the United States for accusing Iran of nuclear activities without "even a single credible proof," and for permitting Israel to compile an arsenal of several hundred nuclear weapons. "Regrettably," Ahmadinejad told the conference, "the government of the United States has not only used nuclear weapons, but also continues to threaten to use such weapons against other countries, including Iran." Of course, Ahmadinejad speaks as if the world hadn't repeatedly heard him threaten Israel with annihilation. And, as if Israel hadn't already proved itself capable of maintaining a nuclear stockpile in a peaceful manner -- something no one wants to see unstable Iran try to do. Clinton, for her part, accused Iran of placing the future of the nonproliferation treaty in jeopardy with its actions and disingenuous remarks. Iran "will do whatever it can to divert attention from its own record and to attempt to evade accountability," she said. "I hope that we can reach agreement in the Security Council on tough new sanctions because I believe that is the only way to catch Iran's attention," Clinton told reporters after her speech. Ahmadinejad also called for a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East, a concept endorsed by the United States. Clinton said such a zone would be possible only after successful peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Clinton also called for creation of a $50 million Peaceful Uses Initiative by the International Atomic Energy Agency to bring the benefits of nuclear energy to more countries, no doubt a reaction to Ahmadinejad's oft-repeated complaint that the United States and Western nations were trying to monopolize nuclear technology.

Let the prosecutions begin -- Justice Department open criminal probe of Goldman Sachs

2010-04-30T01:24:00.001-07:00

Word comes from New York that federal prosecutors have finally started the practically unconscionably delayed investigation into whether Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street traders should be held criminally liable for crashing the nation's housing market in 2006 and kicking off the global recession. Unnamed sources told the New York Times that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which last month filed a civil lawsuit accusing Goldman Sachs of fraud, referred its findings to the U.S. Justice Department. Goldman Sachs has denied the allegation in the fraud suit, which accuses the firm of defrauding investors in its Abacus 2007 AC1 collateralized debt obligations. According to the SEC, investors in the Abacus deals were not told that Goldman Sachs was simultaneously allowing other people to bet that the mortgage market would fall. When the market collapsed, Abacus investors lost millions but other investors enjoyed a windfall. One trader, hedge fund manager John Paulson earned more than $1 billion when value of bonds he helped select for Abacus investors crashed, the SEC alleged. Paulson has not been charged with any wrongdoing, the Times said. Of course, getting investigated is not the same as being charged, just as being charged is not the same as being guilty. In fact, two hedge fund managers at Bear Stearns were acquitted of criminal charges last year.

Obama avoids saying "genocide" when discussing massacre of Armenians

2010-04-24T00:32:00.005-07:00

On the day Armenia has chosen to mark the mass killing of its people by Ottoman Turks at the end of World War I, U.S. President Barack Obama acknowledged "one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century," but didn't say the term "genocide." The careful choice of words was no accident -- Turkey is overly sensitive about what others think of it, and the United States is trying to keep Ankara engaged in the treacherous world of Middle East peacemaking, where it has been an asset . "On this solemn day of remembrance, we pause to recall that 95 years ago one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century began," Obama said in a statement issued Saturday by the White House, according to the Reuters international news service. "In that dark moment of history, 1.5 million Armenians were massacred or marched to their death in the final days of the Ottoman Empire." The remarks took on even more significance in light of Thursday's collapse of a deal to have Turkey and Armenia establish diplomatic relations and open their shared border for the first time. The deal, designed to ease tensions in the strategic south Caucasus region, apparently hung up over Turkey's demand that Armenia work out its differences with nearby Azerbaijan as a condition of the agreement, Reuters said. The region has taken on new strategic importance since the breakup of the Soviet Union because it is crossed by new pipelines shipping energy to Europe. Seen in this context, Obama's remarks were conciliatory towards Turkey, even if historically inaccurate. During his campaign for the U.S. presidency in 2008, Obama used the word "genocide" when describing the killings by the Ottoman Turks. Maybe diplomatic outreach really isn't as easy as he likes to describe it. Turkey, as we know, was angry and withdrew its ambassador to Washington in March after the House of Representative passed a nonbinding resolution that called the killings "genocide." The full body has not yet voted on the resolution and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the Obama administration opposes it, Reuters said.

South Korea wants international response to ship sinking

2010-04-23T01:16:00.003-07:00

News from Seoul is that South Korea wants to wait for the international community act before it responds to a suspected attack on one of its ships by its arch enemy. Preliminary results from a South Korean military intelligence report put the blame on North Korea, its reclusive and impoverished Communist neighbor, according to a Reuters international news service report in the New York Times. The two countries have technically been at war since North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950; a 1953 armistice ended most fighting but ushered in a cold peace that has persisted since then despite occasional moves by both sides to ease tensions. North Korea's testing of nuclear weapons beginning in 2006 has heightened tensions again between the two countries and the United States, which has 28,000 soldiers in South Korea. The South Korean patrol ship, the Cheonan, sank last month with 46 aboard after an explosion, which Seoul blames on a North Korean torpedo. Pyongyang denies any responsibility for the sinking. South Korean President Lee Myung-bak told a group of visiting journalists on Friday that his country would wait until an international investigation of the incident was completed. "Just as the investigation is being conducted with international cooperation, we'll try to cooperate with the international community in taking necessary measures when the results are out," Lee said. The last pieces of the sunken ship are expected to be raised to the surface this week, Reuters said. But even if investigators determine that North Korea was responsible for the sinking, South Korea's options appear limited. A military attack on its neighbor would further heighten tensions and possibly get Russia and China involved, a replay of what happened during the Korean War. Plus, Lee faces tough local elections in June that got even tougher when citizens accused his government of being caught unprepared in the attack on the Cheonan. Lee infuriated the north earlier in the week by criticizing Pyongyang for spending money on a huge celebration to mark the birthday of Kim Il-sung, considered the founder of North Korea. Kim died in 1994.

Former top Bush administration official charged with contempt

2010-04-22T21:36:00.000-07:00

Word from Washington that a former top Bush administration official has been charged with contempt of Congress for allegedly mistreating employees and deleting files from an office computer in 2006 is reassuring to those of us still waiting for the Obama government to fix the worst excesses of the previous administration. Federal prosecutors filed the criminal charge against Scott Bloch, the former head of the Office of Special Council, which ironically is responsible for protecting federal employees who report improper activities from retaliation, according to the Reuters international news service. Bloch had been under investigation for five years, and FBI agents seized his office computers and subpoenaed all 17 employees in a 2008 raid. Bloch resigned later that year. The charges apparently stem from Bloch's decision in 2006 to hire an outside contractor to purge a virus from his computer instead of using in-house technicians, and files mysteriously were deleted from his and other computers. The U.S. House of Representatives has been conducting its own investigation of that and of reports that Bloch had set up a separate office in Detroit to exile employees who displeased him. Bloch told the House Oversight Committee that he engaged the contractor to remove the virus. But documents filed by federal prosecutors in U.S. District Court on Thursday allege that Bloch "unlawfully and willfully withheld pertinent information from the committee" about the erasure. during an interview with the panel in March 2008, according to a criminal information filing by prosecutors in U.S. District Court. Such filings are typically used in plea agreements in which a defendant pleads guilty, Reuters said. Block's attorney, William Sullivan, would not confirm that a plea agreement was in place but told Reuters that was glad the investigation was over. Bloch had been appointed to a five-year term with the Office of Special Counsel in 2004 but ran into friction with the White House when he opened investigations into allegations that Bush adviser Karl Rove and other officials had used federal agencies for political activities, and whether laws were violated in the White House's firing of eight U.S. attorneys in 2006, Reuters said. Bloch had been a personnel lawyer at the Faith-Based and Community Initiatives office of the U.S. Justice Department before the appointment, Reuters said.

Elections in Sudan don't live up to Western standards

2010-04-19T14:21:00.003-07:00

The United States and other Western nations didn't wait until the votes were completely counted in Sudan to begin questioning the validity of the results of the first multiparty election in the East African nation in 24 years. The U.S. State Department said Monday that the weekend balloting was "not a free and fair election," given wide reports of alleged fraud and boycotts by various groups. "It did not, broadly speaking, meet international standards," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in Washington, according to the Reuters international news service. Sudan's president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, and his National Congress Party are expected to easily win re-election and continue to dominate politics, at least in the northern portion of the insurgency-torn oil-producing nation still under the control of the government in Khartoum. But given that the election occurred at all, even flawed, was seen as a positive development by the West. The balloting fulfilled another portion of the 2005 peace deal that interrupted a 22-year civil war between Sudan's Muslim-dominated north and Christian and Animist groups in the south led by the Sudanese People's Liberation Army. The third and, perhaps, most important condition of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement is a vote on whether to permanently separate the northern and southern regions of Sudan by 2011, Reuters said. "I think we recognize that the election is a very important step" in carrying out the 2005 peace deal, Crowley said. "The United States will continue to work with the government in the north, the government in the south, as we move forward with ... the vitally important referenda that'll happen in January of next year." Initial polls indicate Bashir's party would receive as much as 90 percent of the vote in northern Sudan, Reuters said. In a separate statement, delegations from the United States, Britain and Norway -- guarantors of the peace deal, said the election suffered from poor preparation and other irregularities and called on the Khartoum government to fix these problems before the next round of voting. "We note initial assessments of the electoral process from independent observers, including the judgment that the elections failed to meet international standards," the three countries said in a statement. "We are reassured that voting passed reasonably peacefully, reportedly with significant participation, but share their serious concerns about weak logistical and technical preparations and reported irregularities in many parts of Sudan. Observers from the European Union and the Carter Center also said the elections did not meet international standards. Bashir still faces genocide charges filed last year by the International Criminal Court in The Hague over hundreds of thousands of killings in the Darfur region of eastern Sudan, where millions were displaced by conflict between the Khartoum government and ethnic rebel groups that was not related to the 22-year war between north and south.

Toyota agrees to pay $16 million fine to U.S. regulators

2010-04-19T14:21:00.001-07:00

So, what's up with Toyota? News that the Japanese automaker had agreed to pay a $16.4 million fine to U.S. regulators over sticky gas pedals in millions of its cars is Toyota Motor Corp. appears almost outrageously integral and honest, but that only makes things even weirder. Can anyone remember another time when a large, multinational corporation did the selfless thing in favor of its customers? Then again, can anyone remember another high-profile industrial company that so quickly ruined a sterling reputation it had earned over the years with high-quality products? Maybe Toyota's decision to pay the fine and focus instead on fixing millions of its cars and compensating victims really is an act of corporate contrition, and not a calculated attempt to limit future liability like we've all come to expect from U.S. companies. Then again, Toyota's present liabilities are bad enough. Legal experts say Toyota already could be facing $10 billion in damage claims, according to the New York Times. The U.S. fine was imposed to punish Toyota for failing to inform federal safety regulators for months about the sticky accelerator problem, even though it already had enough reports about the problem from car owners in Europe and Canada to have started fixing vehicles there, the Times said. "We did not try to hide the defect to avoid dealing with a safety problem," Toyota said in a written statement, even though that appears to be exactly what happened. Toyota said it had made a "good faith" effort to fix the problems but agreed to pay the penalty anyway to avoid a long legal fight. U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Toyota had put consumers at risk by failing to report the defective accelerator pedal problem and that U.S. officials would continue with their investigation, the Times said.

Goldman Sachs charges could be first of many

2010-04-16T08:26:00.004-07:00

News that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission had filed civil charges against Wall Street trading giant Goldman Sachs and one of its officers is a signal that the Obama administration is continuing to pursue its investigation of the financial collapse that thrust the country, and the world, into the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. The lawsuit, which accuses the bank of devising and selling an investment product that was secretly designed to fail, could be the first of a series of government actions to punish companies and executives who behaved boorishly and prevent them from doing so again. It should, of course, be clear to everyone by now that this crisis was not caused by some uncontrollable and unexplainable economic forces but by human greed and regulatory inattention, and that the former is likely impossible to remedy but the latter is not. So it is at least reassuring that the White House is still pressing the case for tighter regulation of Wall Street. Of course, Goldman Sachs denies that it did anything wrong in designing and promoting a line of investment products to bet against the housing market, including one called "Abacus" that lost more than $1 billion, according to the New York Times. In a written statement, Goldman Sachs called the accusations “completely unfounded" and pledged to “vigorously contest them and defend the firm and its reputation.” But Robert Khuzami, director of the SEC enforcement division, said in his own statement that Goldman Sachs designed the investment products to fail and even allowed a hedge fund manager who stood to earn billions of dollars if they failed to help choose what to invest in. "Goldman (Sachs) wrongly permitted a client that was betting against the mortgage market to heavily influence which mortgage securities to include in an investment portfolio,” Khuzami said. That client, a prominent hedge fund manager identified in the lawsuit as John Paulson, made nearly $4 billion in 2007, the Times said. The SEC suit also named Fabrice Tourre, a Goldman Sachs vice president who helped create and sell the investment products, the Times said. Then again, the lawsuit filed by the SEC is a civil complaint, meaning that if it is successful, and there really is no way at this point of knowing whether the government is correct, the defendants can only be forced to pay back their ill-gotten gains and possible monetary penalties. What everybody in the country is waiting for -- Wall Street excepted, no doubt -- is when the criminal complaints that carry the likelihood of prison time will be filed.

UN report blames Pakistan government in aftermath of assassination

2010-04-15T17:45:00.001-07:00

Sometimes, the audacity of government officials who violate the public trust is truly breathtaking. How else to describe Thursday's conclusion by a United Nations investigation that Pakistan's political and law enforcement establishment deliberately failed to adequately protect former prime minister Benazir Bhutto after she returned from exile in 2007 or to conduct a proper investigation into her assassination in Rawalpindi two months later? This question has no doubt been asked millions of times in the Western-aligned Asian nation since the death of Bhutto, who was expected to oppose then-president Pervez Musharraf in the 2008 election. After her death, Bhutto's husband, Ali Asaf Zardari, took the reins of her Pakistan's People's Party and defeated Musharraf at the polls. Musharraf, who has since retired from politics, is the former army chief who seized power in a 1999 coup. The United Nations commission's report does not name any suspects but does blame the Musharraf government for failing to prevent the attack and for not investigating the assassination properly, according to the Reuters international news service. "While she died when a 15-and-half-year-old suicide bomber detonated his explosives near her vehicle, no one believes this boy acted alone," the report said. "Ms. Bhutto's assassination could have been prevented if adequate security measures had been taken." The three-person commission of inquiry, impaneled after a formal request by Zardari, was headed by Chile's U.N. ambassador, Heraldo Munoz. The 65-page report also blamed government officials for trying to obstruct the investigation. "The commission was mystified by the efforts of certain high-ranking Pakistani government officials to obstruct access to military and intelligence sources," the report said, and recommended that the new government conduct a new investigation. Speculation continues in Pakistan that she was killed by Musharraf supporters trying to prevent her from capturing the presidency, Reuters said, particularly after authorities in Rawalpindi did not collect evidence but hosed down the scene immediately after the assassination, and failed to conduct an autopsy on Bhutto's body. The Musharraf government blamed Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud for the assassination, but Mehsud, an al-Qaida ally, was killed by a U.S. drone strike last year, Reuters said.

Poland's government reassures country after deaths of top officials

2010-04-13T19:42:00.000-07:00

With the country still reeling from Saturday's horrific plane crash that killed dozens of Poland's top political and military leaders, including President Lech Kaczynski, parliament speaker Bronislaw Komorowski went on television to reassure his stunned nation that the October presidential election would be moved up several months. Komorowski, who became acting president after Kacynski and 95 others were killed in the crash of their plane outside the Russian city of Smolensk, told his country that the election would now be held May 30 or June 13 under a procedure laid out in Poland's constitution. "The election date must be set," Komorowski told the TVP Info station while pledging to announce the date Wednesday, according to the Reuters international news service. "This must be done as soon as possible to shorten the period in which Poland is in a period of uncertainty." Kacynski, his wife, and a long list of military and government leaders died April 10 when their plane went down while trying to land in Smolensk, near the Katyn Forest. Poland's leadership was en route to Russia to take part in ceremonies marking the anniversary of the World War II-era massacre of thousands of military officers by the Soviet secret police in Katyn Forest, a massacre blamed for decades on the Nazis. Then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev revealed in 1990 that his country actually was responsible. The revelation has poisoned relations between Poland and Russia even after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Komorowski, a leading member of Prime Minister Donald Tusk's centrist Civic Platform (PO) party, was heavily favored to win the presidential election but the possibility of a large sympathy vote for candidates from Kacynski's conservative Law and Justice party has put the outcome in doubt, Reuters said. Other prominent officials killed in the crash included Gen. Franciszek Gagor, the head of the Polish Army, Gen. Andrzej Blasik, commander of the Polish Air Force; Vice Admiral Andrzej Karweta, commander of the Polish Navy; Slawomir Skrzypek, chairman of the National Bank of Poland; former defense minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski, a presidential candidate; Krzysztof Putra, the deputy parliament speaker; and Piotra Nurowski, head of the Polish Olympic Committee.

U.S. Postal Service's last name should always be service

2010-04-12T12:56:00.001-07:00

All the hand-wringing of late about the deteriorating financial condition of the U.S. Postal Service can be traced to the unfortunate 1971 decision to privatize what had been a proud government tradition since the founding of the republic. Rather than being pragmatic proposals to resolve the current problem, calls for service and wage cuts merely demonstrate the ill-considered shortsightedness of the conversion of the post office from a government agency to a semi-private one back in the first Nixon administration. And, we all know how the second Nixon administration turned out. The postal service's problems -- mounting deficits, inflexible employment contracts and growing competition -- were pointed out Monday by the Government Accountability Office in a 15-page report. The GAO called for creation of an independent commission to make recommendations, such as new revenue enhancement proposals and service cuts to fix a deficit estimated at nearly $300 million in the first quarter. But this is not rocket science. Mail service is essential to democracy, even with the rise of computers and e-mail, and therefore must be preserved at all costs. Cries for service cutbacks, including ending Saturday delivery, if successful, will only compound the mistake. The post office shouldn't be expected to be a profit center; it's a responsibility of government. The USPS should be restored to the executive branch of the government, and maybe even have its director restored to the president's cabinet, and the unrealistic and, consequently, unprofitable experiment with privatization put to an end.

Voters in divided Sudan go to polls despite continuing controversy

2010-04-11T16:06:00.001-07:00

Word from Sudan is that voters are jamming polling places in the country's first multiparty election in 24 years in the face of an unsettled political situation, calls for boycotts and allegations of fraud. The landmark election implements another requirement of a 2005 agreement that ended, at least temporarily, a decades-long civil war but left the oil-rich country divided between the government-controlled Muslim north and the Christian- and Animist-controlled south. The election is a prelude to the unification vote planned for 2011, according to Cable News Network (CNN). Voting continues through Tuesday. Reports of irregularities poured in from all over the country, despite the presence of 750 international monitors, including former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, and 18,000 Sudanese monitors, CNN said. But some problems were expected "in a country that hasn't had an election in 23 years or so," Carter said. "Most of the problems I saw this morning were logistical in nature and have already been corrected, at least around Khartoum," he said. But he said some problems were expected "in a country that hasn't had an election in 23 years or so." Many reports of irregularities were coming from the south, the stronghold of the opposition Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement. In fact, complaints about fraud by the ruling National Congress Party caused the withdrawal of its candidate from the presidential race against President Omar al-Bashir, who took power in a 1989 military coup and implemented Islamic law, CNN said. In Juba, Southern Sudan's president, Salva Kiir, called the balloting a significant milestone for the country and said he had voted for the first time in his life. SPLM spokesman Yein Matthew told CNN that it was documenting incidents in the region and would present a list of them on Monday. "There are so many, and we are still tracking them down," Matthew said. More than 2 million people died in the civil war, not including the conflict in the western Sudan region of Darfur. That conflict, which received broad international media coverage, was between the government militias and ethnic rebels and resulted in genocide charges being filed against al-Bashir by the International Criminal Court in The Hague, CNN said. Al-Bashir denies the charges.

Currency deal could be near between China and United States

2010-04-09T21:19:00.000-07:00

Word comes from New York that negotiators for China and the United States are closing in on an agreement to raise the value of China's currency, a point of contention between the two world economic giants. China's president, Hu Jintao, is scheduled to visit Washington this week, days after a surprise visit to China by U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, according to the Cable News Network (CNN). The United States has been pressing China to allow its currency to float against other world currencies, at least temporarily, to help rebalance the value of trade between the two countries. Analysts say an increase in the value of China's currency, the yuan, will help cut a huge surplus in its balance of trade. "It basically seems like it's a done deal," Ashraf Laidi, chief market strategist for CMC Markets, told CNN. In addition to diplomatic friction, the undervalued yuan is hampering economic recovery in the United States, said Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland. "Unemployment would be falling rapidly and the U.S. economy recovering more rapidly but for the trade deficit with China and Beijing's currency policies." China has been keeping its currency undervalued by buying billions of dollars in U.S. currency and notes, CNN said. Most economists now think the yuan is undervalued by up to 40 percent, but raising its value precipitously could cause more problems than it would solve by overheating China's economy. In that scenario, a gradual increase would be more desirable, CNN said. "The movement from managed currency to freely floating currency is not easy to pull off," Mark Vitner, a senior economy with Wells Fargo Securities, told CNN. "If we have a boom and then a bust in China, that could lead to another global recession." In the short run, raising the value of China's currency will raise the price of Chinese goods sold in the United States while cutting the price of China's imports of natural resources like oil. Hu is expected in Washington next week for U.S. President Barack Obama's worldwide nuclear security summit.

U.S., Russia agree to cut nuclear weapons arsenals

2010-04-08T11:20:00.001-07:00

It's remarkable to see how much the world has changed in the past few decades. Not so long ago, an agreement to reduce the number of nuclear weapons held by the United States and Russia would have been greeted by celebrations, especially across Europe. Yet this week, a treaty signing that would do precisely that barely was noticed in the United States. Yes, it's true, it took some personal diplomacy involving U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, but a deal between the world's most nuclear-armed nations to cut weapons stockpiles by a third was signed Thursday in Prague, according to Cable News Network (CNN). Obama called the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) an indication of the two countries' commitment to "responsible global leadership" while Medvedev called it a "win-win situation" for both countries. "This day demonstrates the determination of the United States and Russia -- the two nations that hold over 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons -- to pursue responsible global leadership," Obama said Thursday. "Together, we are keeping our commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which must be the foundation for global nonproliferation." Medvedev, too, acknowledged the potentially historic impacts of the new treaty. "This agreement enhances strategic ability and, at the same time, allows us to rise to a higher level of cooperation between Russia and the United States," Medvedev said. For U.S. residents who remember the days when public buildings had fallout shelters and schoolchildren participated in fallout shelter drills, the agreement is a welcome sign of real progress since the Cold War between the United States and the old Soviet Union. Of course, the new agreement is merely a continuation of the previous START deal that expired in December, and still leaves both countries with more than 1,000 nuclear warheads. Just as important in the short term, perhaps, Obama and Medvedev also discussed other related issues, such as developing nuclear power Iran, before the signing ceremony, CNN said. The weapons reduction agreement is still subject to ratification by each country's legislature. Obama and Medvedev wrapped up the new agreement shortly before the scheduled start of a global nuclear security summit in Washington on Monday.

General Motors claims profit -- but only if discounts its expenses

2010-04-07T09:32:00.001-07:00

Maybe it was naive to have assumed that General Motors, the top U.S. automaker, would have been required to stop playing games and be upfront about its finances as a condition of being saved from the junkyard by billions of dollars from U.S. taxpayers. Well, at least the naivete was short-lived. Today's release of its first detailed financial statement since emerging from bankruptcy protection shows that GM has not forgotten the sleight-of-hand that enabled it to pretend to be solvent for years despite epic mismanagement that caused what was then the world's largest automaker into bankruptcy. Focusing on what it called "positive cash flow of $1 billion since its bankruptcy," GM -- now known as General Motors Co., instead of General Motors Corp. -- said it wasn't counting the more than $4 billion it has to spend to settle with the United Auto Workers union to pay with retiree health benefits, according to the New York Times. If this is an example of what the company called its "fresh start" accounting principles since bankruptcy, it looks like there was nothing learned from its near-collapse as well as nothing to be learned from its official reports. Maybe what GM is doing is standard practice for bailed-out businesses, but it's no more reassuring -- especially since the company is now more than 60 percent owned by the U.S. government. “We don’t need to make that much improvement to get to profitability,” GM Chief Financial Officer Christopher Liddell told analysts and reports in a conference call, the Times said. “It’s getting close to break-even if you get rid of those one-off items that happened in the fourth quarter.” Well, any company would post a profit if it left losses off its balance sheet, right? But would that paint an accurate picture of its financial health? Still, many analysts said GM was considerably healthier than a year ago. “It would be a really impressive achievement if they were able to make a profit,” Rebecca Lindland of IHS Global Insight told the Times. “They’ve been able to do an awful lot, and all of those things should lead to a profitable picture.” GM said it would finish repaying $8.3 billion in loans from the U.S. and Canadian governments by June. The other U.S. automaker that took billions in bailout cash from the government, Chrysler Corp., is expected to release its first financial statement since its bankruptcy later this month, the Times said. Narayanan Jayaraman, a finance professor from Georgia Tech's College of Management, told the Times that he thought GM's prospects were better than Chrysler's. “Between G.M. and Chrysler, if I had to place a bet, I would place it heavily on G.M.,” Jayaraman said. “They seem to be doing the right things. They have some headwinds, so help from the economy would be good, but even in the absence of that they can do well.” He said the government could begin selling the millions of dollars in GM shares no earlier than 2011, after GM has "two or three quarters of profitability." GM's bankruptcy wiped out $83 billion in liabilities, the Times said.

Progressive nuclear policies sound good but mean nothing

2010-04-06T08:11:00.001-07:00

While it'll been fun hearing right-wing blowhards blow a little harder this week, the most important thing about the new nuclear weapons policy unveiled Tuesday by U.S. President Barack Obama is that it doesn't mean anything. Rhetoric about when and where a country will or will not use nuclear arms is meaningless because neither situations nor temptations can be accurately predicted in advance. So, the Obama administration's Nuclear Posture Review, a document required from all U.S. governments by the Congress, can be full of lofty anti-nuclear sentiment yet not reflect what the country will actually do in the event of nuclear conflict. If another country launches a nuclear attack on the United States, sentiment loses all value. Critics of the administration must realize this, even as they launch what are sure to be bombastic attacks on the new policy. The Obama policy, which replaces the Bush administration's threat of nuclear retaliation in the event of chemical or biological attack, commits the United States to refrain from the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear countries that comply with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1970, according to the Reuters international news service. The new policy also declares that the United States will not develop any new nuclear weapons. "We are taking specific and concrete steps to reduce the role of nuclear weapons while preserving our military superiority, deterring aggression and safeguarding the security of the American people," Obama said in a statement released by the White House, Reuters said. The policy was released in time for Thursday's scheduled signing of a new arms reduction treaty with Russia and appears designed to enhance next week's 47-nation nuclear summit in Washington. Iran and North Korea, emerging nuclear powers that have not signed the treaty, were deliberately left out of the non-use guarantee, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said. "If there is a message for Iran and North Korea here, it is ... if you're not going to play by the rules, if you're going to be a proliferator, then all options are on the table in terms of how we deal with you," Gates told reporters, Reuters said. The document also expressed concern about China, which has a nuclear arsenal and has signed the treaty, but has not been forthcoming about its program. "China's nuclear arsenal remains much smaller than the arsenals of Russia and the United States," the document said. "But the lack of transparency surrounding its nuclear programs -- their pace and scope, as well as the strategy and doctrine that guides them -- raises questions about China's future strategic intentions." Obama is expected to hold talks with Chinese leader Hu Jintao on the sidelines of next week's summit that will possibly include China's nuclear program as well as the value of its currency, Reuters said.

Justice still could come for victims of 2007-2008 post-election violence in Kenya

2010-04-02T12:26:00.005-07:00

Word that the International Criminal Court in The Hague had decided to investigate widespread violence in Kenya that displaced hundreds of thousands following the country's disputed 2007 election inspires only one reaction -- it's about time! What was the international community waiting for -- an engraved invitation? Everyone knows something evil happened in Kenya in 2007 and 2008, and many suspect the government headed by President Mwai Kibaki was responsible sparking the tribal violence that began after police attacked demonstrators protesting the results of December's balloting. More than 1,000 were killed and more than 300,000 displaced by the weeks of violence before former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan arranged a coalition government including Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga, according to Cable News Network (CNN). Annan had been pushing the coalition government to order such an investigation, but grew frustrated after the divided administration missed a September deadline for putting the probe together, CNN said. Annan, who warned Kenya's government that failure to act would prompt ICC intervention, personally submitted a list of suspects to the panel in July. But the three-judge panel that approved the investigation was not unanimous, with Judge Hans-Peter Kaul finding that the alleged crimes did not amount to crimes against humanity, the ICC's standard for action, CNN said. In a prepared statement, Annan said he approved of the ICC's decision to investigate. "This is an important day for justice in Kenya," he said. "Justice for the victims suddenly looks brighter." An attorney for Human Rights Watch, an international watchdog group, also applauded the panel's vote. "The decision today can help Kenya turn the corner," said Elizabeth Evenson of the group's International Justice Program. "A full investigation into possible crimes against humanity can help restore confidence among Kenya's people that elections don't have to turn into bloodbaths." Kenya's next election is scheduled for 2012.

How do you solve a problem like Hamid Karzai?

2010-04-01T21:13:00.003-07:00

In case anyone still was thinking that the U.S.-backed president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, who is suspected of stealing re-election last summer, was the best person to head his war-ravaged country, his comments Thursday slamming Western governments that keep him in power cost could change a lot of minds. Karzai, under fire for alleged corruption in his government as well as election fraud, blamed Western governments and the United Nations for the election fraud and Western news organizations for putting too much "pressure" on him. "There is no doubt the fraud was very widespread," Karzai said in a televised speech from Kabul, according to the New York Times, "but this fraud was not committed by Afghans, it was committed by foreigners." Karzai criticized by name United Nations special representative Peter Galbraith and European Union election monitor Philippe Morillon, who helped reveal the election fraud, the Times said. "This fraud was committed by Galbraith, this fraud was committed by Morillon and this fraud was committed by embassies," Karzai said in his speech, delivered several days after U.S. President Barack Obama visited Afghanistan to advise Karzai about cracking down on election fraud and corruption. "In this situation there is a thin curtain between invasion and cooperation-assistance,” Karzai said, warning that if foreign forces assisting his government were seen as invaders, the insurgency "could become a national resistance." Well, if this sounds crazy, it probably is. Western countries have committed thousands of soldiers and billions of dollars to oust Taliban insurgents from Kabul and to keep Afghanistan's government from being overrun, yet Karzai speaks as if their sacrifice is not the reason he's still in office. The question now, even as the United States commits tens of thousands of more soldiers to the battle, is whether the president is listening.

Warrantless wiretapping illegal? Obviously!

2010-03-31T11:17:00.003-07:00

Sometimes, in our contemporary, contentious legal environment, it's hard to be sure that common sense will prevail in the end, as it should. But if today's federal court decision in San Francisco is any indication of what's ahead for the U.S. government in the aftermath of the disastrous administration of George W. Bush, there's still hope that things will be put right, or at least as right as they can be. We're talking, of course, of U.S. District Court Judge Vaughan Walker's decision today that the Bush-era warrantless wiretapping program was illegal. The chief judge of San Francisco's federal bench issued a 45-page ruling finding that the eavesdropping on the Al-Haramain charity based in Oregon was "unlawful surveillance" and the government was liable for damages, according to the New York Times. Compensatory damages could be as high as $20,000 for each of three individuals whose calls were intercepted by the National Security Agency, and as much as $200,000 each in punitive damages, according to one of Al-Haramain's attorneys, Jon Eisenberg of San Francisco, the Times said. The government has not announced whether it would appeal the ruling, which rejected a major tenet of the Bush administration's war on terror started after the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The Bush administration had long contended, and the Obama administration had agreed implicitly, that the president had the power to override the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a 1978 law requiring the government to obtain warrants from a secret court before it engaged in domestic espionage, and that it did not have to answer questions about it. The government contended Al-Haramain's challenge should be dismissed because requiring federal officials to respond could reveal national secrets. Instead, Walker issued a summary ruling in favor of the charity. Eisenberg said the ruling was "was an “implicit repudiation of the Bush-Cheney theory of executive power,” according to the Times. "Judge Walker is saying that FISA and federal statutes like it are not optional. “The president, just like any other citizen of the United States, is bound by the law. Obeying Congressional legislation shouldn’t be optional with the president of the U.S.” A spokeswoman for the U.S. Justice Department, Tracy Schmaler, said the Obama administration had already made it more difficult for the government to invoke the so-called "state-secrets privilege," as it had in the Al-Haramain case. Now, she said, the privilege could only be invoked when it was "absolutely necessary to protect national security,” the Times said. The Justice Department has not yet said whether it would appeal.

Trouble arrives: Obama proposes opening East Coast to oil drilling

2010-03-30T00:32:00.005-07:00

There is a bright side to the Obama administration's surprise announcement Tuesday to open up 167 million acres of ocean along the Eastern Seaboard to oil and gas exploration. Isn't it better to get the work out of the way now, with a responsible government in Washington and strict safeguards in place, than to wait until the next oil shock forces a stampede to irresponsible exploitation? Hopefully, that's just what officials were thinking when they proposed the massive program that includes the Atlantic coast of the United States from Delaware to Florida, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska, according to the New York Times. The plan will be publicly revealed tomorrow at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, the Times said, even though officials began briefing members of Congress today. Under the proposal, years of geologic and environmental study by the U.S. Department of the Interior will be required before any of the tracts will be open for bidding, the Times said. The plan, developed after a series of public hearings and review of more than 500,000 public comments, is designed to help reduce the nation's oil imports, raise more revenue for the government and help gain support for the administration's climate change proposals. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said through aides that the proposal reflects the administration's desire to "rebalance" the nation's energy policies between drilling advocates and those who oppose any oil drilling on environmental grounds, the Times said. Sales of leases for the newly opened public lands are not expected before 2012, although a tract off Virginia already cleared for leasing could go out for bidding as early as next year, the newspaper said. The proposal also would open nearly 130 million acres in the Chukchi Sea and Beaufort Sea north of Alaska to exploration after extensive study, the Times said, but protect the environmentally sensitive Bristol Bay in southwestern Alaska, as well as the entire West Coast of the United States. The Obama proposal is sure to arouse opposition from his environmental allies, who oppose nearly all drilling out of concern for the environmental effects of oil spills, which are virtually certain to occur despite efforts to prevent them. But Obama argued during his successful 2008 campaign that he favored opening some areas to drilling to reduce the country's dependence on imported oil, the Times said. At Wednesday's announcement, Obama also is expected to announce an agreement between the Pentagon and Agriculture Department to use more biofuels in military vehicles and to purchase hybrid vehicles for the federal motor pool.

Chinese automaker agrees to buy Volvo

2010-03-29T13:06:00.001-07:00

Maybe, in the end, the piecemeal dismantling of the U.S. automobile industry will turn out to have been a good thing -- that the sold-off subsidiaries will thrive under new ownership that lives in far-different continents and plays by far-different rules, and far-stronger U.S. automakers will emerge. But it's hard to see, now, how the Ford Motor Co.'s sale yesterday of iconic Swedish automaker Volvo to a Chinese conglomerate will ever turn out well. Yesterday's $1.8 billion sale, announced at a news conference in Goteborg, Sweden, turns Hangzhou-based Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, owner of Geely Automobile, from a small Chinese carmaker into a major player in the world automotive industry, according to the New York Times. Ford, the only one of three major U.S. automakers that did not take a bailout from the U.S. government, had already sold off its Jaguar and Land Rover subsidiaries in a restructuring effort. Zhejiang Geely promised to keep Volvo production facilities in Sweden, even though Ford already assembles Volvos for the Chinese market at a plant in Chongqing, which also assembles Mazdas for sale in China. Zhejiang Geely also promised to keep Volvo separate from its Geely Automobile subsidiary, which builds small cars and is China's 12th largest automaker but the country's second largest completely independent of government ownership, the Times said. “I want to emphasize that Volvo is Volvo and Geely is Geely — Volvo will be run by Volvo management,” Zhejiang Geely founder Li Shufu said at Sunday's news conference. “We are determined to preserve the distinct identity of the Volvo brand.” The Swedish government seemed satisfied with the deal and issued a statement endorsing it, the Times said. Having been scared last year by the near-collapse of Saab, the Swedish government has acquiesced to the sale of Volvo to an apparently well-heeled Chinese buyer. “The future road for Volvo Cars is now defined,” said Maud Olofsson, the Swedish deputy prime minister and minister for enterprise and energy. “Regardless of who owns Volvo Cars, its brand will still be Swedish.” The deal is scheduled to close in the third quarter of this year, the Times said. Ford lost billions on the sale, 11 years after it paid more than $6 billion for the Volvo brand. But Ford integrated Volvo technology and know-how into its own vehicles, the Times said, and will still supply engines and body parts to the company for an unspecified time.

Arab League can't decide whether to endorse talks with Iran or between Palestinians and Israelis

2010-03-28T14:39:00.003-07:00

News from Libya that the Arab League was unable to agree whether to endorse indirect peace talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel should be no surprise to anyone after the PA expressed outrage over Israeli plans to build 1,600 homes near east Jerusalem. The league's two-day summit in Sirte ended abruptly after the 22 nations were unable to agree on either a new endorsement of the peace talks or on formulating a new approach to Iran, according to the Reuters international news service. The Arab League did endorse U.S.-mediated proximity talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority earlier this month. "Within the next few weeks, we have to decide what to do: whether to continue with the negotiations or to completely shift course," Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said at a news conference after the summit closed down. Moussa said Arab states were frustrated by the slow pace of negotiations between Jerusalem and Ramallah and would propose alternatives if there was no progress soon, Reuters said. "We cannot enter into a vicious circle to be added to the hundreds of previous vicious circles that will end in another zero result," Moussa said. "We are fed up with this." The stalemate is bad news for the stalled peace process, since Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas probably will be reluctant to conduct substantive talks without the Arab League endorsement due to the threat from hardliners in his own community. Of course, there is no reason to expect anything from the Arab League if the Palestinians themselves are unwilling to pursue an actual peace agreement with Israel. And, of course, nothing is what came of the proposal before the Arab League to start talks with Tehran about Iran's nuclear program, Reuters said. Foreign ministers were unable to agree on their next step, even though Persian Gulf states near Iran had expressed concerns about problems if Tehran develops weapons or is prevented from doing so by Western states. "I do not believe the time has come where we can see that Iran has changed its behavior toward Arab countries," said Prince Saud Al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister. Iran has insisted that its nuclear development is intended solely for peaceful purposes, even though it doesn't make sense for the country with the world's third-largest oil reserves to pursue nuclear power to generate electricity.

Ethiopia politicians fear for health of imprisoned opposition leader

2010-03-27T06:32:00.003-07:00

News from Addis Ababa that prison authorities had blocked opposition politicians from visiting their leader, Birtukan Mideksa, raises the possibility that Ethiopia's bumpy 19-year history as a republic could be over. Birtukan, leader of the opposition Unity for Democracy and Justice party, has been in prison continuously since 2008, when she was rearrested after she renounced an apparently coerced confession to charges stemming from an outbreak of violence following the disputed elections of 2005. Birtukan and other leaders were sentenced to life in prison. On Saturday, eight fellow opposition politicians were turned away after they requested to visit Birtukan in Kaliti prison, in the wake of a U.S. State Department report that her mental health was deteriorating, according to the Reuters international news service. Kaliti prison is just outside Addis Ababa, the capital. "We are here today because we are worried about her health and we want to see for ourselves what her condition is," UDJ official Seye Abraha told Reuters outside the prison. "Only her mother and her daughter have been given access to her. They bar friends, they bar party colleagues, no lawyer, no independent doctors." U.S. officials called Birtukan a political prisoner in its human rights report for 2009, Reuters said. Ethiopian law only permits prison visits from friends and lawyers. Birtukan's party is considered the greatest threat to the continued rule of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front in parliamentary elections scheduled for next month, Reuters said.

Does Allawi party win signal return of normalcy to Iraq?

2010-03-26T10:05:00.001-07:00

Bombastic rhetoric aside, the victory by secularist Ayad Allawi's Iraqiya bloc in last month's election, announced today in Baghdad, could be a sign that the war-torn country's halting moves toward Western-style democracy are finally showing some success. Allawi, the prime minister in 2004-5 at the height of the U.S. occupation, and his Iraqiya bloc took 91 seats in Iraq's 325-seat parliament, according to the Reuters international news service. Allawi's bloc, made up of more than 40 political parties, received millions of votes from Sunni Muslims alienated from the Shiite governments that have been in power in Iraq since the 2003 U.S. invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. Shiite Prime Minister's Nouri al-Maliki's State of Law bloc took 89 seats but was rumored to be in negotiations with the controversial Iraqi National Alliance (INA) to form a coalition. The INA's 70 seats would give that coalition a near-majority in parliament, but would likely bring into the government anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army fought fierce battles with U.S. troops during the invasion. In brief remarks following the announcement, Allawi said he was extending "hands and heart" to all groups in Iraq. "For all who want and wish to participate in building Iraq, we will together bury political sectarianism and political regionalism," he said. But don't expect Maliki to leave office without a fight -- hopefully, a rhetorical one. "For sure, we will not accept these results," Maliki told a news conference after the announcement. More helpful remarks would have been, well, more helpful. If the 2005 exercise in coalition building is any indication, the process of forming a new government in Baghdad could take months. If it takes any longer, it could complicate the planned withdrawal of remaining U.S. forces in Iraq in 2011.

Quiet signing of abortion bill fulfills deal on new healthcare law

2010-03-25T12:40:00.004-07:00

In the aftermath of the frantic dealmaking that consumed Washington the past few weeks, U.S. President Barack Obama quietly signed an executive order barring federal funding for elective abortions in a concession to anti-abortion Democrats who voted for the health-care overhaul. Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Michigan), leader of an anti-abortion bloc in the House of Representatives whose support was crucial for the approval of the sweeping health-care proposal, according to the New York Times. Obama signed the bill into law on Tuesday in an elaborate White House ceremony. In contrast, Wednesday's signing of the executive order was done in the Oval Office with no fanfare in front of a few invited lawmakers, with no media present. Pro-choice lawmakers did not object to the order because it merely complied with existing federal law, the Times said. Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Senate Democrats rejected a host of amendments and moved toward passage of a companion health-care reform bill that would raise subsidies for senior and low-income citizens and take the nation's banks out of the student loan business. The bill would turn the federal government into the direct lender for student loans, instead of the guarantor as it is now, and increase the maximum dollar amount students can receive in federal Pell grants. The move is expected to cost the banking industry -- including federal lending giant Sallie Mae -- billions of dollars in revenue. Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, banking giants that received billions of dollars in assistance from the government as part of the financial system bailout, have traditionally been the largest beneficiaries of the student loan program, the Times said.

Airlines want out of new penalties for extended tarmac delays

2010-03-24T11:25:00.002-07:00

Even before new rules imposing fines on airlines that leave passengers waiting more than three hours on airport tarmacs take effect, air carriers are stacking up exemption requests. US Airways has become the latest to apply for a waiver from the new U.S. Department of Transportation requirements, which are not scheduled to go into effect until April 29, according to Cable News Network (CNN). US Airways has asked for a waiver for its hub in Philadelphia to avoid fines as high as $27,500 per passenger in the event of a long delay. US Airways' filing backed requests for similar exemptions from competing airlines JetBlue, Delta, American and Continental, CNN said. The filing said US Airways needs the exemption "because it shares the same airspace, is part of the same air traffic control center (New York Center), and has the same congestion challenges as JFK, LaGuardia and Newark," CNN said. Federal officials have not acted on any of the requests, but a DOT spokesman reacted negatively in a prepared statement. "Carriers have it within their power to schedule their flights more realistically, to have spare aircraft and crews available to avoid cancellations," spokesman Bill Mosley said. But Mosely might have been responding to a statement by Continental CEO Jeff Smisek that his airline would cancel flights to avoid penalties. Of course, the new regulations would have no meaning at all if airlines can be excused from complying with them, right? And the regulations probably would not even have been proposed were it not for a series of well-publicized incidents in which passengers were kept for hours aboard planes at airports, even though it really doesn't seem to be so difficult to figure out how disrespectful and downright uncomfortable such involuntary confinement is for airline customers. Right? In fact, an airline passengers' rights activist said as much in a statement released after the requests. "The fact that the airlines are already working actively to find loopholes and excuses to avoid compliance with the new consumer protections before the regulations even go into effect demonstrates their continued hostility to consumers and new laws and policies designed to protect them," said Kate Hanni, the founder of FlyersRights.org.

U.S. and Russia appear on verge of nuclear arms reduction deal

2010-03-24T11:25:00.001-07:00

With Western nations focused on emerging nuclear powers North Korea and Iran, word from Washington on Wednesday that the United States and Russia are on the verge of reaching a new agreement to reduce the world's largest nuclear arsenals comes as quite a surprise. But it's a good surprise for a change. Officials from both countries say U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev have managed a way around the last remaining obstacle to a deal to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of 1991 that expired in December, according to the New York Times. The two leaders reportedly need one more meeting to finalize the new agreement, which would require their countries to reduce warheads and launchers by more than 25 percent, the Times said. The White House and the Kremlin declined to comment on the reports, but officials on both sides confirmed the breakthrough on the condition of anonymity, the newspaper said. A signing ceremony is planned in Prague early next month. The deal caps a year of sometimes problematic negotiations that was originally intended to wrap up a new deal by the end of 2009. But the talks got hung up on verification, sharing information and limits on missile defense systems, the Times said, even though Obama agreed not to construct a planned European-based missile shield authorized by his predecessor, former President George W. Bush. The planned Prague ceremony would help jump-start an international summit on nuclear nonproliferation that Obama has scheduled for April 12 and 13 in Washington, the Times said.

Obama signs national healthcare overhaul law

2010-03-23T18:46:00.000-07:00

The news from Washington that President Barack Obama had signed into law the hard-fought healthcare reform bill set off cheers in the White House and cries of outrage from Republican statehouses across the country. The months of partisan sniping over the bill that seemed to threaten the very foundation of the political system of the United States were on hold Tuesday, at least temporarily, for a signing ceremony in the East Room of the White House, according to the Reuters international news agency. "We have now just enshrined, as soon as I sign this bill, the core principle that everybody should have some basic security when it comes to their healthcare," Obama said. But as expected in the partisan-divided atmosphere that permeates federal policymaking, 14 states filed suit minutes after the bill-signing to try to block the sweeping $940 billion overhaul of the nation's healthcare system and Republicans in Congress vowed to continue to resist the measure. Democrats said they had the votes to pass a package of changes needed to implement the bill. Among the changes approved by Congress are provisions that extend coverage to $32 million people who do not have health insurance now, bar insurers from refusing coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions, expand Medicaid and raise taxes on the wealthy. Obama said he thought most U.S. residents will be happy with the changes, even though everyone will be required to purchase health insurance with the help of government subsidies. "I'm confident you'll like what you see," Obama said. But Republicans do not. Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, a Republican whose department is one of the states that filed suit, said the bill was unconstitutional because it required all residents to have insurance. "It forces people to do something -- in the sense of buying a health care policy or paying a penalty, a tax or a fine -- that simply the Constitution does not allow Congress to do," he said. Other Republican critics of the legislation vowed to make opposition to the legislation a focal point of midterm congressional elections scheduled for November, Reuters said.

Georgia court throws out legislature-imposed ceiling on court-awarded damages

2010-03-22T00:00:00.005-07:00

Word that the Supreme Court for the state of Georgia had thrown out as unconstitutional a state law limiting the amount of damages that could be awarded to victims of medical malpractice raises the possibility of the return of respect for civil rights for all U.S. residents. Monday's ruling found the law, which capped damages for pain and suffering at $350,000, violated the constitutional right to trial by jury because it limited the right of juries to determine the outcome of lawsuits. “The very existence of the caps, in any amount, is violative of the right to trial by jury,” Chief Justice Carol Hunstein wrote in the unanimous decision, according to the New York Times. The ruling upheld a lower court's decision that found the statute unconstitutional because it prevented Betty Nestlehutt, a Marietta, Ga., real estate agent disfigured by unsuccessful facelift surgery, from receiving the full $1.26 million in damages awarded by an Atlanta jury after she sued her doctor. The verdict included $900,000 in compensation for pain and suffering. “The bedrock of our democracy — our ability to self-govern at the ballot box and in the jury box — remains intact,” said Adam Malone, the lawyer who represented Nestlehutt. Of course not everyone agreed with the decision. Atlanta Oculoplastic Surgery, the physicians group that performed the surgery, could not be reached for comment, the Times said. But a leading Georgia Republican, Nathan Deal, who resigned from his long-held seat in the U.S. Congress last week to run for governor, criticized the ruling as "a setback" for Republican-led tort reform efforts in the state, according to WGCL-TV, the CBS affiliate in Atlanta. "This ruling is a setback for the effort to reduce health care costs for Georgians," Deal said. "This is important to all Georgians. Tort reform helps reduce the cost of health care to individuals and stops doctors from leaving our state, as they did prior to its passage." Thirty states and the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico have imposed caps on jury awards in malpractice cases, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, the Times said. Such caps have been struck down by courts in New Hampshire, Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin and Illinois since the 1980s.

Coalition of states claims climate change is still up in the air

2010-03-21T23:59:00.005-07:00

Well, if U.S. President Barack Obama has learned anything in his first year in office, it's that there's no way to please everybody, no matter what. So, news from Washington today that 12 states had joined lawsuits seeking to block the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions shouldn't surprise anyone. Lawsuits are one of the major ways that public policy gets done, especially when business interests are involved. Florida, Indiana, South Carolina and nine other states asked the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., on Thursday to block the EPA from issuing rules to control such emissions, according to the Reuters international news service. Their petitions join three filed earlier this year by Virginia, Texas and Alabama, Reuters said. The suits ask the EPA to reopen hearings on an "endangerment finding" it issued last year that greenhouse emissions are dangerous to people. The April finding, which became final in June, enabled the EPA to begin regulating greenhouse emissions under the Clean Air Act. Regulations expected to be issued shortly would require cars and light trucks to increase their energy efficiency. "If EPA doesn't reopen the hearings we will move forward to try to stop them from regulating greenhouse gases," said Brian Gottstein of the Virginia Attorney General's office, Reuters said. The states complain that the new rules are too heavily based on climate change reports from the United Nations that have been criticized for exaggerating some data. But 16 other states have petitioned to join the case in support of the EPA. The new rules are consistent with an Obama administration pledge to use regulations to curtail emissions if Congress does not pass a climate bill, which has been stalled in the legislature, Reuters said.

Pope Benedict's apology for clergy abuses of children draws fire

2010-03-20T13:37:00.003-07:00

OK, it's a virtually impossible situation for the guy. He's the head of the largest denomination of Christianity, the world's largest religion -- he's the head of state of his own country, the Vatican -- and now he's being forced to apologize for inexcusable misconduct committed by scores of his top officials. But having been forced into this clearly unenviable position, wouldn't you expect Pope Benedict XVI to try to answer the obvious questions and address the most grievous wrongdoing, so he won't be back here, apologizing again, in another six months? Yet the pope, in an eight-page apology letter to the people of Ireland, apologized for suffering caused by pedophile priests at Catholic dioceses and seminaries and called for an official inquiry, but failed to call on bishops to resign or address the still-unfolding abuse scandal in countries across Europe, according to the Reuters international news service. "You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry ... I openly express the shame and remorse that we all feel," Benedict's letter said. "I can only share in the dismay and sense of betrayal that so many of you have experienced on learning of these sinful and criminal acts and the way the Church authorities in Ireland dealt with them." The letter is a response to an Irish government report on widespread abuse of children by priests in Ireland between 1979 and 2004, which said the church there had tried "obsessively" to conceal the truth, Reuters said. "Grave errors of judgment were made and failures of leadership occurred. All this has seriously undermined your credibility and effectiveness," Benedict's report said. "Only decisive action carried out with complete honesty and transparency will restore the respect and goodwill of the Irish people toward the Church." Abuse cases have also been reported in Germany, the pope's native country, Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands, France, England and Poland in Europe, as well as earlier in the United States, Australia and Canada, Reuters said. Similar scandals in the United States did serious damage to the reputation of the Catholic Church, which paid $2 billion in settlements. "I had high hopes for this pastoral letter," San Bartley, president of Voice of the Faithful, a group formed in 2002 in response to abuse cases in Boston, told Reuters. "I see now the Church still refuses to hold accountable bishops who endanger children."

Russia moves toward backing sanctions against Iran

2010-03-19T14:33:00.003-07:00

Just when it seemed that international efforts to convince Iran to stop its nuclear weapons program were failing comes word that Russia was dissatisfied with Tehran's level of cooperation and might be willing to support sanctions in the future. Speaking to the press following a meeting between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton just outside Moscow, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said his country did not rule out the possibility that sanctions could be necessary to convince Iran to stop trying to develop nuclear weaponry, according to the Reuters international news service. Lavrov said reports from the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency indicated that Iran did not appear to be close to developing such weapons at this time. "The reports that the IAEA director-general publishes on a regular basis contain very precise assessments that do not give reason for any sort of alarm," Lavrov said. "But that does not mean that we are satisfied with Iranian actions. What we see is that they are letting the opportunity to establish normal, systematic, mutually beneficial dialogue with the international community slip away." U.S. officials have been trying to convince the UN Security Council to agree to impose severe international sanctions on Iran's Islamic government, with which it has exchanged threatening dialogue over the past few years. Iran has threatened to attack Israel, a close U.S. ally, and has been involved in sharp public exchanges with both countries over the years since the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis. But both Russia and China will have to agree before the Security Council can impose new sanctions on Iran. "As President Medvedev has said, sanctions rarely work, but situations can arise when they are unavoidable, and we do not rule out that such a situation may arise in relation to Iran," Lavrov said, according to a Reuters report citing the Interfax news agency.

General Motors changes focus to profit, not survival

2010-03-17T20:02:00.005-07:00

News from Detroit that General Motors could make money this year after losing as much as $88 billion since 2004 probably comes as a big surprise -- and a good one for U.S. taxpayers, who own 60 percent of the country's largest automaker as a result of government efforts to save the company. GM's new chief financial officer, Christopher Liddell, who left a similar job at Microsoft in December, said the company had a "reasonable chance" of earning money in 2010, according to the New York Times. "Preconditions for success are extremely good," Liddell said at a news conference at GM headquarters. Liddell also said GM was considering a stock offering this year that could substantially increase the value of the government stake, the Times said. "It's an important part of rejuvenation for the company," he said, "but it's important that we do this at the right time." Liddell said GM would wait until the national economy and the automobile market had improved before attempting to sell shares, the Times said. General Motors, once the world's largest carmaker before losing that title to Toyota, emerged from bankruptcy protection last summer. Liddell said the company was in better financial shape than critics contended, and said it had made substantial progress since its bankruptcy filing in 2009.

A change in succession is known to be extreme

2010-03-16T19:52:00.003-07:00

From Washington comes word that President Barack Obama has restored the traditional order of succession at the Pentagon in the event of a catastrophe that takes the lives of or incapacitates top defense department officials. In an executive order published quietly on March 1, Obama has done away with a system set up by former President George W. Bush, which had elevated a close adviser of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ahead of the secretaries of the Army and Navy. The current defense secretary, Robert Gates, a holdover from the Bush administration, supported the old system, according to the New York Times. “After reviewing the issue, the secretary determined that the historical pattern of precedence made the most sense and recommended the president restore the traditional line of succession,” Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, told the Times. The change means that the Army and Navy secretaries return to third and fourth in the line of succession, after the deputy Pentagon secretary. Bush had elevated the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, Stephen Cambone, a longtime Rumsfeld confidante, to the third position on the succession list. Top Pentagon officials said at the time that the change was to ensure that someone with a wide range of expertise, not just with a single military service, would take over if necessary. But other officials said the change was made because of a running dispute between Rumsfeld and Army leadership, the Times said. It sounds reasonable so far. But it would be a lot better than merely reasonable if Obama's decision signals that the White House was preparing to roll back the Bush administration's more serious seizures of power -- such as the evisceration of the separation of powers doctrine -- that were formerly considered unthinkable.

Anti-government demonstrators threaten to paralyze Bangkok

2010-03-14T11:54:00.005-07:00

Word comes from Bangkok that red-shirted demonstrators massing since Friday plan to take their anti-government protest to a nearby military base to dramatize their demand that Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva dissolve parliament and call new elections. The size of the protest, which has grown since Friday and is now estimated at more than 150,000 demonstrators, illustrates the sharp political division in Thai society exacerbated by the court-ordered ouster of former leader Thaksin Shinawatra in 2008. Thaksin, populist leader of largely poor, rural voters from Thailand's countryside, had been ousted in a military coup in 2006 and accused of corruption, but his supporters were returned to power by voters in 2007. That government was accused of election malfeasance and removed by the courts in 2008 "We will march over there, brothers and sisters. We will go to the infantry to get an answer from Abhisit himself," said Nattawut Saikua, a leader of the protest group, the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), according to the Reuters international news service. "With this many people on the streets, I don't see how he still thinks he has any legitimacy." Abhisit came to power following the removal of the pro-Thaksin government and the court-ordered dissolution of his political party, which followed months of demonstrations by yellow-shirted Abhisit supporters. Later, the court ordered Thaksin to surrender more than $1 billion in assets it said were improperly acquired, Reuters said. The yellow shirts occupied the prime minister's office for three months and blockaded Bangkok's international airport until the government was dissolved.

Auditing giant could face huge lawsuits over Lehman Brothers collapse

2010-03-13T09:49:00.001-08:00

From New York comes word that Big Four accounting giant Ernst & Young could be facing huge liabilities for failing to recognize the perilous state of Lehman Brothers, the giant investment bank that collapsed in 2008 and set off the world financial crisis. A report Thursday from a court-appointed examiner overseeing Lehman's bankruptcy filing suggested that Ernst & Young was negligent or worse for not noticing that Lehman had been writing off assets using an accounting technique to lower its debt on paper, according to the Reuters international news service . In his report, the auditor, Anton Valukas of the Chicago-based Jenner & Price law firm, said Lehman's use of a sale and repurchase program called Repo 105 had no business purpose outside of hiding assets to make the investment bank appear less leveraged than it actually was. Lehman's 2008 bankruptcy filing, the largest in U.S. history, sent shockwaves through the world economy and could have triggered the global economic crisis. In a statement, Ernst & Young said it had done nothing wrong and bore no responsibility for what happened, even though it audited the company for 2007 and already was preparing for the year-end audit when Lehman collapsed. "Our last audit of the company was for the fiscal year ending November 30, 2007. Our opinion indicated that Lehman's financial statements for that year were fairly presented in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), and we remain of that view," the statement said. "After an exhaustive investigation the examiner made no findings in his report that Lehman's assets or liabilities were improperly valued or accounted for incorrectly in Lehman's November 30, 2007, financial statements." Valukas had stated in his report that the repurchase transactions at least contributed to Lehman's collapse, and that the company had "colorable claims" against Ernst & Young for not realizing the damage they were doing, Reuters said. The chairman of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Bryan Marsal, told Reuters through a representative that the company would "evaluate" the report to see if "it might help us in our ongoing efforts to advance creditor interests."

FAA proposes new fines against American Airlines

2010-03-12T17:48:00.000-08:00

News that federal airline regulators had proposed a new round of fines against American Airlines for maintenance violations raises troubling questions about the safety of air travel in an era of employee and service cutbacks. Friday's announcement by the Federal Aviation Administration that it wanted to impose $787,500 in fines against the airline for three violations, of which two involved ignoring agency directives, according to Cable News Network (CNN). The airline said it was committed to safety and would discuss the proposed fines with the FAA, apparently with the goal of getting them reduced or eliminated. "American Airlines is very proud of our safety record and our employees' commitment to safety every day," the company said in a prepared statement. "Safety is fundamental to the American Airlines culture and to our success." But the airline's protestations do not explain why it failed to adequately inspect rudders on four Boeing 757s that flew in 2008 after the FAA ordered the inspections, why it allowed one of its planes to fly passengers 10 times despite knowledge of a malfunctioning computer and why is allowed an MD-82 to fly twice even though its may not have gone through proper safety checks. American Airlines said it stood by its FAA-certificated mechanics, which it said "have met and passed all FAA experience requirements, written tests, and practical examinations." But rhetoric does not take the place of action and, if airline cutbacks are starting to affect maintenance the way they have already affected service, government regulators are going to have to get more serious about what the companies are allowed to do. Then again, maybe they are. American is the fourth major airline to face fines in the past year for failing to follow FAA repair orders. The FAA proposed fines of $5.4 million against US Airways and $3.8 million against United Airlines for maintenance violations, and Southwest Airlines paid $7.5 million in March to settle another agency safety complaint, CNN said.

Israelis get an earful from Biden

2010-03-10T16:19:00.001-08:00

If Tuesday's announcement of new East Jerusalem housing sparked such outrage from U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, imagine what he's going to say when he finds out the eastern half of the city is already part of Israel and has been for more than 40 years. Biden was sharply critical of Israel following the announcement on Wednesday, saying the move would "inflame tensions" with the Palestinians, who want East Jerusalem to be the capital of a future West Bank state, according to the Reuters international news service. It may be news to all of them, but Israel has been in control of East Jerusalem since 1967, when its soldiers drove Jordan from the West Bank in yet another war started by Israel's Arab neighbors. Jews had been prevented from entering the historic old city after Israel's founding in 1948, even though East Jerusalem contains sites sacred to Jews and Muslims since before the birth of Christ. But Israel agreed to negotiate the future of Jerusalem with the Palestinian Authority in 1993, and considered the possibility of East Jerusalem becoming the Palestinian's capital in 2001. A lot has changed since then, including the election of a conservative government in Israel that opposes territorial concessions. Tuesday's announcement of 1,600 new units in East Jerusalem sparked the expected outrage from Arab nations but the United States' criticism apparently surprised Israeli leaders. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had ordered a partial freeze of West Bank settlement construction last year in an effort to encourage the Palestinian Authority to return to negotiations over a future Palestinian state in the area, but specifically excluded East Jerusalem. "It is incumbent on both parties to build an atmosphere of support for negotiations and not to complicate them," Biden said Wednesday in a meeting with PA President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah. "Yesterday, the decision by the Israeli government to advance planning for new housing units in East Jerusalem undermines that very trust, the trust that we need right now in order to begin ... profitable negotiations." Abbas urged Israel to cancel its housing plans, Reuters said. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband also condemned Israel's decision after giving a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., Reuters said.

Indirect peace talks between Israel and Palestinian Authority are pointless

2010-03-08T11:15:00.001-08:00

Word from Ramallah yesterday that Palestinian leaders had agreed to take part in indirect peace talks with Israel is at once good news and bad. It's good news, of course, because the Palestinians and Israelis are going to have to be in constant and constructive contact with each other if there is any hope of the two societies living together in peace. But it's bad news, too, because the Palestinian Authority agreed only to hold indirect talks with Israeli leaders in Jerusalem, with the United States acting as mediator, and that's a huge step in the wrong direction. Nothing can come from indirect talks that will be better than what the Israelis and Palestinians can achieve together, and whatever comes of them is likely to be a lot less useful for both. Sunday's agreement to hold indirect talks for four months was arranged after the Arab League endorsed the talks at a meeting in Cairo on Wednesday, according to the New York Times. The PA had refused to resume negotiations until Israel agreed to freeze settlement activity in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, which it wants for the capital of a future state. The new agreement comes one day before U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is expected to arrive in the region for the highest-level talks since the election of Biden and President Barack Obama. Israel accepted the indirect talks offer last week; the talks will be the first between the two sides in 14 months. But all the maneuverings and nuances cannot hide the real problem that keeps the PA from reaching a comprehensive peace deal. The Palestinian leadership doesn't want one, even though it promises tremendous benefits for the Palestinian people. Have Palestinian Authority-run schools stopped teaching children to hate Jews? Are Palestinian children still taught to mistrust their Israeli neighbors? It will take at least two generations to fix the years of hatred deliberately sowed by the PA, and Hamas-run schools in Gaza are undoubtedly worse. It will take generations to fix this, but the PA hasn't even started yet. This is the work that any real peace will require, and it's not getting done. Palestinian leaders prefer to dither over boundary lines and eschew any real compromises, because they know -- and the radical elements that dominate regional political discourse know, too -- that they are simply unwilling to accept Israel.

Lawyers, guns and Starbucks

2010-03-07T18:25:00.000-08:00

It was a shock, really, to see a pistol-toting customer waiting on line for a latte at the local Starbucks last week. OK, customer service is not what it was -- everybody can see that -- but aren't we just a tad more civilized than this? The answer to that somewhat-rhetorical question is, apparently, a resounding "not exactly." What else is there to think about the latest gun-enthusiast trend sweeping the country -- or, at least, growing in the 43 states that have laws allowing people to carry guns openly? Of course, groups behind the open-carry movement, which broke through to public consciousness last summer when opponents of the health care system overhaul proposed by President Barack Obama began showing up wearing sidearms at town hall-type meetings across the country, say they're just exercising their Second Amendment rights. “Our point is to do the same thing that concealed carriers do,” OpenCarry.org co-founder Mike Stollenwerk told the New York Times. “We’re just taking off our jackets.” It's a movement, apparently, designed to pressure government to relax restrictions on carrying concealed weapons. Armed gatherings -- known as meetups -- became popular almost immediately because California issues very few permits for concealed weapons while, like most states, has almost no restrictions on open-carried weapons. “It is a discriminatory issue in California,” said Paul Higgins, 43, moderator of a Web forum called CaliforniaOpenCarry.org. “If you are politically connected, if you’re rich, if you’re a politician, if you’re a celebrity, you get a permit. Otherwise, you don’t.” The meetups were quickly barred from some restaurants, concerned that the open display of weapons would or did upset patrons, but other establishments have embraced the movement. There have been more than 140 meetups in California this year in restaurants and coffeehouses, including Starbucks, which has rejected calls for a ban. “The political, policy and legal debates around these issues belong in the legislatures and courts, not in our stores,” Starbucks officials said in a public statement this month. That's true, of course, but it's also not the whole truth. Corporate citizenship certainly means more than occasionally taking a stand on a subject of personal interest -- citizens have to decide questions and advise their government on a variety of issues. That is the role of a citizen in a democracy -- things are most often about other people but everyone has to help the government figure out what to do. And that figuring had better be underway, because some painful decisions are going to have to be made and it's better to make them before people start getting shot.

Turkey acts like victim of House committee's genocide vote

2010-03-05T21:07:00.003-08:00

Turkey reacted furiously but predictably Thursday after the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee voted to condemn as genocide the mass killings of Armenians after World War I in what is now Turkey. As many as 1.5 million Armenians died in the chaos of the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, which was defeated in the war along with its ally, Germany. But Turkey vehemently refuses to acknowledge the killings as genocide, contending instead that the slayings did not qualify as a genocide because they were not planned. "We condemn this bill that denounces the Turkish nation of a crime that it has not committed," Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said from Ankara, the capital, according to the New York Times. Turkey also recalled its new U.S. ambassador, Namik Tan, for consultations, the Times said. The nonbinding resolution passed the Foreign Affairs Committee on a 23-22 vote, even closer than a 2007 vote that was quickly squashed by the Bush administration out of concern for evolving diplomatic relations with Turkey. The Obama administration also tried, apparently too late, to prevent the committee from approving the resolution, the Times said. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Rep. Howard Berman (D-California), the committee chairman, that a vote could damage U.S.-sponsored efforts aimed at reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia, its neighbor. Those efforts were successful in producing still-pending agreements between the two countries for closer relations, open borders and to set up a commission to examine the historical record. "We've pressed hard to see the progress that we've seen to date, and we certainly do not want to see that jeopardized," said Philip Crowley, a State Department spokesman. Crowley said Obama discussed normalization of relations between Turkey and Armenia on Wednesday with Turkey's president, Abdullah Gul, the Times said.

U.S. government starts making sense on Blackwater

2010-03-04T13:19:00.001-08:00

Why it took a change in administrations in Washington to get top congressional officials to start thinking again is a little hard to understand, yet there we are. We're discussing, of course, letters sent to top Obama administration officials by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, a fellow Democrat, asking whether controversial military contractor Xe Services, the former Blackwater Worldwide, should be barred from bidding on future Iraq contracts, according to the Washington Post. Blackwater, you recall, is the Myock, N.C., company that has been paid billions of dollars over the past 7 years to provide support services for U.S. military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. But several well-publicized shooting incidents in Baghdad, including one that resulted in the deaths of 17 civilians, made the company the object of scorn in Iraq and nearly brought down the newly restored Iraqi government. So, wouldn't you expect past performance to be at least one major factor in the selection of bidders for a new $1 billion contract to train a new national police force in Afghanistan? That's the context in which Levin (D-Michigan) wrote to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the only Bush administration holdover in new President Barack Obama's cabinet. "The inadequacies in Blackwater's performance appear to have contributed to a shooting incident that has undermined our mission in Afghanistan," Levin told the Post in an e-mailed statement. It's been a long time since we've heard U.S. officials speak so honestly about the company. Last May's incident, in which two Blackwater contractors allegedly killed two Afghani civilians and wounded a third, damaged relations between the local population and U.S. forces. The military sees strong relations between troops and Afghani citizens as vital for securing the country and putting down a stubborn al-Qaida insurgency. A Xe Services spokesman said Levin's query was appropriate and welcome. "We are confident that Xe's record of service in training thousands of security personnel in Afghanistan demonstrates the company's strong record of supporting critical U.S. government initiatives in Afghanistan, which are essential in advancing the United States national interest," said the spokesman, Mark Corallo, in an e-mailed statement. The Pentagon's Bryan Whitman said there was no effort within the military to ban Xe Services, as far as he knew, and it would be legally allowed to submit a bid on the Afghanistan contract. Levin's second letter, to Attorney General Eric Holder, called for an investigation into whether Blackwater tricked the Army into awarded it a separate $25 million contract to train police in Afghanistan by creating a shell company named Paravant. Corallo said military officials knew Paravant was a Blackwater subsidiary when the contract was awarded.