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

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

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.

FDA seems willing to gamble on introducing gene-altered animals

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

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.

Protests threaten Greece's financial stability plans

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.

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

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

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.

Florida church announces Quran burning event

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.

BP's defense of Alaska pipeline safety is not reassuring

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

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.

Aquino election could jumpstart government reform in Philippines

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

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

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.

North Korea's risky bargain for attention from West

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.

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

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.

Voters in divided Sudan go to polls despite continuing controversy

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

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.

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

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.

Airlines want out of new penalties for extended tarmac delays

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.

FAA proposes new fines against American Airlines

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.