The Coming U.S. Doctor Shortage - Health-care reform will mean 30 million more patients—and bigger crowds in waiting rooms
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_52/b4161098202420.htm
December 28, 2009
Buy? Sell? Pray?
Presuming Congress passes some version of a health-care bill and it is signed into law, some 30 million currently uninsured people will suddenly find themselves with access to doctors. But there may not be enough doctors to see them.
In 1997, lawmakers placed a cap on the number of medical residencies—hospital training required for all doctors—in order to contain costs under Medicare, which pays for most of these training slots. Today the U.S. is in the grip of a nationwide doctor shortage, brought on by an aging population demanding access to specialists. Medical schools have stepped up to the plate, announcing plans to add 3,000 new positions for first-time students by 2018. But because the residency cap is still in place, these efforts may not be sufficient.
The health-care overhaul is certain to compound the problem by flooding doctors' offices with newly empowered medical consumers. "Do the math," says Steven M. Safyer, president and CEO of Montefiore Medical Center in New York. "You give millions more people insurance, and it adds up to a much worse shortage."
The doctor crunch is already dire. Last year there were nearly 17,000 fewer primary-care doctors than needed in inner-city and rural areas, according to the U.S. Health & Human Services Dept. By 2025 there will be a shortage of as many as 159,300 doctors, predicts the Association of American Medical Colleges.
Medical schools are trying to help, adding 1,500 seats since 2005. Tufts University boosted its first-year enrollment by 12% in 2009. Dartmouth College increased seats by 7.7%, and the University of Tennessee was up 10%. Still, "It takes years to produce doctors," says Steven H. Lipstein, president and CEO of 13-hospital BJC HealthCare in St. Louis, which trains residents from Washington University.
Federal officials hope to ease the shortage by raising the number of residencies available to students, says Robert Feinstein, senior associate dean for education at the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine. The cap that stands in their way affects 90,000 of 110,000 residencies at U.S. hospitals, according to the medical college association.
Medicare pays about $100,000 a year per residency, at a total cost to the program of about $9 billion, according to a report filed in June by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission. The funding was set up in 1965 when the U.S. was about to extend government health coverage to 19 million elderly Americans. As the Medicare rolls grew, to 45 million as of the end of 2008, a ceiling was placed on the number of residencies to control spending.
Congress is now trying to reverse course. On Dec. 5, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), along with Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), and other sponsors, submitted an amendment to the health-care reform bill that would add 15,000 residencies at a cost to Medicare of about $1.5 billion, according to Atul Grover, a lobbyist with the medical college association. But because Congress is still looking to keep costs down, that figure may drop, if the change is approved at all, during the debate.
To contact the reporter on this story: Pat Wechsler in London at pwechsler@bloomberg.net .
Friday, December 25, 2009
Airline Incident Was Terrorism Attempt, White House Says
Airline Incident Was Terrorism Attempt, White House Says
Copyright By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: December 25, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/26/us/26plane.html?_r=1&ref=global-home
A passenger aboard a plane at Detroit Metropolitan Airport apparently tried to ignite an explosive device on Friday, an incident the United States believes was “an attempted act of terrorism,” according to a White House official who asked not to be identified discussing the investigation.
A Delta spokeswoman told The Associated Press that the incident caused a commotion and some minor injuries. The F.B.I. said it was investigating.
The Delta spokeswoman, Susan Elliott, said the passenger was subdued immediately. She had no details on the injuries.
Representative Peter King of New York identified the passenger as Abdul Mudallad, a Nigerian, The A.P. reported. Mr. King said the flight began in Nigeria and went through Amsterdam en route to Detroit.
One person who had been aboard the flight was taken to the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor, a spokeswoman for the hospital told The A.P. It was not clear whether that person was the passenger who caused the incident.
President Obama, vacationing in Hawaii, was notified about the incident by a military aide. Mr. Obama subsequently held a secure conference call with his top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan.
Mr. Obama “instructed that all appropriate measures be taken to increase security for air travel,” a White House spokesman said. “The president is actively monitoring the situation and receiving regular updates.”
The Homeland Security Department said passengers may see additional screening measures on domestic and international flights because of the incident.
News reports varied on what kind of explosive device the passenger had tried to ignite, and none could be confirmed. The incident occurred as Northwest Airlines Flight 253, an Airbus 330 carrying 278 passengers, was arriving in Detroit from Amsterdam. Delta and Northwest have merged.
Syed Jafri, who was on board the flight after traveling from the United Arab Emirates, told The A.P. that the incident occurred during the plane’s descent. Mr. Jafri said he was seated three rows behind the passenger and said he saw a glow, and noticed a smoke smell. Then, he said, “a young man behind me jumped on him.”
“Next thing you know, there was a lot of panic,” he said.
J.P. Karas, 55, of Wyandotte, Mich., said he was driving down a road near the airport and saw a Delta jet at the end of the runway, surrounded by police cars, an ambulance, a bus and some TV trucks.
“I don’t ever recall seeing a plane on that runway ever before and I pass by there frequently,” he told The A.P.
Mr. Karas said it was difficult to tell what was going on, but it looked like the front wheel was off the runway.
Peter Baker contributed reporting from Hawaii, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Copyright By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: December 25, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/26/us/26plane.html?_r=1&ref=global-home
A passenger aboard a plane at Detroit Metropolitan Airport apparently tried to ignite an explosive device on Friday, an incident the United States believes was “an attempted act of terrorism,” according to a White House official who asked not to be identified discussing the investigation.
A Delta spokeswoman told The Associated Press that the incident caused a commotion and some minor injuries. The F.B.I. said it was investigating.
The Delta spokeswoman, Susan Elliott, said the passenger was subdued immediately. She had no details on the injuries.
Representative Peter King of New York identified the passenger as Abdul Mudallad, a Nigerian, The A.P. reported. Mr. King said the flight began in Nigeria and went through Amsterdam en route to Detroit.
One person who had been aboard the flight was taken to the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor, a spokeswoman for the hospital told The A.P. It was not clear whether that person was the passenger who caused the incident.
President Obama, vacationing in Hawaii, was notified about the incident by a military aide. Mr. Obama subsequently held a secure conference call with his top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan.
Mr. Obama “instructed that all appropriate measures be taken to increase security for air travel,” a White House spokesman said. “The president is actively monitoring the situation and receiving regular updates.”
The Homeland Security Department said passengers may see additional screening measures on domestic and international flights because of the incident.
News reports varied on what kind of explosive device the passenger had tried to ignite, and none could be confirmed. The incident occurred as Northwest Airlines Flight 253, an Airbus 330 carrying 278 passengers, was arriving in Detroit from Amsterdam. Delta and Northwest have merged.
Syed Jafri, who was on board the flight after traveling from the United Arab Emirates, told The A.P. that the incident occurred during the plane’s descent. Mr. Jafri said he was seated three rows behind the passenger and said he saw a glow, and noticed a smoke smell. Then, he said, “a young man behind me jumped on him.”
“Next thing you know, there was a lot of panic,” he said.
J.P. Karas, 55, of Wyandotte, Mich., said he was driving down a road near the airport and saw a Delta jet at the end of the runway, surrounded by police cars, an ambulance, a bus and some TV trucks.
“I don’t ever recall seeing a plane on that runway ever before and I pass by there frequently,” he told The A.P.
Mr. Karas said it was difficult to tell what was going on, but it looked like the front wheel was off the runway.
Peter Baker contributed reporting from Hawaii, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Is there Christmas anywhere else in the Universe?
Is there Christmas anywhere else in the Universe?
by Carlos T Mock, MD
Copyright b Carlos T Mock, MD
December 25, 20090
Based on observations from the Hubble Space Telescope, there are at least 125 billion galaxies in the universe. It is estimated that at least ten percent of all sun-like stars have a system of planets, there are 6.25×1018 stars with planets orbiting them in the universe. If even a billionth of these stars have planets supporting life, there are some 6.25 billion life-supporting solar systems in the universe.
Would any of these planets celebrate Christmas? Was Christ made flesh only once? Was the Original Sin committed only once, and on this globe? What injustice! Both for the other worlds, deprived of the Incarnation; and for us because, in that case people of the worlds devoid of Original Sin would be perfect, like our progenitors before the Fall. They would enjoy a natural happiness without the weight of the Cross.
Or else, infinite Adams have infinitely committed the original sin, tempted by infinite Eves with infinite Forbidden Fruits and Christ has been obliged to become incarnate, preach, and suffer Calvary infinite times, and perhaps He is still doing so. If the worlds are infinite, his task will be infinite too. Infinite His task, then infinite the forms of his suffering. Therefore, to maintain his presence, He would have to enlarge Himself and be born on every planet with life forms on it.
There lies the mystery which certainly devout Christians refuse to acknowledge. If astronauts discover inhabitants on any other world would these creatures celebrate Christmas? If not, would it be cruel of the Lord God to deprive them of that knowledge?
If those inhabitants of the other worlds unknown to us, which could be an infinite number of worlds, know of the existence of God, how would they resolve the fact that there are other worlds?
In our contempt: we forget that to a flea, the dog is his universe, just like we humans are so small compared to our universe. So following this analogy, wouldn’t if follow that if our God made the universe infinite to us humans; could it not also follow that He made it infinite in both time as well as in space? E=mc2.
Would that make the universe eternal? If this is true, then there is no need of creation and it will be unnecessary to conceive the idea of God. If God is infinite, we can’t curtail His power, He would never cease to operate, and therefore, with a Universe that is infinite there would be no need for creation.
In which case, would there be Christmas anywhere?
by Carlos T Mock, MD
Copyright b Carlos T Mock, MD
December 25, 20090
Based on observations from the Hubble Space Telescope, there are at least 125 billion galaxies in the universe. It is estimated that at least ten percent of all sun-like stars have a system of planets, there are 6.25×1018 stars with planets orbiting them in the universe. If even a billionth of these stars have planets supporting life, there are some 6.25 billion life-supporting solar systems in the universe.
Would any of these planets celebrate Christmas? Was Christ made flesh only once? Was the Original Sin committed only once, and on this globe? What injustice! Both for the other worlds, deprived of the Incarnation; and for us because, in that case people of the worlds devoid of Original Sin would be perfect, like our progenitors before the Fall. They would enjoy a natural happiness without the weight of the Cross.
Or else, infinite Adams have infinitely committed the original sin, tempted by infinite Eves with infinite Forbidden Fruits and Christ has been obliged to become incarnate, preach, and suffer Calvary infinite times, and perhaps He is still doing so. If the worlds are infinite, his task will be infinite too. Infinite His task, then infinite the forms of his suffering. Therefore, to maintain his presence, He would have to enlarge Himself and be born on every planet with life forms on it.
There lies the mystery which certainly devout Christians refuse to acknowledge. If astronauts discover inhabitants on any other world would these creatures celebrate Christmas? If not, would it be cruel of the Lord God to deprive them of that knowledge?
If those inhabitants of the other worlds unknown to us, which could be an infinite number of worlds, know of the existence of God, how would they resolve the fact that there are other worlds?
In our contempt: we forget that to a flea, the dog is his universe, just like we humans are so small compared to our universe. So following this analogy, wouldn’t if follow that if our God made the universe infinite to us humans; could it not also follow that He made it infinite in both time as well as in space? E=mc2.
Would that make the universe eternal? If this is true, then there is no need of creation and it will be unnecessary to conceive the idea of God. If God is infinite, we can’t curtail His power, He would never cease to operate, and therefore, with a Universe that is infinite there would be no need for creation.
In which case, would there be Christmas anywhere?
Washington Post Editorial: Christmas not what it used to be, but becoming better
Washington Post Editorial: Christmas not what it used to be, but becoming better
Copyright by The Washington Post
Friday, December 25, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/24/AR2009122402665.html
SO, YOU WERE dreaming of a white Christmas? Well, be careful what you dream of -- you just might get two feet of it. Not that it's all that white by now. The snows of last week, growing ever grayer under their daily misting of petroleum byproducts, plowed into alps that may loom over shopping center parking lots for weeks, are a reminder that white Christmases aren't what they used to be when Irving Berlin wrote that song and Bing Crosby first sang it.
But, then, for most of America, they never were. Mr. Berlin was known to favor warmer climes around Christmastime, and in fact there's an opening stanza to his "White Christmas" that you've likely never heard, which goes as follows:
"The sun is shining, the grass is green,
The orange and palm trees sway.
There's never been such a day
in Beverly Hills, L.A.
But it's December the 24th,
And I am longing to be up North . . ."
And maybe he really was. But that stanza was removed early on, wisely so, and the song went on to become the most essential contribution of all to the creation of the 20th-century American Christmas. It was a Christmas that was secular, sentimental, commercial and, to a large extent, more inclusive than the religious celebration that preceded and now accompanies it. The unlikely pastorale of children listening to hear sleigh bells in the snow was created by a refugee from pogroms whose last memory of Russia was the sight of his house burning to the ground when he was 5 years old. Israel Baline's family made its difficult way to a difficult life in a New York tenement, where he often heard his mother say, "God bless America," and some years later, after he became Irving Berlin, he wrote that, too.
"White Christmas" was written in time for the second Christmas after Pearl Harbor, the conclusion of a year that had gone very badly for America and its allies, but when things were starting to look more hopeful. Like a number of other popular songs that came along during the war, it captured the sadness of separation, the longing for peace and normality and the nostalgia for a better time that really wasn't that long ago. These shared emotions gave Christmas a new poignancy and significance during the war years, and made it something different from what it had been. Radio, with its nationwide audience -- just about everyone listened to the same shows -- not only amused and entertained, it comforted and reassured. In the dark war years, it created a new Christmas spirit.
Much of the sentiment has since faded, of course, but despite all the vulgarities, horror movies and other excesses, Christmas has continued to move toward becoming a truly national holiday, a time of good feeling and universally shared hopes, and an occasion in which all can share. And in the supermarket aisles, Bing Crosby still sings a song that is reaching 70 years old but can even now make you pause and reflect for a moment, though probably not on the sound of sleigh bells you've never heard.
Copyright by The Washington Post
Friday, December 25, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/24/AR2009122402665.html
SO, YOU WERE dreaming of a white Christmas? Well, be careful what you dream of -- you just might get two feet of it. Not that it's all that white by now. The snows of last week, growing ever grayer under their daily misting of petroleum byproducts, plowed into alps that may loom over shopping center parking lots for weeks, are a reminder that white Christmases aren't what they used to be when Irving Berlin wrote that song and Bing Crosby first sang it.
But, then, for most of America, they never were. Mr. Berlin was known to favor warmer climes around Christmastime, and in fact there's an opening stanza to his "White Christmas" that you've likely never heard, which goes as follows:
"The sun is shining, the grass is green,
The orange and palm trees sway.
There's never been such a day
in Beverly Hills, L.A.
But it's December the 24th,
And I am longing to be up North . . ."
And maybe he really was. But that stanza was removed early on, wisely so, and the song went on to become the most essential contribution of all to the creation of the 20th-century American Christmas. It was a Christmas that was secular, sentimental, commercial and, to a large extent, more inclusive than the religious celebration that preceded and now accompanies it. The unlikely pastorale of children listening to hear sleigh bells in the snow was created by a refugee from pogroms whose last memory of Russia was the sight of his house burning to the ground when he was 5 years old. Israel Baline's family made its difficult way to a difficult life in a New York tenement, where he often heard his mother say, "God bless America," and some years later, after he became Irving Berlin, he wrote that, too.
"White Christmas" was written in time for the second Christmas after Pearl Harbor, the conclusion of a year that had gone very badly for America and its allies, but when things were starting to look more hopeful. Like a number of other popular songs that came along during the war, it captured the sadness of separation, the longing for peace and normality and the nostalgia for a better time that really wasn't that long ago. These shared emotions gave Christmas a new poignancy and significance during the war years, and made it something different from what it had been. Radio, with its nationwide audience -- just about everyone listened to the same shows -- not only amused and entertained, it comforted and reassured. In the dark war years, it created a new Christmas spirit.
Much of the sentiment has since faded, of course, but despite all the vulgarities, horror movies and other excesses, Christmas has continued to move toward becoming a truly national holiday, a time of good feeling and universally shared hopes, and an occasion in which all can share. And in the supermarket aisles, Bing Crosby still sings a song that is reaching 70 years old but can even now make you pause and reflect for a moment, though probably not on the sound of sleigh bells you've never heard.
US jobless claims fall to 15-month low
US jobless claims fall to 15-month low
By Alan Rappeport in New York
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: December 25 2009 06:11 | Last updated: December 25 2009 06:11
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bbd9a556-f098-11de-839a-00144feab49a.html
The number US workers claiming jobless benefits fell to the lowest level in more than a year last week in a sign that the labour market is slowly starting to catch up with the rest of the economic recovery.
Separately on Thursday, commerce department figures showed that orders for durable goods ticked up in November as companies started to set the stage for greater capital investment next year.
New jobless claims fell by 28,000 to 452,000, the labour department said on Thursday. That was the lowest level since September 2008 and was better than economists had projected.
The less volatile four-week average of jobless claims has been steadily falling and dropped by another 2,750 to 465,250. Economists argue that jobless claims need to fall to the 400,000-level before the US economy can begin creating jobs.
Continuing benefits claims also fell back, declining by 127,000 to 5.076m. That was the lowest level since February.
Meanwhile, new orders for durable goods rose by 0.2 per cent in November. That was weaker than analysts predicted, with gains blunted by a decline in transportation orders as demand for aircraft plunged.
Excluding orders for transportation equipment, which tend to fluctuate, durable goods orders were up by 2 per cent. Businesses showed greater demand for electronics equipment and computers, which saw orders jump by 3.7 per cent.
“The three-month growth rates of overall durable goods orders and those excluding transportation equipment are further signs of the recovery in manufacturing activity,” said John Ryding and Conrad DeQuadros, economists at RDQ Economics.
Inventories of durable goods declined last month after rising in October. The 0.2 per cent dip was the 10th decline in the last 11 months. The moderating pace of inventory liquidation is a good sign for future economic growth as factories prepare to ramp up production to meet increased demand.
By Alan Rappeport in New York
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: December 25 2009 06:11 | Last updated: December 25 2009 06:11
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bbd9a556-f098-11de-839a-00144feab49a.html
The number US workers claiming jobless benefits fell to the lowest level in more than a year last week in a sign that the labour market is slowly starting to catch up with the rest of the economic recovery.
Separately on Thursday, commerce department figures showed that orders for durable goods ticked up in November as companies started to set the stage for greater capital investment next year.
New jobless claims fell by 28,000 to 452,000, the labour department said on Thursday. That was the lowest level since September 2008 and was better than economists had projected.
The less volatile four-week average of jobless claims has been steadily falling and dropped by another 2,750 to 465,250. Economists argue that jobless claims need to fall to the 400,000-level before the US economy can begin creating jobs.
Continuing benefits claims also fell back, declining by 127,000 to 5.076m. That was the lowest level since February.
Meanwhile, new orders for durable goods rose by 0.2 per cent in November. That was weaker than analysts predicted, with gains blunted by a decline in transportation orders as demand for aircraft plunged.
Excluding orders for transportation equipment, which tend to fluctuate, durable goods orders were up by 2 per cent. Businesses showed greater demand for electronics equipment and computers, which saw orders jump by 3.7 per cent.
“The three-month growth rates of overall durable goods orders and those excluding transportation equipment are further signs of the recovery in manufacturing activity,” said John Ryding and Conrad DeQuadros, economists at RDQ Economics.
Inventories of durable goods declined last month after rising in October. The 0.2 per cent dip was the 10th decline in the last 11 months. The moderating pace of inventory liquidation is a good sign for future economic growth as factories prepare to ramp up production to meet increased demand.
China revises up 2008 growth to 9.6 per cent - Service sector more productive than thought
China revises up 2008 growth to 9.6 per cent - Service sector more productive than thought
© Reuters Limited
Decdember 25, 2009
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bcd45022-f116-11de-bcfc-00144feab49a.html
BEIJING, Dec 25 - China on Friday revised up its 2008 growth rate to 9.6 per cent, taking it well above the originally reported 9.0 per cent after calculating that the service sector had been more productive than previously thought.
The upward revision underscored that China was well on track to surpass Japan as the world’s second-largest economy in 2010, if not sooner, and has burnt through less energy to deliver each additional ounce of growth.
China’s economy grew at 7.7 per cent in the first three quarters of 2009 compared with the same period a year ago. Peng Zhilong of the National Bureau of Statistics said the government would likely revise up growth figures reported thus far this year.
The hidden strength found in China’s services sector was a modicum of good news for policymakers in China and abroad, who have said that promoting the development of the country’s non-tradeable sector is a key ingredient in rebalancing the global economy.
But it was still far from mission accomplished on that front.
China’s services sector accounted for 41.8 per cent of gross domestic product last year, up from the previously reported 40.1 per cent. In developed economies, services often contribute more than 70 per cent of GDP.
”China always finds it hard to get accurate statistics about the services sector, and the upward revision is not a surprise,” Zhang Xiaojing, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), said. ”But we cannot say China’s economic structure is reasonable simply because of that.”
The revisions were also unlikely to have much, if any, impact on the country’s current policy stance. The government has already begun to rein in its ultra-loose pro-growth measures adopted in the face of the global financial crisis.
Mr Zhang of CASS said the overall picture of a sharp slowdown late last year and a strong recovery this year was still intact.
China’s central bank earlier this week reaffirmed its long-standing commitment to maintain an ”appropriately loose” monetary policy. The government this week also pledged to deliver the second half of its promised two-year Rmb4,000bn ($585bn) stimulus package in 2010.
Yet beneath this headline stability, Beijing has started to wind down some parts of its stimulus.
Over the past month, it has scaled back a tax exemption on property sales, increased a tax on automobile purchases, vowed to crack down on speculation in the sizzling housing market and outlined how it will more strictly control bank lending.
The revisions also showed that China has made more progress towards its goal of cutting energy intensity, or the amount of energy it uses to produce each dollar of national income.
The country used 5.2 per cent less energy per GDP unit in 2008, a bigger drop than the previously reported 4.6 per cent fall, the statistics bureau said.
The country set a goal of cutting energy intensity by 20 per cent over the five years to 2010, even as overall energy consumption continues to rise.
Originally presented as part of a drive to reduce reliance on overseas oil and gas and to curb damaging pollution, in recent years the efficiency target has also been promoted as a key part of efforts to curb growth in greenhouse emissions.
China is under pressure as the highest annual emitter of the gasses that cause global warming. It has faced a firestorm of international criticism after climate negotiations in Copenhagen ended last week with a broad, non-binding accord that fell short of hopes for a robust global agreement on how to curb emissions.
Beijing says that its emissions per capita and over the course of history are lower than those of rich nations that went through long, dirty periods of industrialisation.
The GDP and energy intensity revisions reflected the results of China’s second national economic census, completed earlier this year.
The first census, conducted in 2005, resulted in revisions to growth rates from 1993 to 2004. Mr Peng, the statistician, said China was still working on revising figures for 2005 through 2007.
© Reuters Limited
Decdember 25, 2009
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bcd45022-f116-11de-bcfc-00144feab49a.html
BEIJING, Dec 25 - China on Friday revised up its 2008 growth rate to 9.6 per cent, taking it well above the originally reported 9.0 per cent after calculating that the service sector had been more productive than previously thought.
The upward revision underscored that China was well on track to surpass Japan as the world’s second-largest economy in 2010, if not sooner, and has burnt through less energy to deliver each additional ounce of growth.
China’s economy grew at 7.7 per cent in the first three quarters of 2009 compared with the same period a year ago. Peng Zhilong of the National Bureau of Statistics said the government would likely revise up growth figures reported thus far this year.
The hidden strength found in China’s services sector was a modicum of good news for policymakers in China and abroad, who have said that promoting the development of the country’s non-tradeable sector is a key ingredient in rebalancing the global economy.
But it was still far from mission accomplished on that front.
China’s services sector accounted for 41.8 per cent of gross domestic product last year, up from the previously reported 40.1 per cent. In developed economies, services often contribute more than 70 per cent of GDP.
”China always finds it hard to get accurate statistics about the services sector, and the upward revision is not a surprise,” Zhang Xiaojing, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), said. ”But we cannot say China’s economic structure is reasonable simply because of that.”
The revisions were also unlikely to have much, if any, impact on the country’s current policy stance. The government has already begun to rein in its ultra-loose pro-growth measures adopted in the face of the global financial crisis.
Mr Zhang of CASS said the overall picture of a sharp slowdown late last year and a strong recovery this year was still intact.
China’s central bank earlier this week reaffirmed its long-standing commitment to maintain an ”appropriately loose” monetary policy. The government this week also pledged to deliver the second half of its promised two-year Rmb4,000bn ($585bn) stimulus package in 2010.
Yet beneath this headline stability, Beijing has started to wind down some parts of its stimulus.
Over the past month, it has scaled back a tax exemption on property sales, increased a tax on automobile purchases, vowed to crack down on speculation in the sizzling housing market and outlined how it will more strictly control bank lending.
The revisions also showed that China has made more progress towards its goal of cutting energy intensity, or the amount of energy it uses to produce each dollar of national income.
The country used 5.2 per cent less energy per GDP unit in 2008, a bigger drop than the previously reported 4.6 per cent fall, the statistics bureau said.
The country set a goal of cutting energy intensity by 20 per cent over the five years to 2010, even as overall energy consumption continues to rise.
Originally presented as part of a drive to reduce reliance on overseas oil and gas and to curb damaging pollution, in recent years the efficiency target has also been promoted as a key part of efforts to curb growth in greenhouse emissions.
China is under pressure as the highest annual emitter of the gasses that cause global warming. It has faced a firestorm of international criticism after climate negotiations in Copenhagen ended last week with a broad, non-binding accord that fell short of hopes for a robust global agreement on how to curb emissions.
Beijing says that its emissions per capita and over the course of history are lower than those of rich nations that went through long, dirty periods of industrialisation.
The GDP and energy intensity revisions reflected the results of China’s second national economic census, completed earlier this year.
The first census, conducted in 2005, resulted in revisions to growth rates from 1993 to 2004. Mr Peng, the statistician, said China was still working on revising figures for 2005 through 2007.
Russia Cuts Interest Rates for 10th Time This Year
Russia Cuts Interest Rates for 10th Time This Year
Copyright By REUTERS
Published: December 25, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/26/business/global/26ruble.html?adxnnl=1&hpw=&adxnnlx=1261753704-dFFaWoCljxV2jvEq/CYDeg
MOSCOW — Russia’s central bank Friday unveiled its 10th interest rate cut of the year, with economists expecting more gradual trims in the coming months as policymakers try to stimulate the country’s blighted economy.
The central bank said it is reducing its benchmark refinancing rate to 8.75 percent effective from Monday, from 9 percent. The minimum one-day repo rate will be cut to 6 percent from 6.25 percent.
“The decision to cut rates is expected to soften the factors restraining economic revival and will secure the stability of the growing trend” of gross domestic product,” the regulator said in a statement.
The Russian economy shrank by 10 percent in the first half of the year in the country’s worst recession in a decade.
There have been incipient signs of recovery, aided by rising oil prices and improving global economic outlook, but the revival has been slow and uneven.
Domestic demand — a major contributor to Russia’s robust growth for most of the decade — is not picking up and unemployment still claims 8.1 percent of its labor force.
And the 10 gradual rate cuts, which brought down the refinancing rate by a total of 425 basis points since April, have failed to achieve its main goal: spurring lending to business.
The central bank said in its statement that even the small gains in industrial output in November came unsupported by lending.
“We have not seen a significant improvement in credit activity among Russian banks,” the regulator said.
The central bank is also counting on the cut to limit the inflow of short-term speculative capital that has been increasingly flooding Russia in recent months, from investors seeking fast gains from carry-trade operations — where investors borrow in countries with low interest rates to speculate in markets where the rate of return is higher.
However, the rates in Russia will still remain significantly higher than the 1 percent or smaller rates among the other Group of Eight economies.
“I do not think that the cut will have an essential impact on carry trade,” said Dmitry Kharlampiev, analyst at Petrocommerce Bank.
The central bank said that it is expecting that volatility on the foreign exchange market will continue, warning of risks related to the exchange rate.
The ruble traded virtually unchanged from previous session at 36.48 against a dollar-euro basket that the central bank uses for guiding the currency’s nominal exchange rate.
The lower-than-expected inflation rate has allowed the regulator to move with the gradual rate reductions.
The central bank also said that the risks that inflation next year will exceed the official forecast are “insignificantly” small. The Ministry for Economic Development sees next year’s inflation at 6.5 to 7.5 percent.
Economists said that the good inflation outlook will likely encourage the central bank to administer a few further rate cuts.
“We expect that cuts will continue in the beginning of next year,” said Artyom Arkhipov, chief macroeconomic analyst at Gazprombank. He added that he sees a 25 basis points cut in the first quarter of 2010 and a 50 basis points cut in the second.
Copyright By REUTERS
Published: December 25, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/26/business/global/26ruble.html?adxnnl=1&hpw=&adxnnlx=1261753704-dFFaWoCljxV2jvEq/CYDeg
MOSCOW — Russia’s central bank Friday unveiled its 10th interest rate cut of the year, with economists expecting more gradual trims in the coming months as policymakers try to stimulate the country’s blighted economy.
The central bank said it is reducing its benchmark refinancing rate to 8.75 percent effective from Monday, from 9 percent. The minimum one-day repo rate will be cut to 6 percent from 6.25 percent.
“The decision to cut rates is expected to soften the factors restraining economic revival and will secure the stability of the growing trend” of gross domestic product,” the regulator said in a statement.
The Russian economy shrank by 10 percent in the first half of the year in the country’s worst recession in a decade.
There have been incipient signs of recovery, aided by rising oil prices and improving global economic outlook, but the revival has been slow and uneven.
Domestic demand — a major contributor to Russia’s robust growth for most of the decade — is not picking up and unemployment still claims 8.1 percent of its labor force.
And the 10 gradual rate cuts, which brought down the refinancing rate by a total of 425 basis points since April, have failed to achieve its main goal: spurring lending to business.
The central bank said in its statement that even the small gains in industrial output in November came unsupported by lending.
“We have not seen a significant improvement in credit activity among Russian banks,” the regulator said.
The central bank is also counting on the cut to limit the inflow of short-term speculative capital that has been increasingly flooding Russia in recent months, from investors seeking fast gains from carry-trade operations — where investors borrow in countries with low interest rates to speculate in markets where the rate of return is higher.
However, the rates in Russia will still remain significantly higher than the 1 percent or smaller rates among the other Group of Eight economies.
“I do not think that the cut will have an essential impact on carry trade,” said Dmitry Kharlampiev, analyst at Petrocommerce Bank.
The central bank said that it is expecting that volatility on the foreign exchange market will continue, warning of risks related to the exchange rate.
The ruble traded virtually unchanged from previous session at 36.48 against a dollar-euro basket that the central bank uses for guiding the currency’s nominal exchange rate.
The lower-than-expected inflation rate has allowed the regulator to move with the gradual rate reductions.
The central bank also said that the risks that inflation next year will exceed the official forecast are “insignificantly” small. The Ministry for Economic Development sees next year’s inflation at 6.5 to 7.5 percent.
Economists said that the good inflation outlook will likely encourage the central bank to administer a few further rate cuts.
“We expect that cuts will continue in the beginning of next year,” said Artyom Arkhipov, chief macroeconomic analyst at Gazprombank. He added that he sees a 25 basis points cut in the first quarter of 2010 and a 50 basis points cut in the second.
A Record Budget Stirs Debt Worries in Japan
A Record Budget Stirs Debt Worries in Japan
By HIROKO TABUCHI
Copyright by The New York Tim,es
Published: December 25, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/26/world/asia/26japan.html?hpw
TOKYO — The Japanese government approved on Friday a record ¥92.3 trillion budget for the next fiscal year that encompasses ambitious welfare outlays to help households cope with the country’s deep economic woes, but the scale of new spending could renew investor jitters about the government’s burgeoning debt.
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama — who took office in September after landmark elections that ended an era of single-party rule in Japan — has been trying to strike a balance between a budget big enough to kick-start economic recovery, while keeping new lending in check.
The new leader has been distracted, however, by mishandled negotiations over the fate of a U.S. military air base in Japan and by a campaign finance scandal. On Thursday, Mr. Hatoyama apologized to the nation after two aides were charged with falsely reporting donations, though the leader himself denied any wrongdoing.
Addressing the country for the second night in a row on Friday, Mr. Hatoyama, who leads the Democratic Party, urged the public to stay focused on the task of rebuilding an economy recovering from its worst recession since World War II.
The record $1 trillion budget for the year starting in April reorients spending to households by allocating more to welfare and education at the expense of public works projects, a big recipient of government funds under the ousted Liberal Democrats.
Mr. Hatoyama hopes the generous welfare spending will encourage households to consume more, offering a much-needed boost to the economy.
“Together with all of you, I want to build a better Japan, a new Japan,” Mr. Hatoyama said at a news conference. “I have adhered to the principle that people matter more than concrete,” he said.
Japan will issue fresh debt worth a record ¥44.3 trillion, in line with an earlier estimate, he said. The new borrowing brings Japan’s public debt to ¥862 trillion, or 181 percent of gross domestic product, at the end of March 2011, by far the highest in the industrialized world.
Dogging Mr. Hatoyama’s budgeting efforts has been a plunge in tax revenue as Japan’s export-oriented economy struggles amid a falloff in international trade brought on by the global economic crisis.
Tax receipts, at about ¥37 trillion, are expected to make up less than half the government’s budget, forcing the government to borrow more than it receives in revenues — another postwar first.
Citing tough finances, the government abandoned a campaign pledge to cut an unpopular tax on gasoline, and it has backtracked on promises to abolish tolls on Japanese highways. But the government stuck with its ambitious social agenda, which includes cash payments to child-rearing households and free public high school education.
Though most voters had appeared to be willing to give Mr. Hatoyama time to deliver on his promises, public support for Mr. Hatoyama is waning. A public opinion poll recently showed his approval rating had fallen below 50 percent, from a post-election high of 71 percent.
The campaign financing scandal has further eroded his credibility. At first, the allegations of improper accounting raised few anxieties among voters because much of the money involved was from Mr. Hatoyama’s own coffers or from his mother, an heiress to the fortune of the Japanese tire maker Bridgestone.
But the charges have increasingly painted Mr. Hatoyama as a leader out of touch with the economic plight of average Japanese at a time of high unemployment and persistent deflation.
The falling support puts the Democrats in a potentially precarious position ahead of elections for Parliament’s upper house, which must be held next year. The Democrats hope to clinch a majority in that chamber to match their control of Parliament’s powerful lower house.
By HIROKO TABUCHI
Copyright by The New York Tim,es
Published: December 25, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/26/world/asia/26japan.html?hpw
TOKYO — The Japanese government approved on Friday a record ¥92.3 trillion budget for the next fiscal year that encompasses ambitious welfare outlays to help households cope with the country’s deep economic woes, but the scale of new spending could renew investor jitters about the government’s burgeoning debt.
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama — who took office in September after landmark elections that ended an era of single-party rule in Japan — has been trying to strike a balance between a budget big enough to kick-start economic recovery, while keeping new lending in check.
The new leader has been distracted, however, by mishandled negotiations over the fate of a U.S. military air base in Japan and by a campaign finance scandal. On Thursday, Mr. Hatoyama apologized to the nation after two aides were charged with falsely reporting donations, though the leader himself denied any wrongdoing.
Addressing the country for the second night in a row on Friday, Mr. Hatoyama, who leads the Democratic Party, urged the public to stay focused on the task of rebuilding an economy recovering from its worst recession since World War II.
The record $1 trillion budget for the year starting in April reorients spending to households by allocating more to welfare and education at the expense of public works projects, a big recipient of government funds under the ousted Liberal Democrats.
Mr. Hatoyama hopes the generous welfare spending will encourage households to consume more, offering a much-needed boost to the economy.
“Together with all of you, I want to build a better Japan, a new Japan,” Mr. Hatoyama said at a news conference. “I have adhered to the principle that people matter more than concrete,” he said.
Japan will issue fresh debt worth a record ¥44.3 trillion, in line with an earlier estimate, he said. The new borrowing brings Japan’s public debt to ¥862 trillion, or 181 percent of gross domestic product, at the end of March 2011, by far the highest in the industrialized world.
Dogging Mr. Hatoyama’s budgeting efforts has been a plunge in tax revenue as Japan’s export-oriented economy struggles amid a falloff in international trade brought on by the global economic crisis.
Tax receipts, at about ¥37 trillion, are expected to make up less than half the government’s budget, forcing the government to borrow more than it receives in revenues — another postwar first.
Citing tough finances, the government abandoned a campaign pledge to cut an unpopular tax on gasoline, and it has backtracked on promises to abolish tolls on Japanese highways. But the government stuck with its ambitious social agenda, which includes cash payments to child-rearing households and free public high school education.
Though most voters had appeared to be willing to give Mr. Hatoyama time to deliver on his promises, public support for Mr. Hatoyama is waning. A public opinion poll recently showed his approval rating had fallen below 50 percent, from a post-election high of 71 percent.
The campaign financing scandal has further eroded his credibility. At first, the allegations of improper accounting raised few anxieties among voters because much of the money involved was from Mr. Hatoyama’s own coffers or from his mother, an heiress to the fortune of the Japanese tire maker Bridgestone.
But the charges have increasingly painted Mr. Hatoyama as a leader out of touch with the economic plight of average Japanese at a time of high unemployment and persistent deflation.
The falling support puts the Democrats in a potentially precarious position ahead of elections for Parliament’s upper house, which must be held next year. The Democrats hope to clinch a majority in that chamber to match their control of Parliament’s powerful lower house.
Woman Topples Pope at Mass, but He Isn’t Hurt
Woman Topples Pope at Mass, but He Isn’t Hurt
By RACHEL DONADIO
Copyright by Reuters
Published: December 24, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/25/world/europe/25pope.html?ref=global-home
ROME — Pope Benedict XVI delivered his traditional Christmas blessing on Friday after an “unbalanced woman” jumped the barriers in St. Peter’s Basilica and knocked him down as he walked down the main aisle to begin Christmas Eve Mass on Thursday.
The pope quickly got back on his feet after the incident and celebrated Mass before thousands of the faithful, urging them in his homily to become “truly vigilant people.” Television images showed a woman in red leap toward Benedict, 82, as he began to walk up the central aisle, as the police and bodyguards scrambled to his aid.
The woman also knocked down Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, said a Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi.
Cardinal Etchegaray, 87, fractured his hip and will be operated on at Gemelli hospital in Rome, Father Lombardi said Friday, according to The Associated Press.
Father Lombardi identified the woman as Susanna Maiolo, 25, a Swiss-Italian national with psychiatric problems, The Associated Press reported. He said Ms. Maiolo, who was not armed, was taken to a clinic for necessary treatment. She was the same woman involved in a similar incident at last year’s Midnight Mass, Vatican officials said.
The incident in St. Peter’s was the second high-profile security breach in Italy this month.
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi spent several days in the hospital after a man with mental problems struck him in the face with a statuette of the Milan cathedral, breaking his nose and two teeth, at a campaign rally in Milan.
During Christmas Eve Mass, the pope appeared tired at times but celebrated the ritual without further incident.
For the first time in recent memory, however, Christmas Eve Mass began at 10 p.m. instead of midnight, in what Father Lombardi said was an effort to help Benedict preserve his strength for his intense schedule over the Christmas season.
Benedict is said to be in generally good health, but last summer he broke his wrist in a fall at the house in northern Italy where he was spending his summer vacation.
By RACHEL DONADIO
Copyright by Reuters
Published: December 24, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/25/world/europe/25pope.html?ref=global-home
ROME — Pope Benedict XVI delivered his traditional Christmas blessing on Friday after an “unbalanced woman” jumped the barriers in St. Peter’s Basilica and knocked him down as he walked down the main aisle to begin Christmas Eve Mass on Thursday.
The pope quickly got back on his feet after the incident and celebrated Mass before thousands of the faithful, urging them in his homily to become “truly vigilant people.” Television images showed a woman in red leap toward Benedict, 82, as he began to walk up the central aisle, as the police and bodyguards scrambled to his aid.
The woman also knocked down Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, said a Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi.
Cardinal Etchegaray, 87, fractured his hip and will be operated on at Gemelli hospital in Rome, Father Lombardi said Friday, according to The Associated Press.
Father Lombardi identified the woman as Susanna Maiolo, 25, a Swiss-Italian national with psychiatric problems, The Associated Press reported. He said Ms. Maiolo, who was not armed, was taken to a clinic for necessary treatment. She was the same woman involved in a similar incident at last year’s Midnight Mass, Vatican officials said.
The incident in St. Peter’s was the second high-profile security breach in Italy this month.
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi spent several days in the hospital after a man with mental problems struck him in the face with a statuette of the Milan cathedral, breaking his nose and two teeth, at a campaign rally in Milan.
During Christmas Eve Mass, the pope appeared tired at times but celebrated the ritual without further incident.
For the first time in recent memory, however, Christmas Eve Mass began at 10 p.m. instead of midnight, in what Father Lombardi said was an effort to help Benedict preserve his strength for his intense schedule over the Christmas season.
Benedict is said to be in generally good health, but last summer he broke his wrist in a fall at the house in northern Italy where he was spending his summer vacation.
2 More Irish Bishops Quit Over Dublin Abuse Report
2 More Irish Bishops Quit Over Dublin Abuse Report
Copyright By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: December 25, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/12/25/world/AP-EU-Ireland-Bishops-Resign.html?_r=1&ref=global-home
DUBLIN (AP) -- Two Roman Catholic bishops in Ireland resigned on Christmas Day in the wake of a damning investigation into decades of church cover-up of child abuse in the Dublin archdiocese.
Dublin Bishops Eamonn Walsh and Ray Field offered an apology to child-abuse victims as they announced their resignations during Christmas Mass. Priests read the statement to worshippers throughout the archdiocese, home to a quarter of Ireland's 4 million Catholics.
Earlier this month two other bishops, Donal Murray of Limerick and Jim Moriarty of Kildare, quit following the Nov. 26 publication of a three-year investigation into why so many abusive Dublin priests escaped justice for so long.
The government-ordered investigation found that Dublin church leaders spent decades shielding more than 170 pedophile priests from the law. They began providing information to police only in 1995 -- but continued to keep secret, until 2004, many files and other records of reported abuse.
In a joint statement Walsh and Field said they hoped their resignations ''may help to bring the peace and reconciliation of Jesus Christ to the victims (and) survivors of child sexual abuse. We again apologize to them.''
''Our thoughts and prayers are with those who have so bravely spoken out and those who continue to suffer in silence,'' the bishops' statement said.
The Dublin archdiocese has faced a rising tide of civil lawsuits from abuse victims since the mid-1990s, after one abuse victim, former altar boy Andrew Madden, went public with the church's effort to buy his silence and protect a serving priest. The archdiocese estimates its ultimate bill for settlements and legal costs may top euro20 million ($30 million).
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, a veteran Vatican diplomat put in charge of Dublin in 2004 with a brief to confront the abuse scandal, had called for his two auxiliary bishops to quit, but both initially refused. Walsh had been a bishop since 1990, Field since 1997.
In his Christmas sermon, Martin said the church for too long placed its self-interest above the rights of its parishioners, particularly innocent children. He said they, as well as the dedicated majority of priests, had been betrayed by their leaders.
''It has been a painful year,'' he told worshippers at St. Mary's pro-Cathedral in Dublin. ''But the church today may well be a better and safer place than was the church of 25 years ago -- when all looked well, but where deep shadows were kept buried.''
In remarks to Dublin's thousands of victims of clerical child abuse, Martin said, ''No words of apology will ever be enough for the hurt caused and the way your hurt was brushed aside.''
A fifth serving bishop named in the investigation, Martin Drennan of Galway, insists he has done nothing wrong and won't resign. The report also criticized five retired bishops, including Dublin Cardinal Desmond Connell, for suppressing information on abuse and preferring to transfer priests to new parishes.
The report also found that senior police officers and other state agencies deferred to church authority until the 1990s -- and even referred public complaints about child-molesting priests back to the bishops to handle on their own.
Dublin Archdiocese report, http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Pages/PB09000504
Copyright By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: December 25, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/12/25/world/AP-EU-Ireland-Bishops-Resign.html?_r=1&ref=global-home
DUBLIN (AP) -- Two Roman Catholic bishops in Ireland resigned on Christmas Day in the wake of a damning investigation into decades of church cover-up of child abuse in the Dublin archdiocese.
Dublin Bishops Eamonn Walsh and Ray Field offered an apology to child-abuse victims as they announced their resignations during Christmas Mass. Priests read the statement to worshippers throughout the archdiocese, home to a quarter of Ireland's 4 million Catholics.
Earlier this month two other bishops, Donal Murray of Limerick and Jim Moriarty of Kildare, quit following the Nov. 26 publication of a three-year investigation into why so many abusive Dublin priests escaped justice for so long.
The government-ordered investigation found that Dublin church leaders spent decades shielding more than 170 pedophile priests from the law. They began providing information to police only in 1995 -- but continued to keep secret, until 2004, many files and other records of reported abuse.
In a joint statement Walsh and Field said they hoped their resignations ''may help to bring the peace and reconciliation of Jesus Christ to the victims (and) survivors of child sexual abuse. We again apologize to them.''
''Our thoughts and prayers are with those who have so bravely spoken out and those who continue to suffer in silence,'' the bishops' statement said.
The Dublin archdiocese has faced a rising tide of civil lawsuits from abuse victims since the mid-1990s, after one abuse victim, former altar boy Andrew Madden, went public with the church's effort to buy his silence and protect a serving priest. The archdiocese estimates its ultimate bill for settlements and legal costs may top euro20 million ($30 million).
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, a veteran Vatican diplomat put in charge of Dublin in 2004 with a brief to confront the abuse scandal, had called for his two auxiliary bishops to quit, but both initially refused. Walsh had been a bishop since 1990, Field since 1997.
In his Christmas sermon, Martin said the church for too long placed its self-interest above the rights of its parishioners, particularly innocent children. He said they, as well as the dedicated majority of priests, had been betrayed by their leaders.
''It has been a painful year,'' he told worshippers at St. Mary's pro-Cathedral in Dublin. ''But the church today may well be a better and safer place than was the church of 25 years ago -- when all looked well, but where deep shadows were kept buried.''
In remarks to Dublin's thousands of victims of clerical child abuse, Martin said, ''No words of apology will ever be enough for the hurt caused and the way your hurt was brushed aside.''
A fifth serving bishop named in the investigation, Martin Drennan of Galway, insists he has done nothing wrong and won't resign. The report also criticized five retired bishops, including Dublin Cardinal Desmond Connell, for suppressing information on abuse and preferring to transfer priests to new parishes.
The report also found that senior police officers and other state agencies deferred to church authority until the 1990s -- and even referred public complaints about child-molesting priests back to the bishops to handle on their own.
Dublin Archdiocese report, http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Pages/PB09000504
Yemen Says It Attacked a Meeting of Al Qaeda
Yemen Says It Attacked a Meeting of Al Qaeda
By JACK HEALY and SCOTT SHANE
Copyright by The Associated Press
Published: December 24, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/25/world/middleeast/25yemen.html?th&emc=th
Yemeni fighter jets, acting on intelligence provided in part by the United States, struck what the Yemeni government said was a meeting of operatives from Al Qaeda early Thursday morning, and officials suggested that a radical cleric linked to the suspect in the Fort Hood shootings might have been among the 30 people killed.
A statement by the Yemeni Embassy in Washington said the target of the airstrike was a gathering of “scores” of Qaeda members from Yemen and other countries, including the network’s two top leaders in Yemen, in a remote corner of in the country’s south. The statement said the radical cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, was “presumed to be at the site.”
It could take days for investigators to sift through the rubble to identify the dead, and intelligence officials in the United States could not immediately confirm whether Mr. Awlaki, who was born in the United States, or any Qaeda members were among those killed.
Yemen, which has long been a haven for terrorists, has been carrying out strikes that appear to be directed against Al Qaeda’s growing presence.
The group, whose regional affiliate is known as Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula, has mounted frequent attacks against foreign embassies and Yemeni officials in the past two years, adding to security threats in Yemen that include an armed rebellion in the north and a secessionist movement in the south.
There is no indication that the various insurgents opposed to Yemen’s government are cooperating, but the concurrent crises have weakened the state’s ability to react.
Yemeni security forces carried out airstrikes and ground raids against suspected Qaeda hide-outs last week with what American officials described as “intelligence and firepower” supplied by the United States. The assaults were Yemen’s widest offensive against jihadists in years. Government forces hit bases in Abyan, a lawless, mountainous area in the south, as well as in the city of Arhab and the capital, Sana.
The airstrikes on Thursday were aimed at a large group of Qaeda operatives who had gathered in the southern province of Shabwa to plan attacks against the Yemeni government in retaliation for the offensive last week, the Yemeni Embassy statement said.
Yemeni officials said they had made targets of the leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Nasser al-Wuhayshi, and his deputy, Said Ali al-Shihri, who were believed to be at the meeting with Mr. Awlaki.
Mr. Shihri was held for five years in the American detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and after his release in 2007 went through a Saudi rehabilitation program. But he joined Al Qaeda after his return to Yemen, a notable failure for the Saudi program, which American officials admire.
Although Mr. Awlaki, 38, has not been accused of planting bombs or carrying out terrorist attacks himself, his online sermons champion a radicalized vision of Islam, and he has been linked to numerous terrorism suspects, including Nidal Malik Hasan, the American Army major who faces murder charges in the shooting deaths of 13 people at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas in November.
Major Hasan and the American-born cleric exchanged about 20 e-mail messages, and shortly after the shootings, Mr. Awlaki praised Major Hasan as a hero.
In an interview posted Wednesday on the Web site of Al Jazeera, Mr. Awlaki said Major Hasan had asked in his first e-mail message about what Islamic law dictated about “Muslim soldiers who serve in the American military and kill their colleagues.”
Mr. Awlaki also praised the killings at Fort Hood, saying, “working in the American military to fight Muslims is a betrayal of Islam.”
Jack Healy reported from New York, and Scott Shane from Washington. Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington.
By JACK HEALY and SCOTT SHANE
Copyright by The Associated Press
Published: December 24, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/25/world/middleeast/25yemen.html?th&emc=th
Yemeni fighter jets, acting on intelligence provided in part by the United States, struck what the Yemeni government said was a meeting of operatives from Al Qaeda early Thursday morning, and officials suggested that a radical cleric linked to the suspect in the Fort Hood shootings might have been among the 30 people killed.
A statement by the Yemeni Embassy in Washington said the target of the airstrike was a gathering of “scores” of Qaeda members from Yemen and other countries, including the network’s two top leaders in Yemen, in a remote corner of in the country’s south. The statement said the radical cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, was “presumed to be at the site.”
It could take days for investigators to sift through the rubble to identify the dead, and intelligence officials in the United States could not immediately confirm whether Mr. Awlaki, who was born in the United States, or any Qaeda members were among those killed.
Yemen, which has long been a haven for terrorists, has been carrying out strikes that appear to be directed against Al Qaeda’s growing presence.
The group, whose regional affiliate is known as Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula, has mounted frequent attacks against foreign embassies and Yemeni officials in the past two years, adding to security threats in Yemen that include an armed rebellion in the north and a secessionist movement in the south.
There is no indication that the various insurgents opposed to Yemen’s government are cooperating, but the concurrent crises have weakened the state’s ability to react.
Yemeni security forces carried out airstrikes and ground raids against suspected Qaeda hide-outs last week with what American officials described as “intelligence and firepower” supplied by the United States. The assaults were Yemen’s widest offensive against jihadists in years. Government forces hit bases in Abyan, a lawless, mountainous area in the south, as well as in the city of Arhab and the capital, Sana.
The airstrikes on Thursday were aimed at a large group of Qaeda operatives who had gathered in the southern province of Shabwa to plan attacks against the Yemeni government in retaliation for the offensive last week, the Yemeni Embassy statement said.
Yemeni officials said they had made targets of the leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Nasser al-Wuhayshi, and his deputy, Said Ali al-Shihri, who were believed to be at the meeting with Mr. Awlaki.
Mr. Shihri was held for five years in the American detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and after his release in 2007 went through a Saudi rehabilitation program. But he joined Al Qaeda after his return to Yemen, a notable failure for the Saudi program, which American officials admire.
Although Mr. Awlaki, 38, has not been accused of planting bombs or carrying out terrorist attacks himself, his online sermons champion a radicalized vision of Islam, and he has been linked to numerous terrorism suspects, including Nidal Malik Hasan, the American Army major who faces murder charges in the shooting deaths of 13 people at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas in November.
Major Hasan and the American-born cleric exchanged about 20 e-mail messages, and shortly after the shootings, Mr. Awlaki praised Major Hasan as a hero.
In an interview posted Wednesday on the Web site of Al Jazeera, Mr. Awlaki said Major Hasan had asked in his first e-mail message about what Islamic law dictated about “Muslim soldiers who serve in the American military and kill their colleagues.”
Mr. Awlaki also praised the killings at Fort Hood, saying, “working in the American military to fight Muslims is a betrayal of Islam.”
Jack Healy reported from New York, and Scott Shane from Washington. Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington.
Leading China Dissident Gets 11-Year Term for Subversion
Leading China Dissident Gets 11-Year Term for Subversion
By ANDREW JACOBS
Copyright by Reuters
Published: December 24, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/25/world/asia/25china.html?th&emc=th
BEIJING — In an unequivocal rebuke to those pursuing political reforms, a Chinese court on Friday sentenced one of the country’s best-known dissidents to 11 years in prison for subversion.
Liu Xiaobo, 53, a former literature professor and a dogged critic of China’s single-party political system, was detained in December 2008 after he helped draft a petition known as Charter 08 that demanded the right to free speech, open elections and the rule of law.
The 11-page verdict, largely a restatement of his indictment, was read out Friday morning at the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court, said Mr. Liu’s lawyer, Shang Baojun. In addition to his prison term, Mr. Liu will be deprived of his political rights for an additional two years, a penalty that will prevent him from writing or speaking out on a wide range of issues.
“We are just extremely disappointed,” said Mr. Shang, who added that Mr. Liu intended to appeal the verdict.
Gregory May, first secretary with the U.S. Embassy who stood outside the courthouse Friday morning, called on the authorities to immediately release Mr. Liu.
“Persecution of individuals for the peaceful expression of political views is inconsistent with internationally recognized norms of human rights,” he said.
Although Mr. Liu had faced a 15-year sentence, legal experts and human rights advocates said the punishment was very harsh and was meant to send a message to others who might agitate for political reform in one of the world’s longest-running authoritarian governments.
Nicholas Bequelin, a senior Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch in Hong Kong, described Mr. Liu as “a sacrificial lamb” and said that the Communist Party leadership was trying to intimidate its critics. The rights group called the trial “a travesty of justice.”
Mr. Bequelin and others said Mr. Liu’s prosecution for violating rights enshrined in China’s Constitution suggested a political hardening, a trend that began before the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
“It shows that the leadership is increasingly conservative and restrictive of basic freedoms,” Mr. Bequelin said, “and it also sends a strong message to the rest of the world that China is not really serious when it talks about human rights.”
Joshua Rosenzweig, a senior researcher at the Dui Hua Foundation, which advocates on behalf of Chinese political prisoners, said Mr. Liu’s sentence was the longest for subversion charges in more than a decade.
In 2005, Shi Tao, a journalist and poet, was convicted of leaking state secrets and given a 10-year term after he sent an internal party memo to an overseas Web site. Last year, Hu Jia, an AIDS activist and environmentalist, was imprisoned for three and a half years on charges that his Internet writings incited subversion.
Mr. Liu has been held in secret for more than a year and his lawyers were given less than two weeks to prepare their defense. The trial on Wednesday lasted two hours and was closed; his wife, Liu Xia, and more than two dozen diplomats from the United States, Canada and the European Union were barred from the courtroom.
On Thursday, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman angrily dismissed foreign criticisms of Mr. Liu’s prosecution, calling them a “gross interference of China’s internal affairs.”
This is not Mr. Liu’s first brush with China’s harsh judicial system. He spent 21 months in detention for taking part in the 1989 pro-democracy protests at Tiananmen Square. And in 1996, after demanding clemency for those still imprisoned for their roles in the demonstrations, he was sent to a labor camp for three years.
In addition to helping create Charter 08, Mr. Liu’s charge for “inciting subversion of state power” was based on six articles he wrote that were published on the Internet outside of China.
Released on Dec. 10, 2008, International Human Rights Day, Charter 08 garnered some 10,000 signatures before it was removed from the Web by government censors. To this day, it is virtually unknown in China.
During the brief trial on Wednesday, Mr. Liu’s lawyers rejected the prosecution’s contention that the document sought to overthrow the Communist Party. Zhang Zuhua, a former party official and political scholar who co-authored the manifesto with Mr. Liu, described the subversion charge as “absurd,” calling it “a violation of the Chinese Constitution’s guarantee of free speech.” Mr. Zhang was briefly detained last year and has since been under 24-hour surveillance by security personnel.
The state-controlled media has not covered Mr. Liu’s trial — nor has it allowed any mention of Charter 08 — but Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, published a brief item Friday that described the sentence and said the court “had strictly followed the legal procedures in this case and fully protected Liu’s litigation rights.”
News of his sentencing quickly spread via Twitter, which is blocked in China but can be accessed by those able to circumvent the so-called Great Firewall. Many of those who sent messages displayed the image of a yellow ribbon as a declaration of their sympathies. Others defiantly listed personal details about the presiding judge in the case.
At least two dozen supporters who stood outside the courthouse during Mr. Liu’s trial on Wednesday were later questioned and released.
Liu Di, a signer of Charter 08, was among a handful of people who publicly declared their desire to stand trial with Liu Xiaobo.
“For the dignity of the Constitution and the law, and for no more imprisonment of people for their independent opinions, I would prefer to share with Mr. Liu Xiaobo the same case with the same penalty,” wrote Ms. Liu, a blogger better known by her online identity, the Stainless Steel Mouse.
On Friday, officials allowed the defendant and his wife to meet for 10 minutes in a small room, although they were divided by a glass barrier. It was the third time they had seen each other since his detention last year.
“People always say they’re so inhumane,” she said of the government afterward, “so I think they just wanted to show a little humanity.”
Jonathan Ansfield contributed reporting.
By ANDREW JACOBS
Copyright by Reuters
Published: December 24, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/25/world/asia/25china.html?th&emc=th
BEIJING — In an unequivocal rebuke to those pursuing political reforms, a Chinese court on Friday sentenced one of the country’s best-known dissidents to 11 years in prison for subversion.
Liu Xiaobo, 53, a former literature professor and a dogged critic of China’s single-party political system, was detained in December 2008 after he helped draft a petition known as Charter 08 that demanded the right to free speech, open elections and the rule of law.
The 11-page verdict, largely a restatement of his indictment, was read out Friday morning at the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court, said Mr. Liu’s lawyer, Shang Baojun. In addition to his prison term, Mr. Liu will be deprived of his political rights for an additional two years, a penalty that will prevent him from writing or speaking out on a wide range of issues.
“We are just extremely disappointed,” said Mr. Shang, who added that Mr. Liu intended to appeal the verdict.
Gregory May, first secretary with the U.S. Embassy who stood outside the courthouse Friday morning, called on the authorities to immediately release Mr. Liu.
“Persecution of individuals for the peaceful expression of political views is inconsistent with internationally recognized norms of human rights,” he said.
Although Mr. Liu had faced a 15-year sentence, legal experts and human rights advocates said the punishment was very harsh and was meant to send a message to others who might agitate for political reform in one of the world’s longest-running authoritarian governments.
Nicholas Bequelin, a senior Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch in Hong Kong, described Mr. Liu as “a sacrificial lamb” and said that the Communist Party leadership was trying to intimidate its critics. The rights group called the trial “a travesty of justice.”
Mr. Bequelin and others said Mr. Liu’s prosecution for violating rights enshrined in China’s Constitution suggested a political hardening, a trend that began before the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
“It shows that the leadership is increasingly conservative and restrictive of basic freedoms,” Mr. Bequelin said, “and it also sends a strong message to the rest of the world that China is not really serious when it talks about human rights.”
Joshua Rosenzweig, a senior researcher at the Dui Hua Foundation, which advocates on behalf of Chinese political prisoners, said Mr. Liu’s sentence was the longest for subversion charges in more than a decade.
In 2005, Shi Tao, a journalist and poet, was convicted of leaking state secrets and given a 10-year term after he sent an internal party memo to an overseas Web site. Last year, Hu Jia, an AIDS activist and environmentalist, was imprisoned for three and a half years on charges that his Internet writings incited subversion.
Mr. Liu has been held in secret for more than a year and his lawyers were given less than two weeks to prepare their defense. The trial on Wednesday lasted two hours and was closed; his wife, Liu Xia, and more than two dozen diplomats from the United States, Canada and the European Union were barred from the courtroom.
On Thursday, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman angrily dismissed foreign criticisms of Mr. Liu’s prosecution, calling them a “gross interference of China’s internal affairs.”
This is not Mr. Liu’s first brush with China’s harsh judicial system. He spent 21 months in detention for taking part in the 1989 pro-democracy protests at Tiananmen Square. And in 1996, after demanding clemency for those still imprisoned for their roles in the demonstrations, he was sent to a labor camp for three years.
In addition to helping create Charter 08, Mr. Liu’s charge for “inciting subversion of state power” was based on six articles he wrote that were published on the Internet outside of China.
Released on Dec. 10, 2008, International Human Rights Day, Charter 08 garnered some 10,000 signatures before it was removed from the Web by government censors. To this day, it is virtually unknown in China.
During the brief trial on Wednesday, Mr. Liu’s lawyers rejected the prosecution’s contention that the document sought to overthrow the Communist Party. Zhang Zuhua, a former party official and political scholar who co-authored the manifesto with Mr. Liu, described the subversion charge as “absurd,” calling it “a violation of the Chinese Constitution’s guarantee of free speech.” Mr. Zhang was briefly detained last year and has since been under 24-hour surveillance by security personnel.
The state-controlled media has not covered Mr. Liu’s trial — nor has it allowed any mention of Charter 08 — but Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, published a brief item Friday that described the sentence and said the court “had strictly followed the legal procedures in this case and fully protected Liu’s litigation rights.”
News of his sentencing quickly spread via Twitter, which is blocked in China but can be accessed by those able to circumvent the so-called Great Firewall. Many of those who sent messages displayed the image of a yellow ribbon as a declaration of their sympathies. Others defiantly listed personal details about the presiding judge in the case.
At least two dozen supporters who stood outside the courthouse during Mr. Liu’s trial on Wednesday were later questioned and released.
Liu Di, a signer of Charter 08, was among a handful of people who publicly declared their desire to stand trial with Liu Xiaobo.
“For the dignity of the Constitution and the law, and for no more imprisonment of people for their independent opinions, I would prefer to share with Mr. Liu Xiaobo the same case with the same penalty,” wrote Ms. Liu, a blogger better known by her online identity, the Stainless Steel Mouse.
On Friday, officials allowed the defendant and his wife to meet for 10 minutes in a small room, although they were divided by a glass barrier. It was the third time they had seen each other since his detention last year.
“People always say they’re so inhumane,” she said of the government afterward, “so I think they just wanted to show a little humanity.”
Jonathan Ansfield contributed reporting.
Hard-Line Rise Alters View of Iran’s Nuclear Ambition
Hard-Line Rise Alters View of Iran’s Nuclear Ambition
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
Cooyright by The New York Times
Published: December 24, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/25/world/middleeast/25iran.html?hp
CAIRO — Until Iran’s current political crisis, Iranian experts largely agreed that the Islamic republic wanted to develop the capacity to build nuclear weapons, without actually producing them.
Now, not everyone is so sure.
The main reason for the shift in thinking is the rise of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as the most powerful decision-making bloc in the country. But the change is also a result of the political struggle among the elite, which has upended previous assessments about Iran’s decision-making process, silenced more pragmatic voices and made it nearly impossible for anyone to support nuclear cooperation without being accused of capitulating to the West.
This move toward a harder line has stymied President Obama’s attempts to open a new channel of communication with the Iranian leadership. And now, having set a year-end deadline for Iran to cooperate, the United States and its Western allies seem likely to seek to impose tougher sanctions on Iran, a step that some analysts fear could enable the more radical forces to monopolize power, at least in the short term.
“A Revolutionary Guards-dominated state that we have witnessed since the presidential election has proven to be a lot less prudent, and a whole lot more violent, than what was the ordinary behavior of the Islamic Republic of Iran before,” said Rasool Nafisi, an Iran researcher in Virginia who co-wrote a report on the Revolutionary Guards for the RAND Corporation. “One should calculate the impact of such a state on nuclear development with more caution.”
That is not to say that Iran is necessarily preparing to drop out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty or to make a bomb and declare itself a nuclear weapons state, the way North Korea did. But Iranians who support full-on confrontation with the West have the upper hand in the country’s public debate and decision making at the moment, Iran experts and European diplomats said.
Hossein Shariatmadari, editor of Kayhan, the newspaper that serves as a bulletin board for Iran’s supreme leader and the most radical forces in the Revolutionary Guards, wrote last month that “under the circumstances, is it possible to still argue that Iran’s membership” in the treaty is prudent? “Isn’t it wise, honorable and expedient to withdraw from the treaty instead?” he continued. “Why not?!”
It is not clear what the West can do about the problem.
While the type of new sanctions under consideration and the willingness of China and Russia to impose them are still uncertain, some Iran experts and diplomats are skeptical that they can reverse the country’s evolution toward a more militarized and radical leadership. Some fear that a sharper confrontation with the West could even accelerate that process.
“The idea, of course, is to see whether sanctions can contribute to setting in motion an internal political shift,” said a European diplomat with many years of service in Iran who insisted on anonymity in keeping with diplomatic protocol. “But that is doubtful.” The diplomat said the government had shifted from cynical authoritarianism to radical repression.
Iran has not so far embraced the North Korea model of renouncing the nonproliferation treaty and bargaining with the outside world as a self-declared nuclear weapons state. But there are concerns that the leadership in Tehran is feeling so paranoid and vulnerable because of the internal divisions that if pushed, it might head in that direction.
“The aftermath of the election has isolated them,” said Muhammad Sahimi, an Iran expert who closely follows events through a network of friends there. “They are under tremendous pressure, both internally and externally. They also are not sure whether they can count on unified support of the people if attacked militarily, due to what has happened.”
Iran would still have a great deal to lose by formally dropping out of the treaty and declining to negotiate with the West, and some experts say they still doubt that the embattled leadership will take that step.
Pulling out would undermine Iran’s central claim that its nuclear program is peaceful in nature. It might also erode the willingness of China and Russia to continue to support Iran at the United Nations Security Council, and it might encourage Israel to wage a military strike with the silent approval of the West, experts said. It would also commit Iran to the most radical path and use up a powerful point of leverage for future negotiations, they said.
“As long as Tehran can cast the issue as one of imperialists trying to deny their rights to nuclear technology, Iran gets the support of a significant swath of the developing world,” said Mark Fitzpatrick, a senior fellow for nonproliferation with the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
In the best of times, reading Iran’s intentions is difficult, because while there were elected institutions full of public debate, the most important decisions were forged in secret by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, his aides and a core of the political elite. But the political crisis appears to have diminished the process of consultation by neutralizing some of the nation’s most powerful figures. Among them are Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president, and on the nuclear issue, even the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
In the opportunistic, factionalized postelection environment, Mr. Ahmadinejad has emerged as a voice of pragmatism on the nuclear issue, in relative terms, while so-called pragmatic conservatives, like Ali Larijani, the speaker of Parliament, and even reformers, like Mir Hussein Moussavi, who lost the election to Mr. Ahmadinejad, have opposed an agreement with the West that was under discussion in the fall.
Mr. Ahmadinejad, who has said that it is time to cooperate, seemed to favor a deal struck by Iranian negotiators during talks in Geneva in October. They agreed to send much of Iran’s low-enriched uranium to Russia, and then France, where it would be converted to fuel rods. The rods, which could be used to power a medical reactor but would be difficult to covert into weapons fuel, would then be sent to Iran. The West accepted the idea because it would have delayed, by about a year, Iran’s ability to make a bomb.
But once the deal was announced, Mr. Ahmadinejad’s political enemies back home attacked him, eager to undermine his credibility and legitimacy with the same blunt instrument he had used for so long against his political rivals, the nuclear issue.
“Given divisions within the ranks — the first time that real power brokers are divided, and that is something Obama has achieved with the Geneva deal much more so than street protests — the leadership knows that it does not want to conclude a deal,” said a Washington-based Iran expert who asked not to be identified because he sometimes visits Iran.
In this environment, Mr. Larijani, who is close to the supreme leader and whose family has close ties to the most influential clergy members in the country, raised the prospect of abandoning the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty altogether.
“Those who seek peaceful nuclear technology should continue to do so without any attention to the treaty because it does nothing but complicate matters even more,” Mr. Larijani said, according to Iran’s semiofficial ILNA news service.
Mr. Ahmadinejad has tried to regroup, with his government insisting that it is still ready to agree to turn over much of its low-enriched uranium, but on its own terms, which the West has already rejected. The government has also insisted that Iran will not withdraw from the treaty.
In the past, Iran’s equivocating would be seen as a strategy aimed at dividing the West from Russia and China. But while that is probably part of the explanation, there is a general sense that it also reflects the inability of such a fractured nation to reach a firm decision on the issue. The question the West needs to calculate is, What will that decision ultimately be?
“A majority of analysts believe that Iran will stop short of making a bomb but would like to be bomb-ready,” said Mr. Nafisi, the researcher in Virginia. “But I think it depends a lot on the political situation when Iran has enough fissile materials to build a bomb.”
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
Cooyright by The New York Times
Published: December 24, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/25/world/middleeast/25iran.html?hp
CAIRO — Until Iran’s current political crisis, Iranian experts largely agreed that the Islamic republic wanted to develop the capacity to build nuclear weapons, without actually producing them.
Now, not everyone is so sure.
The main reason for the shift in thinking is the rise of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as the most powerful decision-making bloc in the country. But the change is also a result of the political struggle among the elite, which has upended previous assessments about Iran’s decision-making process, silenced more pragmatic voices and made it nearly impossible for anyone to support nuclear cooperation without being accused of capitulating to the West.
This move toward a harder line has stymied President Obama’s attempts to open a new channel of communication with the Iranian leadership. And now, having set a year-end deadline for Iran to cooperate, the United States and its Western allies seem likely to seek to impose tougher sanctions on Iran, a step that some analysts fear could enable the more radical forces to monopolize power, at least in the short term.
“A Revolutionary Guards-dominated state that we have witnessed since the presidential election has proven to be a lot less prudent, and a whole lot more violent, than what was the ordinary behavior of the Islamic Republic of Iran before,” said Rasool Nafisi, an Iran researcher in Virginia who co-wrote a report on the Revolutionary Guards for the RAND Corporation. “One should calculate the impact of such a state on nuclear development with more caution.”
That is not to say that Iran is necessarily preparing to drop out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty or to make a bomb and declare itself a nuclear weapons state, the way North Korea did. But Iranians who support full-on confrontation with the West have the upper hand in the country’s public debate and decision making at the moment, Iran experts and European diplomats said.
Hossein Shariatmadari, editor of Kayhan, the newspaper that serves as a bulletin board for Iran’s supreme leader and the most radical forces in the Revolutionary Guards, wrote last month that “under the circumstances, is it possible to still argue that Iran’s membership” in the treaty is prudent? “Isn’t it wise, honorable and expedient to withdraw from the treaty instead?” he continued. “Why not?!”
It is not clear what the West can do about the problem.
While the type of new sanctions under consideration and the willingness of China and Russia to impose them are still uncertain, some Iran experts and diplomats are skeptical that they can reverse the country’s evolution toward a more militarized and radical leadership. Some fear that a sharper confrontation with the West could even accelerate that process.
“The idea, of course, is to see whether sanctions can contribute to setting in motion an internal political shift,” said a European diplomat with many years of service in Iran who insisted on anonymity in keeping with diplomatic protocol. “But that is doubtful.” The diplomat said the government had shifted from cynical authoritarianism to radical repression.
Iran has not so far embraced the North Korea model of renouncing the nonproliferation treaty and bargaining with the outside world as a self-declared nuclear weapons state. But there are concerns that the leadership in Tehran is feeling so paranoid and vulnerable because of the internal divisions that if pushed, it might head in that direction.
“The aftermath of the election has isolated them,” said Muhammad Sahimi, an Iran expert who closely follows events through a network of friends there. “They are under tremendous pressure, both internally and externally. They also are not sure whether they can count on unified support of the people if attacked militarily, due to what has happened.”
Iran would still have a great deal to lose by formally dropping out of the treaty and declining to negotiate with the West, and some experts say they still doubt that the embattled leadership will take that step.
Pulling out would undermine Iran’s central claim that its nuclear program is peaceful in nature. It might also erode the willingness of China and Russia to continue to support Iran at the United Nations Security Council, and it might encourage Israel to wage a military strike with the silent approval of the West, experts said. It would also commit Iran to the most radical path and use up a powerful point of leverage for future negotiations, they said.
“As long as Tehran can cast the issue as one of imperialists trying to deny their rights to nuclear technology, Iran gets the support of a significant swath of the developing world,” said Mark Fitzpatrick, a senior fellow for nonproliferation with the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
In the best of times, reading Iran’s intentions is difficult, because while there were elected institutions full of public debate, the most important decisions were forged in secret by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, his aides and a core of the political elite. But the political crisis appears to have diminished the process of consultation by neutralizing some of the nation’s most powerful figures. Among them are Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president, and on the nuclear issue, even the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
In the opportunistic, factionalized postelection environment, Mr. Ahmadinejad has emerged as a voice of pragmatism on the nuclear issue, in relative terms, while so-called pragmatic conservatives, like Ali Larijani, the speaker of Parliament, and even reformers, like Mir Hussein Moussavi, who lost the election to Mr. Ahmadinejad, have opposed an agreement with the West that was under discussion in the fall.
Mr. Ahmadinejad, who has said that it is time to cooperate, seemed to favor a deal struck by Iranian negotiators during talks in Geneva in October. They agreed to send much of Iran’s low-enriched uranium to Russia, and then France, where it would be converted to fuel rods. The rods, which could be used to power a medical reactor but would be difficult to covert into weapons fuel, would then be sent to Iran. The West accepted the idea because it would have delayed, by about a year, Iran’s ability to make a bomb.
But once the deal was announced, Mr. Ahmadinejad’s political enemies back home attacked him, eager to undermine his credibility and legitimacy with the same blunt instrument he had used for so long against his political rivals, the nuclear issue.
“Given divisions within the ranks — the first time that real power brokers are divided, and that is something Obama has achieved with the Geneva deal much more so than street protests — the leadership knows that it does not want to conclude a deal,” said a Washington-based Iran expert who asked not to be identified because he sometimes visits Iran.
In this environment, Mr. Larijani, who is close to the supreme leader and whose family has close ties to the most influential clergy members in the country, raised the prospect of abandoning the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty altogether.
“Those who seek peaceful nuclear technology should continue to do so without any attention to the treaty because it does nothing but complicate matters even more,” Mr. Larijani said, according to Iran’s semiofficial ILNA news service.
Mr. Ahmadinejad has tried to regroup, with his government insisting that it is still ready to agree to turn over much of its low-enriched uranium, but on its own terms, which the West has already rejected. The government has also insisted that Iran will not withdraw from the treaty.
In the past, Iran’s equivocating would be seen as a strategy aimed at dividing the West from Russia and China. But while that is probably part of the explanation, there is a general sense that it also reflects the inability of such a fractured nation to reach a firm decision on the issue. The question the West needs to calculate is, What will that decision ultimately be?
“A majority of analysts believe that Iran will stop short of making a bomb but would like to be bomb-ready,” said Mr. Nafisi, the researcher in Virginia. “But I think it depends a lot on the political situation when Iran has enough fissile materials to build a bomb.”
Senate Passes Health Care Overhaul on Party-Line Vote
Senate Passes Health Care Overhaul on Party-Line Vote
By ROBERT PEAR
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: December 24, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/25/health/policy/25health.html?_r=1&th&emc=th The New York Times
WASHINGTON — The Senate voted Thursday to reinvent the nation’s health care system, passing a bill to guarantee access to health insurance for tens of millions of Americans and to rein in health costs.
The 60-to-39 party-line vote, starting at 7:05 a.m. on the 25th straight day of debate on the legislation, brings Democrats closer to a goal they have pursued for decades and brings President Obama a step closer to success in his signature domestic initiative. When the roll was called, with Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. presiding, it was the first time the Senate had gathered for a vote on Christmas Eve since 1895.
If the bill becomes law, it would be a milestone in social policy, comparable to the creation of Social Security in 1935 and Medicare in 1965. But unlike those programs, the initiative lacks bipartisan support. Only one Republican supported a broadly similar bill that the House approved last month 220 to 215, and no Republicans backed the Senate version.
After the vote, lawmakers and Mr. Obama wasted no time leaving for their holiday break, well aware that their return to Washington would mean plunging into negotiations to reconcile the measures passed by the two chambers.
If a deal can be struck, as seems likely, the resulting law would vastly expand the role and responsibilities of the federal government. It would, as lawmakers said repeatedly in the debate, touch the lives of nearly all Americans.
The bill would require most Americans to have health insurance, would add 15 million people to the Medicaid rolls and would subsidize private coverage for low- and middle-income people, at a cost to the government of $871 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
The budget office estimates that the bill would provide coverage to 31 million uninsured people, but still leave 23 million uninsured in 2019. One-third of those remaining uninsured would be illegal immigrants.
Mr. Obama hailed the Senate action. “We are now incredibly close to making health insurance reform a reality,” he said, before leaving the White House to celebrate Christmas in Hawaii.
The president, who endorsed the Senate and House bills, said he would be deeply involved in trying to help the two chambers work out their differences. But it is unclear how specific he will be — if, for example, he will push for one type of tax over another or try to concoct a compromise on insurance coverage for abortion.
Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, a moderate Republican who has spent years working with Democrats on health care and other issues, said she was “extremely disappointed” with the bill’s evolution in recent weeks. After Senate Democrats locked up 60 votes within their caucus, she said, “there was zero opportunity to amend the bill or modify it, and Democrats had no incentive to reach across the aisle.”
Like many Republicans, Ms. Snowe was troubled by new taxes and fees in the bill, which she said could have “a dampening effect on job creation and job preservation.” The bill would increase the Medicare payroll tax on high-income people and levy a new excise tax on high-premium insurance policies, as one way to control costs.
When the roll was called Thursday morning, the mood was solemn as senators called out “aye” or “no.” Senator Robert C. Byrd, the 92-year-old Democrat from West Virginia, deviated slightly from the protocol.
“This is for my friend Ted Kennedy,” Mr. Byrd said. “Aye!”
Senator Kennedy of Massachusetts, a longtime champion of universal health care, died of brain cancer in August at age 77.
Senator Jim Bunning, Republican of Kentucky, did not vote.
The fight on Capitol Hill prefigures a larger political battle that is likely to play out in the elections of 2010 and 2012, as Democrats try to persuade a skeptical public of the bill’s merits, while Republicans warn that it will drive up costs for those who already have insurance.
“Our members are leaving happy and upbeat,” said the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. “The public is on our side. This fight is not over.”
After struggling for years to expand health insurance in modest, incremental ways, Democrats decided this year that they could not let another opportunity slip away. As usual, lawmakers were deluged with appeals from lobbyists for health care interests who have stymied similar ambitious efforts in the past. But this year was different.
Lawmakers listened to countless stories of hardship told by constituents who had been denied insurance, lost coverage when they got sick or seen their premiums soar. Hostility to the insurance industry was a theme throughout the Senate debate.
Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, said insurance companies were often “just one step ahead of the sheriff.” Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, said the industry “lacks a moral compass.” And Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, said the business model of the industry “deserves a stake through its cold and greedy heart.”
The bill would establish strict federal standards for an industry that, since its inception, has been regulated mainly by the states. Under it, insurers could not deny coverage because of a person’s medical condition; could not charge higher premiums because of a person’s sex or health status; and could not rescind coverage when a person became sick or disabled. The government would, in effect, limit insurers’ profits by requiring them to spend at least 80 to 85 cents of every premium dollar on health care.
The specificity of federal standards is illustrated by one section of the bill, which requires insurers to issue a benefits summary that “does not exceed four pages in length and does not include print smaller than 12-point font.”
Another force propelling health legislation through the Senate was the Democrats’ view that it was a moral imperative and an economic necessity.
“The health insurance policies of America, what we have right now is a moral disgrace,” said Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa. “We are called upon to right a great injustice, a great wrong that has been put upon the American people.”
Costs of the bill would, according to the Congressional Budget Office, be more than offset by new taxes and fees and by savings in Medicare. The bill would squeeze nearly a half-trillion dollars from Medicare over the next 10 years, mainly by reducing the growth of payments to hospitals, nursing homes, Medicare Advantage plans and other providers.
Republicans asserted that the cuts would hurt Medicare beneficiaries. But AARP, the lobby for older Americans, and the American Medical Association ran an advertisement urging senators to pass the bill, under which Medicare would cover more of the cost for prescription drugs and preventive health services.
Karen M. Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group, said the bill appeared to be unstoppable. But she added: “We are not sure it will be workable. It could disrupt existing coverage for families, seniors and small businesses, particularly between now and when the legislation is fully implemented in 2014.”
By ROBERT PEAR
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: December 24, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/25/health/policy/25health.html?_r=1&th&emc=th The New York Times
WASHINGTON — The Senate voted Thursday to reinvent the nation’s health care system, passing a bill to guarantee access to health insurance for tens of millions of Americans and to rein in health costs.
The 60-to-39 party-line vote, starting at 7:05 a.m. on the 25th straight day of debate on the legislation, brings Democrats closer to a goal they have pursued for decades and brings President Obama a step closer to success in his signature domestic initiative. When the roll was called, with Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. presiding, it was the first time the Senate had gathered for a vote on Christmas Eve since 1895.
If the bill becomes law, it would be a milestone in social policy, comparable to the creation of Social Security in 1935 and Medicare in 1965. But unlike those programs, the initiative lacks bipartisan support. Only one Republican supported a broadly similar bill that the House approved last month 220 to 215, and no Republicans backed the Senate version.
After the vote, lawmakers and Mr. Obama wasted no time leaving for their holiday break, well aware that their return to Washington would mean plunging into negotiations to reconcile the measures passed by the two chambers.
If a deal can be struck, as seems likely, the resulting law would vastly expand the role and responsibilities of the federal government. It would, as lawmakers said repeatedly in the debate, touch the lives of nearly all Americans.
The bill would require most Americans to have health insurance, would add 15 million people to the Medicaid rolls and would subsidize private coverage for low- and middle-income people, at a cost to the government of $871 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
The budget office estimates that the bill would provide coverage to 31 million uninsured people, but still leave 23 million uninsured in 2019. One-third of those remaining uninsured would be illegal immigrants.
Mr. Obama hailed the Senate action. “We are now incredibly close to making health insurance reform a reality,” he said, before leaving the White House to celebrate Christmas in Hawaii.
The president, who endorsed the Senate and House bills, said he would be deeply involved in trying to help the two chambers work out their differences. But it is unclear how specific he will be — if, for example, he will push for one type of tax over another or try to concoct a compromise on insurance coverage for abortion.
Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, a moderate Republican who has spent years working with Democrats on health care and other issues, said she was “extremely disappointed” with the bill’s evolution in recent weeks. After Senate Democrats locked up 60 votes within their caucus, she said, “there was zero opportunity to amend the bill or modify it, and Democrats had no incentive to reach across the aisle.”
Like many Republicans, Ms. Snowe was troubled by new taxes and fees in the bill, which she said could have “a dampening effect on job creation and job preservation.” The bill would increase the Medicare payroll tax on high-income people and levy a new excise tax on high-premium insurance policies, as one way to control costs.
When the roll was called Thursday morning, the mood was solemn as senators called out “aye” or “no.” Senator Robert C. Byrd, the 92-year-old Democrat from West Virginia, deviated slightly from the protocol.
“This is for my friend Ted Kennedy,” Mr. Byrd said. “Aye!”
Senator Kennedy of Massachusetts, a longtime champion of universal health care, died of brain cancer in August at age 77.
Senator Jim Bunning, Republican of Kentucky, did not vote.
The fight on Capitol Hill prefigures a larger political battle that is likely to play out in the elections of 2010 and 2012, as Democrats try to persuade a skeptical public of the bill’s merits, while Republicans warn that it will drive up costs for those who already have insurance.
“Our members are leaving happy and upbeat,” said the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. “The public is on our side. This fight is not over.”
After struggling for years to expand health insurance in modest, incremental ways, Democrats decided this year that they could not let another opportunity slip away. As usual, lawmakers were deluged with appeals from lobbyists for health care interests who have stymied similar ambitious efforts in the past. But this year was different.
Lawmakers listened to countless stories of hardship told by constituents who had been denied insurance, lost coverage when they got sick or seen their premiums soar. Hostility to the insurance industry was a theme throughout the Senate debate.
Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, said insurance companies were often “just one step ahead of the sheriff.” Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, said the industry “lacks a moral compass.” And Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, said the business model of the industry “deserves a stake through its cold and greedy heart.”
The bill would establish strict federal standards for an industry that, since its inception, has been regulated mainly by the states. Under it, insurers could not deny coverage because of a person’s medical condition; could not charge higher premiums because of a person’s sex or health status; and could not rescind coverage when a person became sick or disabled. The government would, in effect, limit insurers’ profits by requiring them to spend at least 80 to 85 cents of every premium dollar on health care.
The specificity of federal standards is illustrated by one section of the bill, which requires insurers to issue a benefits summary that “does not exceed four pages in length and does not include print smaller than 12-point font.”
Another force propelling health legislation through the Senate was the Democrats’ view that it was a moral imperative and an economic necessity.
“The health insurance policies of America, what we have right now is a moral disgrace,” said Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa. “We are called upon to right a great injustice, a great wrong that has been put upon the American people.”
Costs of the bill would, according to the Congressional Budget Office, be more than offset by new taxes and fees and by savings in Medicare. The bill would squeeze nearly a half-trillion dollars from Medicare over the next 10 years, mainly by reducing the growth of payments to hospitals, nursing homes, Medicare Advantage plans and other providers.
Republicans asserted that the cuts would hurt Medicare beneficiaries. But AARP, the lobby for older Americans, and the American Medical Association ran an advertisement urging senators to pass the bill, under which Medicare would cover more of the cost for prescription drugs and preventive health services.
Karen M. Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group, said the bill appeared to be unstoppable. But she added: “We are not sure it will be workable. It could disrupt existing coverage for families, seniors and small businesses, particularly between now and when the legislation is fully implemented in 2014.”
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Friends, foes frown on Steele's paid speeches
Friends, foes frown on Steele's paid speeches
By Perry Bacon Jr.
Copyright by The Washington Post
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/22/AR2009122203689.html?wpisrc=nl_pmpolitics
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele drew bipartisan criticism Tuesday after it was revealed that he is giving paid speeches, at up to $20,000 apiece, while still holding his full-time post as party head.
The former Maryland lieutenant governor, who was elected chairman of the party in January, has given a dozen speeches to corporate boards and colleges while collecting a salary of $223,500 as the leader of the party, the Washington Times reported Tuesday.
Former RNC chairman Richard Bond said he was "shocked" by the news, while White House spokesman Robert Gibbs joked about it at Tuesday's briefing. Democrats said their current party chairman, Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, does not collect speaking fees.
Curt Anderson, a longtime adviser to Steele, said the party chairman has long worked as an "inspirational speaker" and continued to do so after taking the helm of the RNC. Steele had made much of his income through speaking engagements and as a lawyer before taking over the RNC, Anderson said.
"When a state party calls or a coalition group calls, or a candidate calls, none of those are paid speeches," Anderson said, adding: "The suggestion that he is less than a full-time chairman is crazy."
Former Republican Party chairman and former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore said on C-SPAN, "It's not uncommon for people to have some outside employment as well as being paid as national chairman." The interview was circulated to reporters by Steele aides.
Marc Racicot, who chaired the Republican Party from 2002 to 2003, eschewed the party chairman's salary during his tenure to remain on the payroll of a law firm where he worked, although he stopped lobbying while leading the RNC.
A number of top Republicans, both in and out of Washington, declined to comment publicly on the matter but privately noted the conundrum of Steele: Tapped for the job in January by a party eager to have a charismatic African American as one of its main public figures, he has become a lightning rod for controversy.
Remarks earlier in his tenure drew sharp attacks from Republican figures such as talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who urged Steele to focus more on fundraising and winning elections.
"I don't want to criticize one of my own," said Bond, who was party chairman in 1992 and 1993. "He's had a very difficult time."
Some strategists suggest that Steele has been weakened as a party spokesman through some of his comments, including a remark Monday that Democrats were "flipping the bird" at Americans by pushing health-care legislation through the Senate.
At the same time, even those critical of Steele acknowledge that Republican gubernatorial wins in Virginia and New Jersey last month, both aided by Steele's fundraising, have bolstered confidence in his leadership.
"The races in New Jersey and Virginia were a tide change for the Republican Party," said Katon Dawson, the ex-chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party. Dawson, who lost in the chairman's race to Steele, said "he'll be judged by the midterms."
One member of the RNC, which has representatives from each state, said privately that Steele's speeches were a "bad idea" but predicted they would have little impact on his keeping the chairmanship until the end of his two-year term next year. The full committee, which will meet in January in Honolulu, could pass a resolution curtailing Steele's ability to give speeches or even consider replacing him, but is unlikely to do so.
By Perry Bacon Jr.
Copyright by The Washington Post
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/22/AR2009122203689.html?wpisrc=nl_pmpolitics
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele drew bipartisan criticism Tuesday after it was revealed that he is giving paid speeches, at up to $20,000 apiece, while still holding his full-time post as party head.
The former Maryland lieutenant governor, who was elected chairman of the party in January, has given a dozen speeches to corporate boards and colleges while collecting a salary of $223,500 as the leader of the party, the Washington Times reported Tuesday.
Former RNC chairman Richard Bond said he was "shocked" by the news, while White House spokesman Robert Gibbs joked about it at Tuesday's briefing. Democrats said their current party chairman, Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, does not collect speaking fees.
Curt Anderson, a longtime adviser to Steele, said the party chairman has long worked as an "inspirational speaker" and continued to do so after taking the helm of the RNC. Steele had made much of his income through speaking engagements and as a lawyer before taking over the RNC, Anderson said.
"When a state party calls or a coalition group calls, or a candidate calls, none of those are paid speeches," Anderson said, adding: "The suggestion that he is less than a full-time chairman is crazy."
Former Republican Party chairman and former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore said on C-SPAN, "It's not uncommon for people to have some outside employment as well as being paid as national chairman." The interview was circulated to reporters by Steele aides.
Marc Racicot, who chaired the Republican Party from 2002 to 2003, eschewed the party chairman's salary during his tenure to remain on the payroll of a law firm where he worked, although he stopped lobbying while leading the RNC.
A number of top Republicans, both in and out of Washington, declined to comment publicly on the matter but privately noted the conundrum of Steele: Tapped for the job in January by a party eager to have a charismatic African American as one of its main public figures, he has become a lightning rod for controversy.
Remarks earlier in his tenure drew sharp attacks from Republican figures such as talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who urged Steele to focus more on fundraising and winning elections.
"I don't want to criticize one of my own," said Bond, who was party chairman in 1992 and 1993. "He's had a very difficult time."
Some strategists suggest that Steele has been weakened as a party spokesman through some of his comments, including a remark Monday that Democrats were "flipping the bird" at Americans by pushing health-care legislation through the Senate.
At the same time, even those critical of Steele acknowledge that Republican gubernatorial wins in Virginia and New Jersey last month, both aided by Steele's fundraising, have bolstered confidence in his leadership.
"The races in New Jersey and Virginia were a tide change for the Republican Party," said Katon Dawson, the ex-chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party. Dawson, who lost in the chairman's race to Steele, said "he'll be judged by the midterms."
One member of the RNC, which has representatives from each state, said privately that Steele's speeches were a "bad idea" but predicted they would have little impact on his keeping the chairmanship until the end of his two-year term next year. The full committee, which will meet in January in Honolulu, could pass a resolution curtailing Steele's ability to give speeches or even consider replacing him, but is unlikely to do so.
GOVERNOR PATERSON SIGNS GENDER IDENTITY AND EXPRESSION EXECUTIVE ORDER
GOVERNOR PATERSON SIGNS GENDER IDENTITY AND EXPRESSION EXECUTIVE ORDER
December 16, 2009
http://www.state.ny.us/governor/press/press_12160902.html
Executive Order Will Protect State Workers from Discrimination Based on Gender Identity
Governor David A. Paterson today signed Executive Order No. 33 that will prohibit New York State agencies from discriminating against any individual on the basis of gender identity and expression in any matter pertaining to employment by the State. Executive Order No. 33 directs the Office of Employee Relations, in consultation with the Executive Director of the Division of Human Rights, to develop and implement clear and consistent guidelines prohibiting gender identity and expression discrimination by all State agencies.
“For generations, New York has been a national leader on civil rights, yet the State has lagged far behind in securing basic civil rights for transgender New Yorkers. I am proud to sign this important measure to not only bring workforce protection to the transgender community under the law, but to bring greater equality and civil rights to the State of New York,” Governor Paterson said. “From now on, transgender New Yorkers will be protected from discrimination because of who they are.”
Currently, 13 states and over 90 municipalities and counties – including the City of New York – prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression by statute, and numerous others have imposed such a ban through executive action or policy.
In addition, there is no evidence that any such statute or policy has undermined in any way the functioning of a workplace, and to the contrary anti-discrimination practices are important tools to attract and retain competent and effective employees.
As a longtime civil rights activist, Governor Paterson has supported the LGBT community throughout his public service career, in addition to his support of marriage equality. Shortly after taking office in 2008, the Governor issued a memorandum directing State agencies to afford recognition to same-sex couples legally married outside of New York to the full extent permitted by law. In 2007, he walked the floor of the New York State Assembly in support of the marriage equality bill.
###
The following statements were provided in support of Executive Order No. 33:
Senate Majority Conference Leader John L. Sampson said: “For too long, transgender New Yorkers have been denied the basic rights and legal protections others enjoy. Today, New York joins a proud chorus of states, cities and counties across the country who are standing up for the transgender community by prohibiting baseless and inexcusable discrimination. I applaud Governor Paterson for his leadership on this issue and commitment to the civil rights and equal rights movement.”
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said: “By signing an executive order today banning discrimination by state agencies based on gender identity, Governor Paterson has made it unmistakably clear that New York has zero tolerance for discrimination. He has joined with the Assembly Majority, which has consistently supported equal rights, equal benefits and privileges, and equal protection under the law for all New Yorkers including members of the LGBT community. We hope this important step will help transgender New Yorkers to live their lives openly and without fear.”
Senator Thomas K. Duane said: “Governor Paterson deserves great credit for once again demonstrating his commitment to the entire LGBT community. He has carried the cause of transgender rights very far on his own today by prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression for employees of New York State agencies. Now, we must redouble our efforts to pass The Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA), which would ban discrimination against transgender and gender non-conforming people across New York State in housing, employment, credit, public accommodations, and other areas of everyday life. I have been pushing for this measure since 2002 when then Senate Minority Leader-Paterson and I fought for its inclusion in The Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act (SONDA) and we will not stop working until equal protection under the law is a reality for all New Yorkers.”
Assemblyman Richard N. Gottfried said: “Governor Paterson knows that working for the people means all the people, including transgender New Yorkers. His executive order will protect State government employees against discrimination in their workplace and help lead the way for enacting GENDA – the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act – which would extend New York’s anti-discrimination laws to protect transgender people.”
Assemblywoman Deborah Glick said: “I congratulate and thank Governor Paterson for signing this executive order to end discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression. The modern gay rights movement began with the Stonewall Riots in 1969, and members of the transgender community played a key role in that rebellion. While we have gone on to see many anti-discrimination laws enacted, the transgender community continues to face more discrimination and the most severe hate violence. This is a significant signal that New York State will not tolerate bias.”
Assemblyman Micah Z. Kellner said: “Discrimination against the transgender community - and against people that may not identify as such, but don’t look the way people expect them to - is unacceptable, but all too common. In this difficult economy, workers have enough problems without having to worry that they could lose their job due to bigotry without legal recourse. I am proud to stand next to Governor Paterson today and be part of this important announcement that protects our state employees. Soon, I hope the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) will pass both houses of the legislature, so that all New Yorkers may enjoy these protections.”
Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell said: “I applaud Governor Paterson for taking bold action to ensure that transgender individuals have additional protection against discrimination. No person should be denied employment or harassed on the job because of gender identity. This policy will benefit not only the transgender community, but all of New York State.”
Assemblyman Matthew Titone said: “Governor Paterson truly takes to heart that all people are created equal, and he has used the power of his office to ensure equal rights for all New Yorkers, including people of transgendered experience. We could all learn from the Governor’s example.”
New York City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn said: “Today, Governor Paterson took an important step in extending crucial employment protections to Transgender New Yorkers. This important Executive Order will bring workforce protection to the transgender community at all state agencies. I applaud the Governor for rightfully recognizing that government must use all the tools at its disposal to ensure our citizens are protected with full civil rights, be it by statute, executive order or policy. In 2002, NYC passed the Transgender Civil Rights bill, which outlaws discrimination in NYC based on gender identity and expression in all public accommodations. We call on the NY State Senate to act now and pass the Gender Employment Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA), as a first step towards full civil rights protections for Transgender New Yorkers.”
Michael Silverman, Executive Director of TLDEF, said: “Like everyone else, transgender employees deserve to be judged on their ability to do the job, and not on who they are. This executive order will ensure that hard-working transgender employees of New York State can work without fear of discrimination, and provide for themselves and their families. We applaud Governor Paterson for taking this important step for transgender equal rights, and for recognizing that transgender New Yorkers should have the chance to earn a living and provide for their families without being refused a job or fired for reasons that have nothing to do with their ability to do the job.”
Alan Van Capelle, Executive Director of the Empire State Pride Agenda, said: “Now transgender New Yorkers who work for the State will no longer have to worry about on-the-job discrimination simply because of who they are. This is a big step forward for the basic civil rights of transgender New Yorkers and we are extremely grateful for Governor Paterson’s leadership on this issue.”
Melissa Sklarz, Director of the New York Trans Rights Organization (NYTRO), said: “Being transgender can be hard and the journey difficult. But stability can be achieved with a roof over one’s head and a job to maintain it. The transgender community of New York thanks Governor Paterson for his leadership in recognizing that all New Yorkers need a stable workplace to create stable lives. Perhaps the legislature can follow his lead and pass GENDA to provide all trans New Yorkers basic civil rights and a legal identity.”
Pauline Park, Chair of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA), said: “Governor Paterson has taken an important step in helping members of the transgender community secure full legal equality under state law in New York, and we applaud him for this historic executive action. In extending protections from discrimination based on gender identity or expression in State employment, the Governor creates momentum for enactment of the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA). We in NYAGRA call on the State Senate to follow the Governor’s lead and take action on GENDA now.
December 16, 2009
http://www.state.ny.us/governor/press/press_12160902.html
Executive Order Will Protect State Workers from Discrimination Based on Gender Identity
Governor David A. Paterson today signed Executive Order No. 33 that will prohibit New York State agencies from discriminating against any individual on the basis of gender identity and expression in any matter pertaining to employment by the State. Executive Order No. 33 directs the Office of Employee Relations, in consultation with the Executive Director of the Division of Human Rights, to develop and implement clear and consistent guidelines prohibiting gender identity and expression discrimination by all State agencies.
“For generations, New York has been a national leader on civil rights, yet the State has lagged far behind in securing basic civil rights for transgender New Yorkers. I am proud to sign this important measure to not only bring workforce protection to the transgender community under the law, but to bring greater equality and civil rights to the State of New York,” Governor Paterson said. “From now on, transgender New Yorkers will be protected from discrimination because of who they are.”
Currently, 13 states and over 90 municipalities and counties – including the City of New York – prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression by statute, and numerous others have imposed such a ban through executive action or policy.
In addition, there is no evidence that any such statute or policy has undermined in any way the functioning of a workplace, and to the contrary anti-discrimination practices are important tools to attract and retain competent and effective employees.
As a longtime civil rights activist, Governor Paterson has supported the LGBT community throughout his public service career, in addition to his support of marriage equality. Shortly after taking office in 2008, the Governor issued a memorandum directing State agencies to afford recognition to same-sex couples legally married outside of New York to the full extent permitted by law. In 2007, he walked the floor of the New York State Assembly in support of the marriage equality bill.
###
The following statements were provided in support of Executive Order No. 33:
Senate Majority Conference Leader John L. Sampson said: “For too long, transgender New Yorkers have been denied the basic rights and legal protections others enjoy. Today, New York joins a proud chorus of states, cities and counties across the country who are standing up for the transgender community by prohibiting baseless and inexcusable discrimination. I applaud Governor Paterson for his leadership on this issue and commitment to the civil rights and equal rights movement.”
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said: “By signing an executive order today banning discrimination by state agencies based on gender identity, Governor Paterson has made it unmistakably clear that New York has zero tolerance for discrimination. He has joined with the Assembly Majority, which has consistently supported equal rights, equal benefits and privileges, and equal protection under the law for all New Yorkers including members of the LGBT community. We hope this important step will help transgender New Yorkers to live their lives openly and without fear.”
Senator Thomas K. Duane said: “Governor Paterson deserves great credit for once again demonstrating his commitment to the entire LGBT community. He has carried the cause of transgender rights very far on his own today by prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression for employees of New York State agencies. Now, we must redouble our efforts to pass The Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA), which would ban discrimination against transgender and gender non-conforming people across New York State in housing, employment, credit, public accommodations, and other areas of everyday life. I have been pushing for this measure since 2002 when then Senate Minority Leader-Paterson and I fought for its inclusion in The Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act (SONDA) and we will not stop working until equal protection under the law is a reality for all New Yorkers.”
Assemblyman Richard N. Gottfried said: “Governor Paterson knows that working for the people means all the people, including transgender New Yorkers. His executive order will protect State government employees against discrimination in their workplace and help lead the way for enacting GENDA – the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act – which would extend New York’s anti-discrimination laws to protect transgender people.”
Assemblywoman Deborah Glick said: “I congratulate and thank Governor Paterson for signing this executive order to end discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression. The modern gay rights movement began with the Stonewall Riots in 1969, and members of the transgender community played a key role in that rebellion. While we have gone on to see many anti-discrimination laws enacted, the transgender community continues to face more discrimination and the most severe hate violence. This is a significant signal that New York State will not tolerate bias.”
Assemblyman Micah Z. Kellner said: “Discrimination against the transgender community - and against people that may not identify as such, but don’t look the way people expect them to - is unacceptable, but all too common. In this difficult economy, workers have enough problems without having to worry that they could lose their job due to bigotry without legal recourse. I am proud to stand next to Governor Paterson today and be part of this important announcement that protects our state employees. Soon, I hope the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) will pass both houses of the legislature, so that all New Yorkers may enjoy these protections.”
Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell said: “I applaud Governor Paterson for taking bold action to ensure that transgender individuals have additional protection against discrimination. No person should be denied employment or harassed on the job because of gender identity. This policy will benefit not only the transgender community, but all of New York State.”
Assemblyman Matthew Titone said: “Governor Paterson truly takes to heart that all people are created equal, and he has used the power of his office to ensure equal rights for all New Yorkers, including people of transgendered experience. We could all learn from the Governor’s example.”
New York City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn said: “Today, Governor Paterson took an important step in extending crucial employment protections to Transgender New Yorkers. This important Executive Order will bring workforce protection to the transgender community at all state agencies. I applaud the Governor for rightfully recognizing that government must use all the tools at its disposal to ensure our citizens are protected with full civil rights, be it by statute, executive order or policy. In 2002, NYC passed the Transgender Civil Rights bill, which outlaws discrimination in NYC based on gender identity and expression in all public accommodations. We call on the NY State Senate to act now and pass the Gender Employment Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA), as a first step towards full civil rights protections for Transgender New Yorkers.”
Michael Silverman, Executive Director of TLDEF, said: “Like everyone else, transgender employees deserve to be judged on their ability to do the job, and not on who they are. This executive order will ensure that hard-working transgender employees of New York State can work without fear of discrimination, and provide for themselves and their families. We applaud Governor Paterson for taking this important step for transgender equal rights, and for recognizing that transgender New Yorkers should have the chance to earn a living and provide for their families without being refused a job or fired for reasons that have nothing to do with their ability to do the job.”
Alan Van Capelle, Executive Director of the Empire State Pride Agenda, said: “Now transgender New Yorkers who work for the State will no longer have to worry about on-the-job discrimination simply because of who they are. This is a big step forward for the basic civil rights of transgender New Yorkers and we are extremely grateful for Governor Paterson’s leadership on this issue.”
Melissa Sklarz, Director of the New York Trans Rights Organization (NYTRO), said: “Being transgender can be hard and the journey difficult. But stability can be achieved with a roof over one’s head and a job to maintain it. The transgender community of New York thanks Governor Paterson for his leadership in recognizing that all New Yorkers need a stable workplace to create stable lives. Perhaps the legislature can follow his lead and pass GENDA to provide all trans New Yorkers basic civil rights and a legal identity.”
Pauline Park, Chair of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA), said: “Governor Paterson has taken an important step in helping members of the transgender community secure full legal equality under state law in New York, and we applaud him for this historic executive action. In extending protections from discrimination based on gender identity or expression in State employment, the Governor creates momentum for enactment of the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA). We in NYAGRA call on the State Senate to follow the Governor’s lead and take action on GENDA now.
Wales rugby player Gareth Thomas announces he is gay
Wales rugby player Gareth Thomas announces he is gay
Copyright by Yahoo News
AFP - Sat, 19 Dec 10:18:00 2009
http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/19122009/58/wales-rugby-player-gareth-thomas-announces-gay.html
Buzz Up!
Wales rugby union legend Gareth Thomas has publicly announced he is gay, saying that living a double life had driven him to suicidal despair.
The Cardiff Blues full-back, 35, told the Daily Mail newspaper that keeping his sexuality a secret had made his adult life agony and feelings of guilt towards his wife Jemma plunged him into depression.
Former Wales and British and Irish Lions captain Thomas is one of the few top international sportsmen to say publicly that he is gay.
He is Wales' most-capped player with 100 appearances, and ninth in the all-time Test try scoring list with 41, including one from his three Lions caps.
"I've been through all sorts of emotions with this, tears, anger and absolute despair," he said. "I wasn't sure if I ever wanted to let people know and, to be honest, I feel anxious about people's reactions.
"It's been really tough for me, hiding who I really am, and I don't want it to be like that for the next young person who wants to play rugby, or some frightened young kid."
The former Bridgend and Toulouse back said he knew he was gay at the age of 16 or 17.
"I could never accept it because I knew I would never be accepted as a gay man and still achieve what I wanted to achieve in the game," he said.
"I became a master of disguise and could play the straight man down to a tee, sometimes over-compensating by getting into fights or being overly aggressive because I didn't want the real me to be found out. But when you withdraw into yourself you start to feel lonely, upset, ashamed."
He met future wife Jemma at a friend's 18th birthday party.
"I genuinely did love her. She was the nicest, most caring, understanding, prettiest girl I had ever met," he said. "It was such a confusing time because I had amazingly strong feelings for her, yet I knew I had taken who I was and put it in a little ball and pushed it in a corner."
The pair married in 2002. They separated in 2006 and their divorce is due to be finalised. The couple suffered three miscarriages.
"I used to pray as hard as I could. I would say to God: 'I have Jemma, I love her. Please take away these feelings that I have'," Thomas said.
He said inner pain and depression repeatedly led him to contemplate suicide by jumping off a cliff.
His marriage falling apart, in November 2006, at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff after a Wales game, Thomas broke down in the dressing room.
He confessed to Scott Johnson, a coach, who, thinking Thomas could do with the support, told his team-mates Stephen Jones and Martyn Williams.
"They came in, patted me on the back and said 'We don't care'," Thomas said. "Two of my best mates in rugby didn't even blink an eyelid."
Since then he has told his Cardiff Blues team-mates and it has not caused a problem.
"I don't want to be known as a gay rugby player. I am a rugby player first and foremost," Thomas said. "I am a man. I just happen to be gay. It's irrelevant. What I choose to do when I close the door at home has nothing to do with what I have achieved in rugby.
"It's pretty tough for me being the only international rugby player prepared to break the taboo. Statistically I can't be the only one, but I'm not aware of any other gay player still in the game.
"I'd love for it, in 10 years' time, not to even be an issue in sport, and for people to say: 'So what?'"
AFP
Copyright by Yahoo News
AFP - Sat, 19 Dec 10:18:00 2009
http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/19122009/58/wales-rugby-player-gareth-thomas-announces-gay.html
Buzz Up!
Wales rugby union legend Gareth Thomas has publicly announced he is gay, saying that living a double life had driven him to suicidal despair.
The Cardiff Blues full-back, 35, told the Daily Mail newspaper that keeping his sexuality a secret had made his adult life agony and feelings of guilt towards his wife Jemma plunged him into depression.
Former Wales and British and Irish Lions captain Thomas is one of the few top international sportsmen to say publicly that he is gay.
He is Wales' most-capped player with 100 appearances, and ninth in the all-time Test try scoring list with 41, including one from his three Lions caps.
"I've been through all sorts of emotions with this, tears, anger and absolute despair," he said. "I wasn't sure if I ever wanted to let people know and, to be honest, I feel anxious about people's reactions.
"It's been really tough for me, hiding who I really am, and I don't want it to be like that for the next young person who wants to play rugby, or some frightened young kid."
The former Bridgend and Toulouse back said he knew he was gay at the age of 16 or 17.
"I could never accept it because I knew I would never be accepted as a gay man and still achieve what I wanted to achieve in the game," he said.
"I became a master of disguise and could play the straight man down to a tee, sometimes over-compensating by getting into fights or being overly aggressive because I didn't want the real me to be found out. But when you withdraw into yourself you start to feel lonely, upset, ashamed."
He met future wife Jemma at a friend's 18th birthday party.
"I genuinely did love her. She was the nicest, most caring, understanding, prettiest girl I had ever met," he said. "It was such a confusing time because I had amazingly strong feelings for her, yet I knew I had taken who I was and put it in a little ball and pushed it in a corner."
The pair married in 2002. They separated in 2006 and their divorce is due to be finalised. The couple suffered three miscarriages.
"I used to pray as hard as I could. I would say to God: 'I have Jemma, I love her. Please take away these feelings that I have'," Thomas said.
He said inner pain and depression repeatedly led him to contemplate suicide by jumping off a cliff.
His marriage falling apart, in November 2006, at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff after a Wales game, Thomas broke down in the dressing room.
He confessed to Scott Johnson, a coach, who, thinking Thomas could do with the support, told his team-mates Stephen Jones and Martyn Williams.
"They came in, patted me on the back and said 'We don't care'," Thomas said. "Two of my best mates in rugby didn't even blink an eyelid."
Since then he has told his Cardiff Blues team-mates and it has not caused a problem.
"I don't want to be known as a gay rugby player. I am a rugby player first and foremost," Thomas said. "I am a man. I just happen to be gay. It's irrelevant. What I choose to do when I close the door at home has nothing to do with what I have achieved in rugby.
"It's pretty tough for me being the only international rugby player prepared to break the taboo. Statistically I can't be the only one, but I'm not aware of any other gay player still in the game.
"I'd love for it, in 10 years' time, not to even be an issue in sport, and for people to say: 'So what?'"
AFP
Views: The right's bogus war on Christmas
Views: The right's bogus war on Christmas
by Rev. Irene Monroe
Copyright by The Windy City Times
2009-12-23
http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/gay/lesbian/news/ARTICLE.php?AID=23910
What's in a greeting?
With Ramadan, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, winter solstice and Christmas all going on this time of year, one would think that an all-inclusive seasonal greeting emblematic of our nation's religious diversity would be embraced by us all with two simple words—Happy Holidays!
However, the season's greeting is the ongoing chapter in the culture war spearheaded in 2005 by what the Christian right calls the "War on Christmas."
Last month the American Family Association ( AFA ) boycotted Gap, Inc. about the censorship of their use of the term "Christmas." But Gap's television advertising campaign actually acknowledged all celebrations this time of year with a song that said, "Go Christmas, Go Hanukkah, Go Kwanzaa, Go solstice... go Christmas, go Hanukkah, go whatever holiday you Wannakuh"
In October 2008, AFA criticized hardware retailer Home Depot for using terms such as "holiday" and "Hanukkah" but not "Christmas."
AFA is one of the nation's watchdog organizations critiquing the censorship of the use of the term "Christmas" in media advertising. A conservative Christian organization headquartered in Tupelo, Miss., AFA proudly boasts "promoting the biblical ethic of decency in American society with primary emphasis on TV and other media."
But AFA isn't the only watchdog critiquing the censorship of the use of the term "Christmas."
Owner of Boss Creations, Martha Boss, is doing her part when it comes to trees.
Not liking the use of the term "holiday trees" Martha's attempt to put "Christ back into Christmas " is a simple matter of how you decorate your tree.
"We at Boss Creations believe that one way to do this is to decorate with more Christian-themed holiday decorations including The CHRIST-mas Tree. We have figured a way to enhance the tradition of decorating a tree for Jesus at Christmas by adding a cross that acts as a reminder of Him. By changing our tree to include a cross, we are making a statement that we want to keep our Christmas holiday!"
The decorated evergreen coniferous tree that has come to be known as the Christmas tree began in 16th-century northern Germany. And Martin Luther, the 16th-century Protestant reformer, was the first to add lighted candles to the tree.
But traditions are hard to let go of or to modify or even to expand to include our present-day religious landscape. For example, in 2005 when Nova Scotian tree farmer Donnie Hatt gave Boston its tree, Hatt told the Boston Globe that he "would rather have put the tree in a wood chipper than have it named a 'holiday' tree... Ever since I was born, a tree was put up for Christmas, not for holidays, because if you're going to do that you might as well put a tree up for Easter."
Bill O'Reilly, the Fox News anchor, would agree with Hatt. And on his show O'Reilly has talked up boycotts of retailers for not using the words "Merry Christmas."
In the 1970s, evangelical Christians were so outraged by the secularization and commercialism of Christmas that they were protesting to "put Christ back into Christmas." But now members of the Religious Right has flipped the script and want more commercialism for Christ, thus extolling materialism as piety.
These boycotts have little to do with the reverence for Christ's birth but rather it's a backlash against the religious multiculturalism of the holiday season. These attacks by the Right on stores like Gap and Home Depot use their economic clout to cripple stores for not showing commercial deference to Christmas.
And truth be told, Christian conservation organizations like AFA and businesses like Boss Creations are on the hunt for whomever they perceive to be "Christian haters" and "professional atheists" and will boycott all stores for using "Happy Holidays" in their advertising.
With the Rights "war on Christmas" against perceived "Christian haters" and "professional atheists" they view as the folks trying to abolish Christmas, the Right don't know of the folks who did. History, however, shows there was once an extreme group of Protestants who did—the Puritans. With the date of December 25 deriving from the Saturnalia, the Roman heathen's wintertime celebration, and with the date found nowhere in the bible stating it as the birthday of Jesus, the Puritan Parliament banned Christmas from 1659 until 1681.
As a Christian, I know that the central message of the birth of Christ for those like me who celebrate it is to embrace the celebration of human differences and diversity. And it is with this message that I know all people—religious and non-religious, straight and queer, Black and white—can be included to enjoy and to celebrate and to acknowledge this season with one simple greeting.
Happy Holidays!
by Rev. Irene Monroe
Copyright by The Windy City Times
2009-12-23
http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/gay/lesbian/news/ARTICLE.php?AID=23910
What's in a greeting?
With Ramadan, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, winter solstice and Christmas all going on this time of year, one would think that an all-inclusive seasonal greeting emblematic of our nation's religious diversity would be embraced by us all with two simple words—Happy Holidays!
However, the season's greeting is the ongoing chapter in the culture war spearheaded in 2005 by what the Christian right calls the "War on Christmas."
Last month the American Family Association ( AFA ) boycotted Gap, Inc. about the censorship of their use of the term "Christmas." But Gap's television advertising campaign actually acknowledged all celebrations this time of year with a song that said, "Go Christmas, Go Hanukkah, Go Kwanzaa, Go solstice... go Christmas, go Hanukkah, go whatever holiday you Wannakuh"
In October 2008, AFA criticized hardware retailer Home Depot for using terms such as "holiday" and "Hanukkah" but not "Christmas."
AFA is one of the nation's watchdog organizations critiquing the censorship of the use of the term "Christmas" in media advertising. A conservative Christian organization headquartered in Tupelo, Miss., AFA proudly boasts "promoting the biblical ethic of decency in American society with primary emphasis on TV and other media."
But AFA isn't the only watchdog critiquing the censorship of the use of the term "Christmas."
Owner of Boss Creations, Martha Boss, is doing her part when it comes to trees.
Not liking the use of the term "holiday trees" Martha's attempt to put "Christ back into Christmas " is a simple matter of how you decorate your tree.
"We at Boss Creations believe that one way to do this is to decorate with more Christian-themed holiday decorations including The CHRIST-mas Tree. We have figured a way to enhance the tradition of decorating a tree for Jesus at Christmas by adding a cross that acts as a reminder of Him. By changing our tree to include a cross, we are making a statement that we want to keep our Christmas holiday!"
The decorated evergreen coniferous tree that has come to be known as the Christmas tree began in 16th-century northern Germany. And Martin Luther, the 16th-century Protestant reformer, was the first to add lighted candles to the tree.
But traditions are hard to let go of or to modify or even to expand to include our present-day religious landscape. For example, in 2005 when Nova Scotian tree farmer Donnie Hatt gave Boston its tree, Hatt told the Boston Globe that he "would rather have put the tree in a wood chipper than have it named a 'holiday' tree... Ever since I was born, a tree was put up for Christmas, not for holidays, because if you're going to do that you might as well put a tree up for Easter."
Bill O'Reilly, the Fox News anchor, would agree with Hatt. And on his show O'Reilly has talked up boycotts of retailers for not using the words "Merry Christmas."
In the 1970s, evangelical Christians were so outraged by the secularization and commercialism of Christmas that they were protesting to "put Christ back into Christmas." But now members of the Religious Right has flipped the script and want more commercialism for Christ, thus extolling materialism as piety.
These boycotts have little to do with the reverence for Christ's birth but rather it's a backlash against the religious multiculturalism of the holiday season. These attacks by the Right on stores like Gap and Home Depot use their economic clout to cripple stores for not showing commercial deference to Christmas.
And truth be told, Christian conservation organizations like AFA and businesses like Boss Creations are on the hunt for whomever they perceive to be "Christian haters" and "professional atheists" and will boycott all stores for using "Happy Holidays" in their advertising.
With the Rights "war on Christmas" against perceived "Christian haters" and "professional atheists" they view as the folks trying to abolish Christmas, the Right don't know of the folks who did. History, however, shows there was once an extreme group of Protestants who did—the Puritans. With the date of December 25 deriving from the Saturnalia, the Roman heathen's wintertime celebration, and with the date found nowhere in the bible stating it as the birthday of Jesus, the Puritan Parliament banned Christmas from 1659 until 1681.
As a Christian, I know that the central message of the birth of Christ for those like me who celebrate it is to embrace the celebration of human differences and diversity. And it is with this message that I know all people—religious and non-religious, straight and queer, Black and white—can be included to enjoy and to celebrate and to acknowledge this season with one simple greeting.
Happy Holidays!
Washington Post Editorial: As Ahmadinejad bullies the West, unrest grows in Iran
Washington Post Editorial: As Ahmadinejad bullies the West, unrest grows in Iran
Copyright by The Washington Post
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/22/AR2009122202857.html
MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD of Iran says that the government over which he presides is "ten times" stronger than it was a year ago. Therefore, Mr. Ahmadinejad announced Tuesday, the Islamic Republic will defy the Obama administration's year-end deadline for accepting a U.N.-drafted proposal to trade Iran's enriched uranium stockpile for less dangerous nuclear fuel. Iran is "not afraid" of the sanctions that the United States and its allies may have in store, Mr. Ahmadinejad boasted, adding: "If Iran wanted to make a bomb, we would be brave enough to tell you."
Yet Mr. Ahmadinejad may protest too much. Judging by one measure of regime strength -- popular support -- the dictatorship of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which Mr. Ahmadinejad serves, is as weak as ever, if not weaker. Mr. Ahmadinejad delivered his outburst after hundreds of thousands of regime opponents filled the city of Qom to mourn the death of Ayatollah Ali Montazeri, a founder of the Islamic Republic who had more recently turned into a dissenter. The huge, nonviolent crowds, and their chants ("Dictator, this is your last message: The people of Iran are rising!"), proved that there is still plenty of life in the popular movement that Mr. Khamenei and his Revolutionary Guards provoked by engineering Mr. Ahmadinejad's fraudulent reelection in June. Given the horrific extent of the repression against that movement, its continued energy is nothing short of inspiring.
Mr. Montazeri's adoption as a martyr to that movement may also show that its goals go beyond the democratization of Iranian society. To be sure, Mr. Montazeri, who was slated to succeed revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini until the two fell out over Mr. Montazeri's opposition to repression, is best known for his efforts to reconcile Shia Islam and democracy. In recent years he had called for relaxing the "guardianship of the clergy" over Iranian political life. He had spoken in favor of equal rights for Iran's persecuted Bahais, a religious minority.
But Mr. Montazeri had also linked the democratization of Iran to its peaceful coexistence with the West. Before his death, he apologized for the 1979 Iranian seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and -- undoubtedly most irritating to Mr. Khamenei -- opposed the regime's nuclear ambitions. "In light of the scope of death and destruction they bring," Mr. Montazeri wrote, "and in light of the fact that such weapons cannot be used solely against an army of aggression but will invariably sacrifice the lives of innocent people, even if these innocent lives are those of future generations, nuclear weapons are not permitted according to reason or Sharia [Islamic law]."
We would not underestimate the fact that a figure such as this can bring forth multitudes -- even in death -- while Mr. Ahmadinejad is reduced to unleashing his militia and shrieking at the West. The most momentous international event of 2009 was the uprising in Iran, and though the regime's collapse is not imminent, it is hardly unthinkable. President Obama is prudent to pursue a diplomatic solution to Iran's nuclear ambitions. But in doing so, he must not diminish the prospect that Iran's people might ultimately deliver both themselves and the world from the menace.
Copyright by The Washington Post
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/22/AR2009122202857.html
MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD of Iran says that the government over which he presides is "ten times" stronger than it was a year ago. Therefore, Mr. Ahmadinejad announced Tuesday, the Islamic Republic will defy the Obama administration's year-end deadline for accepting a U.N.-drafted proposal to trade Iran's enriched uranium stockpile for less dangerous nuclear fuel. Iran is "not afraid" of the sanctions that the United States and its allies may have in store, Mr. Ahmadinejad boasted, adding: "If Iran wanted to make a bomb, we would be brave enough to tell you."
Yet Mr. Ahmadinejad may protest too much. Judging by one measure of regime strength -- popular support -- the dictatorship of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which Mr. Ahmadinejad serves, is as weak as ever, if not weaker. Mr. Ahmadinejad delivered his outburst after hundreds of thousands of regime opponents filled the city of Qom to mourn the death of Ayatollah Ali Montazeri, a founder of the Islamic Republic who had more recently turned into a dissenter. The huge, nonviolent crowds, and their chants ("Dictator, this is your last message: The people of Iran are rising!"), proved that there is still plenty of life in the popular movement that Mr. Khamenei and his Revolutionary Guards provoked by engineering Mr. Ahmadinejad's fraudulent reelection in June. Given the horrific extent of the repression against that movement, its continued energy is nothing short of inspiring.
Mr. Montazeri's adoption as a martyr to that movement may also show that its goals go beyond the democratization of Iranian society. To be sure, Mr. Montazeri, who was slated to succeed revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini until the two fell out over Mr. Montazeri's opposition to repression, is best known for his efforts to reconcile Shia Islam and democracy. In recent years he had called for relaxing the "guardianship of the clergy" over Iranian political life. He had spoken in favor of equal rights for Iran's persecuted Bahais, a religious minority.
But Mr. Montazeri had also linked the democratization of Iran to its peaceful coexistence with the West. Before his death, he apologized for the 1979 Iranian seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and -- undoubtedly most irritating to Mr. Khamenei -- opposed the regime's nuclear ambitions. "In light of the scope of death and destruction they bring," Mr. Montazeri wrote, "and in light of the fact that such weapons cannot be used solely against an army of aggression but will invariably sacrifice the lives of innocent people, even if these innocent lives are those of future generations, nuclear weapons are not permitted according to reason or Sharia [Islamic law]."
We would not underestimate the fact that a figure such as this can bring forth multitudes -- even in death -- while Mr. Ahmadinejad is reduced to unleashing his militia and shrieking at the West. The most momentous international event of 2009 was the uprising in Iran, and though the regime's collapse is not imminent, it is hardly unthinkable. President Obama is prudent to pursue a diplomatic solution to Iran's nuclear ambitions. But in doing so, he must not diminish the prospect that Iran's people might ultimately deliver both themselves and the world from the menace.
China’s BAIC buys Saab technology for $200m
China’s BAIC buys Saab technology for $200m
© Reuters Limited
December 23, 2009
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3ef7964a-ef6e-11de-86c4-00144feab49a.html
BEIJING/HONG KONG – Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Corp (BAIC) said it paid $200m for technology from General Motors’ Saab unit, allowing it to roll out Saab-based cars as soon as 2011.
The intellectual property bought by BAIC, China’s fifth-largest automaker, includes the rights to three overall vehicle platforms, two engine technologies and two transmission systems, BAIC said in a statement ahead of a news conference on Wednesday.
BAIC, which hastily arranged the purchase after a group led by Swedish sports car maker Koenigsegg pulled out from a deal to buy all of Saab, plans to immediately start integrating the Saab technology into its vehicles.
“The overseas technology takeover by BAIC is not only targeted at simple technology, such as manufacturing blueprints, but also the management systems that will enable BAIC to continuously develop and produce high quality vehicles,” the company said in the statement.
BAIC, which had been a part of the Koenigsegg group bidding for Saab, expects commercial production for Saab-based cars to begin as soon as 2011.
The acquisition includes the intellectual property for Saab’s 9-5 and 9-3 sedans and some equipment to make them, leaving the fate of the Swedish-based automaker up in the air.
Luxury car maker Spyker was in talks to buy Saab from GM, but those negotiations broke down last week with GM saying it would close down the Swedish automaker.
But Russia-backed Spyker came back this week and said it was still interested in pressing ahead with a deal for Saab, fanning the Swedish carmaker’s faint hopes for an eleventh-hour reprieve.
© Reuters Limited
December 23, 2009
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3ef7964a-ef6e-11de-86c4-00144feab49a.html
BEIJING/HONG KONG – Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Corp (BAIC) said it paid $200m for technology from General Motors’ Saab unit, allowing it to roll out Saab-based cars as soon as 2011.
The intellectual property bought by BAIC, China’s fifth-largest automaker, includes the rights to three overall vehicle platforms, two engine technologies and two transmission systems, BAIC said in a statement ahead of a news conference on Wednesday.
BAIC, which hastily arranged the purchase after a group led by Swedish sports car maker Koenigsegg pulled out from a deal to buy all of Saab, plans to immediately start integrating the Saab technology into its vehicles.
“The overseas technology takeover by BAIC is not only targeted at simple technology, such as manufacturing blueprints, but also the management systems that will enable BAIC to continuously develop and produce high quality vehicles,” the company said in the statement.
BAIC, which had been a part of the Koenigsegg group bidding for Saab, expects commercial production for Saab-based cars to begin as soon as 2011.
The acquisition includes the intellectual property for Saab’s 9-5 and 9-3 sedans and some equipment to make them, leaving the fate of the Swedish-based automaker up in the air.
Luxury car maker Spyker was in talks to buy Saab from GM, but those negotiations broke down last week with GM saying it would close down the Swedish automaker.
But Russia-backed Spyker came back this week and said it was still interested in pressing ahead with a deal for Saab, fanning the Swedish carmaker’s faint hopes for an eleventh-hour reprieve.
Iran strips Moussavi of government job - Fundamentalists call for arrest of opposition leader
Iran strips Moussavi of government job - Fundamentalists call for arrest of opposition leader
By Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: December 23 2009 14:07 | Last updated: December 23 2009 14:07
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6571ddb4-efbc-11de-833d-00144feab49a.html
Iran has sacked opposition leader Mir-Hossein Moussavi from his government appointed position amid renewed calls from fundamentalists that he be put on trial for his role in the post-election unrest.
Although many of his supporters were detained in the clampdown by the regime that followed the June presidential election it is the first time Mr Moussavi has been directly punished since his defeat to Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad sparked the biggest social unrest in the history of the Islamic republic.
No official reason was given for his dismissal as the head of the Arts Centre - a body responsible for arts research and policy-making - a position he has held since 1998.
But Mr Ahmadi-Nejad interrupted his visit to the southern province of Fars late on Tuesday to fly back to Tehran to attend the meeting of the High Cultural Revolution Council which agreed the dismissal.
Mr Moussavi, prime minister in the 1980s, spent much of his later life working as a painter before returning to politics as the top reformist candidate in the disputed presidential election. He has become the figurehead for the anti-regime protests that followed claiming that Mr Ahmadi-Nejad stole the election from him.
The arts community backed his bid to be president and some artists have boycotted official events to show their solidarity with the civil movement since the election.
Domestic media reported that many members of the Art Centre’s board of trustees might resign in protest at Mr Moussavi’s dismissal and his replacement by Ali Moallem, a poet.
The dismissal comes amid renewed calls for opposition leaders to be prosecuted.
Without mentioning Mr Moussavi by name, Kayhan newspaper, which is the main mouthpiece for Iran’s fundamentalists, yesterday once again called for the trail of the opposition leaders.
Analysts doubt the regime would take such a risk calculating that it could reignite the protests but they admit there is enormous pressure from fundamentalists including Mr Ahmadi-Nejad to act against Mr Moussavi and other opposition leaders such as Mehdi Karroubi.
Iran’s judiciary announced last week that there was enough evidence to put the opposition leaders on trial. While a senior representative of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, also said on Tuesday there were “sufficient documents to deal with” the reformist leaders.
Meanwhile, the death of Iran’s most senior dissident cleric - and key opposition figure - Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri on Sunday led to clashes in the central city of Isfahan, close to his birth place, on Wednesday.
Security forces reportedly tried to stop Montazeri supporters from holding a mourning ceremony in Seyyed Mosque.
Eyewitnesses said the police used tear gas to disperse thousands of demonstrators in Isfahan while some people were arrested after they chanted “death to the dictator” and “Montazeri, your path will be continued”.
By Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: December 23 2009 14:07 | Last updated: December 23 2009 14:07
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6571ddb4-efbc-11de-833d-00144feab49a.html
Iran has sacked opposition leader Mir-Hossein Moussavi from his government appointed position amid renewed calls from fundamentalists that he be put on trial for his role in the post-election unrest.
Although many of his supporters were detained in the clampdown by the regime that followed the June presidential election it is the first time Mr Moussavi has been directly punished since his defeat to Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad sparked the biggest social unrest in the history of the Islamic republic.
No official reason was given for his dismissal as the head of the Arts Centre - a body responsible for arts research and policy-making - a position he has held since 1998.
But Mr Ahmadi-Nejad interrupted his visit to the southern province of Fars late on Tuesday to fly back to Tehran to attend the meeting of the High Cultural Revolution Council which agreed the dismissal.
Mr Moussavi, prime minister in the 1980s, spent much of his later life working as a painter before returning to politics as the top reformist candidate in the disputed presidential election. He has become the figurehead for the anti-regime protests that followed claiming that Mr Ahmadi-Nejad stole the election from him.
The arts community backed his bid to be president and some artists have boycotted official events to show their solidarity with the civil movement since the election.
Domestic media reported that many members of the Art Centre’s board of trustees might resign in protest at Mr Moussavi’s dismissal and his replacement by Ali Moallem, a poet.
The dismissal comes amid renewed calls for opposition leaders to be prosecuted.
Without mentioning Mr Moussavi by name, Kayhan newspaper, which is the main mouthpiece for Iran’s fundamentalists, yesterday once again called for the trail of the opposition leaders.
Analysts doubt the regime would take such a risk calculating that it could reignite the protests but they admit there is enormous pressure from fundamentalists including Mr Ahmadi-Nejad to act against Mr Moussavi and other opposition leaders such as Mehdi Karroubi.
Iran’s judiciary announced last week that there was enough evidence to put the opposition leaders on trial. While a senior representative of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, also said on Tuesday there were “sufficient documents to deal with” the reformist leaders.
Meanwhile, the death of Iran’s most senior dissident cleric - and key opposition figure - Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri on Sunday led to clashes in the central city of Isfahan, close to his birth place, on Wednesday.
Security forces reportedly tried to stop Montazeri supporters from holding a mourning ceremony in Seyyed Mosque.
Eyewitnesses said the police used tear gas to disperse thousands of demonstrators in Isfahan while some people were arrested after they chanted “death to the dictator” and “Montazeri, your path will be continued”.
Revenge in Drug War Chills Mexico
Revenge in Drug War Chills Mexico
By ELISABETH MALKIN
Copyright by The Associated Press
Published: December 22, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/23/world/americas/23mexico.html?hpw
MEXICO CITY — It had been an elaborate farewell to one of Mexico’s fallen heroes.
Ensign Melquisedet Angulo Córdova, a special forces sailor killed last week during the government’s most successful raid on a top drug lord in years, received a stirring public tribute in which the secretary of the navy presented his mother with the flag that covered her son’s coffin.
Then, only hours after the grieving family had finished burying him in his hometown the next day, gunmen burst into the family’s house and sprayed the rooms with gunfire, killing his mother and three other relatives, officials said Tuesday.
It was a chilling epilogue to the navy-led operation that killed the drug lord, Arturo Beltrán Leyva, and six of his gunmen. And it appeared to be intended as a clear warning to the military forces on the front line of President Felipe Calderón’s war against Mexico’s drug cartels: not only you, but your family is a target as well.
Prosecutors, police chiefs and thousands of others have been killed in the violence gripping Mexico, with whole families sometimes coming under attack during a cartel’s assassination attempt. But going after the family of a sailor who had already been killed is an exceedingly rare form of intimidation, analysts say, and illustrates how little progress the government has made toward one of its most important goals: reclaiming a sense of peace and order for Mexicans caught in the cross-fire.
“There will be more reprisals, both symbolic ones and strategic ones,” said Guillermo Zepeda, a security expert with the Center of Research for Development, in Mexico City. “They will take revenge against not only the top people, but anybody who participates.”
The military and police forces who have been fighting the drug war typically cover their faces with ski masks to protect their identities. But the government generally releases the names of police officers and soldiers who have been killed in the drug war.
Responding to the killings on Tuesday, Mr. Calderón said, “These contemptible events are proof of how unscrupulously organized crime operates, attacking innocent lives, and they can only strengthen us in our determination to banish this singular cancer.”
The gunmen killed Ensign Angulo’s mother, Irma Córdova Palma, and his sister Yolidabey, 22, just after midnight on Tuesday as they slept, said Tabasco State officials. An aunt, Josefa Angulo Flores, 46, died on her way to the hospital and Ensign Angulo’s brother Benito died shortly after he was admitted to the hospital. Another sister, who was not identified, was injured.
Ensign Angulo, 30, was killed Dec. 16 when military forces surrounded an upscale apartment complex in the city of Cuernavaca, an hour’s drive south of Mexico City, and cornered Mr. Beltrán Leyva, who American and Mexican officials say was one of Mexico’s most violent drug lords.
Although Mr. Calderón called the death of Mr. Beltrán Leyva a significant victory in the drug war, federal officials warned almost immediately that it could spawn more violence.
Attorney General Arturo Chávez Chávez told reporters the morning after the raid against Mr. Beltrán Leyva that his subordinates would battle among one another to take his place at the head of the cartel that bears his name.
But what officials did not expect was that among the first victims would be the innocent.
Throughout the three-year-old drug war, Mexican officials have argued that only a tiny percentage of the dead are noncombatants. Indeed, the vast majority of the dead are believed to be members of drug gangs settling scores. Half of the bodies are not even claimed by their families, government officials have said.
But the government has also proved to be powerless to protect many of its own forces in the drug war, much less innocent bystanders. In just one case in July, gunmen suspected of being cartel members killed 12 federal police officers in the western state of Michoacán in retaliation for the arrest of one of their leaders.
The killings on Tuesday underscore how vulnerable civilians are. Many local police forces are corrupted by drug money, officials say, and even when they are not, they are no match for the drug gangs’ firepower.
In one of the most frightening attacks directed at civilians, suspected cartel members threw grenades into a crowd celebrating Independence Day in the president’s hometown in 2008, killing eight people. It seemed to crystallize the fear that the cartels could strike wherever and whenever they wanted, despite the deployment of thousands of troops against them.
Analysts said that new levels of narcoterrorism were possible as the drug gangs tried to spread fear among those fighting them.
“Any objective could be vulnerable,” Mr. Zepeda, the security expert, said. “The state should be expecting it.”
Antonio Betancourt contributed reporting.
By ELISABETH MALKIN
Copyright by The Associated Press
Published: December 22, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/23/world/americas/23mexico.html?hpw
MEXICO CITY — It had been an elaborate farewell to one of Mexico’s fallen heroes.
Ensign Melquisedet Angulo Córdova, a special forces sailor killed last week during the government’s most successful raid on a top drug lord in years, received a stirring public tribute in which the secretary of the navy presented his mother with the flag that covered her son’s coffin.
Then, only hours after the grieving family had finished burying him in his hometown the next day, gunmen burst into the family’s house and sprayed the rooms with gunfire, killing his mother and three other relatives, officials said Tuesday.
It was a chilling epilogue to the navy-led operation that killed the drug lord, Arturo Beltrán Leyva, and six of his gunmen. And it appeared to be intended as a clear warning to the military forces on the front line of President Felipe Calderón’s war against Mexico’s drug cartels: not only you, but your family is a target as well.
Prosecutors, police chiefs and thousands of others have been killed in the violence gripping Mexico, with whole families sometimes coming under attack during a cartel’s assassination attempt. But going after the family of a sailor who had already been killed is an exceedingly rare form of intimidation, analysts say, and illustrates how little progress the government has made toward one of its most important goals: reclaiming a sense of peace and order for Mexicans caught in the cross-fire.
“There will be more reprisals, both symbolic ones and strategic ones,” said Guillermo Zepeda, a security expert with the Center of Research for Development, in Mexico City. “They will take revenge against not only the top people, but anybody who participates.”
The military and police forces who have been fighting the drug war typically cover their faces with ski masks to protect their identities. But the government generally releases the names of police officers and soldiers who have been killed in the drug war.
Responding to the killings on Tuesday, Mr. Calderón said, “These contemptible events are proof of how unscrupulously organized crime operates, attacking innocent lives, and they can only strengthen us in our determination to banish this singular cancer.”
The gunmen killed Ensign Angulo’s mother, Irma Córdova Palma, and his sister Yolidabey, 22, just after midnight on Tuesday as they slept, said Tabasco State officials. An aunt, Josefa Angulo Flores, 46, died on her way to the hospital and Ensign Angulo’s brother Benito died shortly after he was admitted to the hospital. Another sister, who was not identified, was injured.
Ensign Angulo, 30, was killed Dec. 16 when military forces surrounded an upscale apartment complex in the city of Cuernavaca, an hour’s drive south of Mexico City, and cornered Mr. Beltrán Leyva, who American and Mexican officials say was one of Mexico’s most violent drug lords.
Although Mr. Calderón called the death of Mr. Beltrán Leyva a significant victory in the drug war, federal officials warned almost immediately that it could spawn more violence.
Attorney General Arturo Chávez Chávez told reporters the morning after the raid against Mr. Beltrán Leyva that his subordinates would battle among one another to take his place at the head of the cartel that bears his name.
But what officials did not expect was that among the first victims would be the innocent.
Throughout the three-year-old drug war, Mexican officials have argued that only a tiny percentage of the dead are noncombatants. Indeed, the vast majority of the dead are believed to be members of drug gangs settling scores. Half of the bodies are not even claimed by their families, government officials have said.
But the government has also proved to be powerless to protect many of its own forces in the drug war, much less innocent bystanders. In just one case in July, gunmen suspected of being cartel members killed 12 federal police officers in the western state of Michoacán in retaliation for the arrest of one of their leaders.
The killings on Tuesday underscore how vulnerable civilians are. Many local police forces are corrupted by drug money, officials say, and even when they are not, they are no match for the drug gangs’ firepower.
In one of the most frightening attacks directed at civilians, suspected cartel members threw grenades into a crowd celebrating Independence Day in the president’s hometown in 2008, killing eight people. It seemed to crystallize the fear that the cartels could strike wherever and whenever they wanted, despite the deployment of thousands of troops against them.
Analysts said that new levels of narcoterrorism were possible as the drug gangs tried to spread fear among those fighting them.
“Any objective could be vulnerable,” Mr. Zepeda, the security expert, said. “The state should be expecting it.”
Antonio Betancourt contributed reporting.
Ford Reaches Deal to Sell Volvo to Chinese Automaker
Ford Reaches Deal to Sell Volvo to Chinese Automaker
By DAVID JOLLY
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: December 23, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/24/business/global/24auto.html?ref=global-home
PARIS — Ford Motor and Zhejiang Geely Holding Group said Wednesday that they had settled “all substantive commercial terms” on a sale of Volvo, clearing the way for the Chinese automaker to purchase the Swedish business early next year.
The U.S. automaker said that while final documentation, financing and government approvals remain to be completed, “Ford and Geely anticipate that a definitive sale agreement will be signed in the first quarter of 2010, with closing of the sale likely to occur in the second quarter 2010, subject to appropriate regulatory approvals.”
The companies did not disclose a price. John Gardiner, a Ford spokesman in London, declined to comment on the financial terms, saying “that kind of detail will come when we have a definitive agreement.”
Ford paid $6 billion in 1999 to buy Volvo; unconfirmed reports have said that Zhejiang Geely could pay $2 billion for the unit in the currently depressed market for automakers.
The joint announcement with Ford could ease the Chinese company’s efforts to obtain the necessary approvals in Beijing, which must give the green light for big overseas investments to go forward, Mr. Gardiner said.
Ford announced in October that it had selected Geely as the preferred bidder for Volvo over other contenders, and the announcement Wednesday appeared to signal that the American company was committed to finalizing a deal.
Geely, based in Hangzhou, said in a statement that it “expects to sign a definitive stock purchase agreement with Ford in the first quarter of 2010.”
Geely is the largest private automaker in China. A Volvo deal would mark one of the biggest moves yet by a Chinese car company in Europe or the United States. Beijing Automotive Industry Holding said last week it would buy carmaking technology for Saab cars from General Motors.
A sale “would ensure Volvo has the resources, including the capital investment, necessary to further strengthen the business and build its global franchise,” Ford said, while enabling the Detroit company to implement its own strategy. Ford is seeking to raise money as it refocuses on its North American and European operations.
Ford said it would continue to cooperate with Volvo in several areas, but it did not intend to retain a stake in the Swedish company.
Geely has sought to assuage anxiety about the deal in Sweden, saying it intends to maintain Volvo much as it is, including “an independent management” at its Gothenburg headquarters.
“Geely is committed to work with all stakeholders to complete the transaction in the best interest of all parties,” Li Shufu, Geely’s chairman, said in a statement. The company said it has held “constructive meetings” in recent weeks with Volvo management, labor representatives and government officials in Sweden and Belgium.
Assuming the deal goes through, “Volvo will retain its leadership in safety and environmental technologies, and will be uniquely positioned as a world-leading premium brand to exploit opportunities in the fast-growing China market,” Geely said.
General Motors, meanwhile, is still working to dispose of its own Swedish carmaker. G.M. said last week that it would shut down Saab, which is based in Trollhattan, after negotiations to sell the company to Spyker Cars, a tiny Dutch automaker, fell through.
Although G.M. has already begun the process of closing the company down, Spyker came back this week with a revised offer, and G.M. said it was studying the Spyker offer as well as other potential bids. While negotiations are continuing, analysts say Spyker’s bid appears to be a long shot.
Ford was the only Detroit automaker to avoid bankruptcy this year, as G.M. and Chrysler were bailed out by taxpayers, with the latter ending up under the wing of Fiat.
Ford is selling Volvo as part of its “One Ford” strategy, which aims at refocusing the company on what it has identified as its “core” global operations.
It sold Aston Martin to a British-Kuwaiti consortium in 2007, and sold Land Rover and Jaguar to the Indian automaker Tata Motors in 2008.
Ford last year also reduced its stake in Mazda Motor, the Japanese carmaker, to 13 percent from 33.4 percent.
By DAVID JOLLY
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: December 23, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/24/business/global/24auto.html?ref=global-home
PARIS — Ford Motor and Zhejiang Geely Holding Group said Wednesday that they had settled “all substantive commercial terms” on a sale of Volvo, clearing the way for the Chinese automaker to purchase the Swedish business early next year.
The U.S. automaker said that while final documentation, financing and government approvals remain to be completed, “Ford and Geely anticipate that a definitive sale agreement will be signed in the first quarter of 2010, with closing of the sale likely to occur in the second quarter 2010, subject to appropriate regulatory approvals.”
The companies did not disclose a price. John Gardiner, a Ford spokesman in London, declined to comment on the financial terms, saying “that kind of detail will come when we have a definitive agreement.”
Ford paid $6 billion in 1999 to buy Volvo; unconfirmed reports have said that Zhejiang Geely could pay $2 billion for the unit in the currently depressed market for automakers.
The joint announcement with Ford could ease the Chinese company’s efforts to obtain the necessary approvals in Beijing, which must give the green light for big overseas investments to go forward, Mr. Gardiner said.
Ford announced in October that it had selected Geely as the preferred bidder for Volvo over other contenders, and the announcement Wednesday appeared to signal that the American company was committed to finalizing a deal.
Geely, based in Hangzhou, said in a statement that it “expects to sign a definitive stock purchase agreement with Ford in the first quarter of 2010.”
Geely is the largest private automaker in China. A Volvo deal would mark one of the biggest moves yet by a Chinese car company in Europe or the United States. Beijing Automotive Industry Holding said last week it would buy carmaking technology for Saab cars from General Motors.
A sale “would ensure Volvo has the resources, including the capital investment, necessary to further strengthen the business and build its global franchise,” Ford said, while enabling the Detroit company to implement its own strategy. Ford is seeking to raise money as it refocuses on its North American and European operations.
Ford said it would continue to cooperate with Volvo in several areas, but it did not intend to retain a stake in the Swedish company.
Geely has sought to assuage anxiety about the deal in Sweden, saying it intends to maintain Volvo much as it is, including “an independent management” at its Gothenburg headquarters.
“Geely is committed to work with all stakeholders to complete the transaction in the best interest of all parties,” Li Shufu, Geely’s chairman, said in a statement. The company said it has held “constructive meetings” in recent weeks with Volvo management, labor representatives and government officials in Sweden and Belgium.
Assuming the deal goes through, “Volvo will retain its leadership in safety and environmental technologies, and will be uniquely positioned as a world-leading premium brand to exploit opportunities in the fast-growing China market,” Geely said.
General Motors, meanwhile, is still working to dispose of its own Swedish carmaker. G.M. said last week that it would shut down Saab, which is based in Trollhattan, after negotiations to sell the company to Spyker Cars, a tiny Dutch automaker, fell through.
Although G.M. has already begun the process of closing the company down, Spyker came back this week with a revised offer, and G.M. said it was studying the Spyker offer as well as other potential bids. While negotiations are continuing, analysts say Spyker’s bid appears to be a long shot.
Ford was the only Detroit automaker to avoid bankruptcy this year, as G.M. and Chrysler were bailed out by taxpayers, with the latter ending up under the wing of Fiat.
Ford is selling Volvo as part of its “One Ford” strategy, which aims at refocusing the company on what it has identified as its “core” global operations.
It sold Aston Martin to a British-Kuwaiti consortium in 2007, and sold Land Rover and Jaguar to the Indian automaker Tata Motors in 2008.
Ford last year also reduced its stake in Mazda Motor, the Japanese carmaker, to 13 percent from 33.4 percent.
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