June 7, 2010
12 Americans Detained in Yemen
By ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON — Twelve Americans have been taken in custody in Yemen, the State Department spokesman said Monday, but the circumstances of why and when they were detained were unclear.
“If the question is, are we aware that there are Americans in custody in Yemen, we are,” the spokesman, Philip J. Crowley, told reporters. “We’re trying to find out more information.”
A Yemeni official who was trying to sort out the contradictory reports on Monday said that several dozen foreigners have been detained on suspicion of radical or terrorist ties since December, when the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner by a Nigerian trained in Yemen set off a security crackdown.
But the Yemeni official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record, said he did not have details on the number of people arrested, their nationalities and the exact charges they face.
Agence France-Presse, citing an unnamed security official in Yemen, reported Sunday that Yemeni security forces had arrested more than 30 foreign citizens on suspicion of having links with Al Qaeda, among them 3 Frenchmen, an American and a Briton.
Other news agencies have reported in recent days that some or all of the foreigners detained were students studying Arabic at one or more of the language institutes in Sana, the Yemeni capital.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian man accused of trying to bomb the airliner on Christmas, studied at one of the schools, the Sana Institute for the Arabic Language, before he met with Qaeda operatives in Yemen to prepare to carry out his plot.
When asked if any of the Americans arrested had ties to terrorist activities, Mr. Crowley said he would not get into specific details.
Mr. Crowley declined to say whether any of the foreigners detained in Yemen had been taken into custody at the request of their governments.
Senior American officials have expressed growing alarm about the increasing number of Americans who are drawn to video and audio recordings that promote jihad, including lectures by the American-born cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, who is hiding in Yemen.
Scott Shane contributed reporting.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Junghwa Noh
Changes in China Could Raise Prices
By DAVID BARBOZA
SHANGHAI — The cost of doing business in China is going up.
Coastal factories are raising salaries, local governments are hiking minimum wage standards and if China allows its currency, the renminbi, to appreciate against the U.S. dollar later this year, as many economists are predicting, the cost of manufacturing in China will almost certainly rise.
Although the salaries of factory workers in China are still low compared to those in the United States and Europe (the minimum wage in southern China is close to $125 a month), economists say the changes will eventually ripple through the global economy, driving up the prices of everything from T-shirts and sneakers to computer servers and smart phones.
“For a long time, China has been the anchor of global disinflation,” said Dong Tao, an economist at Credit Suisse, referring to how the two decade-long shift to manufacturing in China helped many global companies lower costs and prices. “But this may be the beginning of the end of an era.”
The shift was dramatized Sunday, when Foxconn Technology, one of the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturers and the maker of everything from the Apple iPhone to Dell computer parts, said that within three months it would double the salaries of many of its assembly line workers.
The announcement follows a spate of suicides at two Foxconn campuses in southern China and criticism of the company’s labor practices.
Taiwan-based Foxconn, which has more than 800,000 workers in China, said the salary increases are meant to improve the lives of its workers.
Last week, the Japanese auto maker Honda said it had agreed to give about 1,900 workers at one of its plants in southern China raises of between 24 percent and 32 percent in the hopes of ending a two week-long strike, according to people briefed on the agreement.
The changes are coming about because of the growing clout of workers in China’s sizzling economy, analysts say, and because soaring food and housing prices are eroding the spending power of migrant workers.
But there are other reasons. Analysts say Beijing is backing wage increases as a way to spur domestic consumption and make the country less dependent on low-priced exports. The government hopes the move will force some export-oriented companies to invest in more innovative or higher-value goods.
But Chinese policymakers also favor higher wages because they could help ease a widening income gap between the rich and the poor.
Last Thursday, the Beijing municipal government said it would raise its minimum wage 20 percent to about $140 a month; several other cities are preparing to implement similar increases.
Big manufacturers are moving to raise salaries because they are desperate to attract new workers at a time when many coastal factory cities are struggling with labor shortages.
A Foxconn executive said last week that the turnover rate at its two Shenzhen campuses — which employ over 400,000 — is about five percent a month, meaning that an astounding 20,000 workers are leaving every month and need to be replaced.
Marshall W. Meyer, a China specialist at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, says demographic changes in China are reducing the supply of young workers entering the labor force, and that’s behind some of the wage pressure.
“Demography will do what the Strategic & Economic Dialogue hasn’t: raise the cost of Chinese goods,” he said, referring to U.S.-China talks on Chinese currency reform and other economic issues. “There is no way out.”
Economists say many of the same forces that were at work in 2007 and 2008 — when China’s economy was overheating — have returned and even intensified this year.
Local governments have stepped up enforcement of labor and environmental regulations, driving up production costs.
And perhaps most troubling for companies here is the prospect of an appreciating Chinese currency, which would make their exports more expensive overseas.
Beijing has long promised to allow its currency to fluctuate more freely. But when the global financial crisis shuttered many Chinese factories, the government effectively re-pegged the renminbi to the dollar. That was a way to protect exporters.
Even though labor accounts for a small percentage of the final cost of many products, salary increases are expected to affect much of the supply chain and force companies to raise prices.
For many exporters, profit margins are already razor thin, and raising prices could hurt business.
“They’re going to have to find a way to pass this on to the end user,” says Mr. Tao at Credit Suisse.
Still, economists say a necessary restructuring is under way, one that should allow the nation’s huge “floating population” of migrant workers to better share in the benefits of growth and spur domestic consumption.
United States and European Union officials have been pressing China to help improve the health of the global economy by consuming more and reducing the country’s massive trade surpluses.
Rising labor costs here aren’t the end of cheap production in China, analysts say, but they are likely to help change the country’s manufacturing mix.
“China isn’t going to lose its manufacturing base because it’s got a huge domestic market,” said Mary Gallagher, director of the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of Michigan. “But it will move them toward higher-end goods. And that matches the Chinese government’s ambition. They don’t just want to be the workshop of the world. They want to produce high-tech goods.”
renminbi-Another name for the Chinese yuan.
desperate to- you want or need it very much indeed. A desperate situation is very difficult , serious, or dangerous.
fluctuate-If something fluctuates, it changes a lot in an irregular way.
Questions.
1. Is it helpful to international trade, if prices raise in china?
2. what is the best efficient way in china economy?
By DAVID BARBOZA
SHANGHAI — The cost of doing business in China is going up.
Coastal factories are raising salaries, local governments are hiking minimum wage standards and if China allows its currency, the renminbi, to appreciate against the U.S. dollar later this year, as many economists are predicting, the cost of manufacturing in China will almost certainly rise.
Although the salaries of factory workers in China are still low compared to those in the United States and Europe (the minimum wage in southern China is close to $125 a month), economists say the changes will eventually ripple through the global economy, driving up the prices of everything from T-shirts and sneakers to computer servers and smart phones.
“For a long time, China has been the anchor of global disinflation,” said Dong Tao, an economist at Credit Suisse, referring to how the two decade-long shift to manufacturing in China helped many global companies lower costs and prices. “But this may be the beginning of the end of an era.”
The shift was dramatized Sunday, when Foxconn Technology, one of the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturers and the maker of everything from the Apple iPhone to Dell computer parts, said that within three months it would double the salaries of many of its assembly line workers.
The announcement follows a spate of suicides at two Foxconn campuses in southern China and criticism of the company’s labor practices.
Taiwan-based Foxconn, which has more than 800,000 workers in China, said the salary increases are meant to improve the lives of its workers.
Last week, the Japanese auto maker Honda said it had agreed to give about 1,900 workers at one of its plants in southern China raises of between 24 percent and 32 percent in the hopes of ending a two week-long strike, according to people briefed on the agreement.
The changes are coming about because of the growing clout of workers in China’s sizzling economy, analysts say, and because soaring food and housing prices are eroding the spending power of migrant workers.
But there are other reasons. Analysts say Beijing is backing wage increases as a way to spur domestic consumption and make the country less dependent on low-priced exports. The government hopes the move will force some export-oriented companies to invest in more innovative or higher-value goods.
But Chinese policymakers also favor higher wages because they could help ease a widening income gap between the rich and the poor.
Last Thursday, the Beijing municipal government said it would raise its minimum wage 20 percent to about $140 a month; several other cities are preparing to implement similar increases.
Big manufacturers are moving to raise salaries because they are desperate to attract new workers at a time when many coastal factory cities are struggling with labor shortages.
A Foxconn executive said last week that the turnover rate at its two Shenzhen campuses — which employ over 400,000 — is about five percent a month, meaning that an astounding 20,000 workers are leaving every month and need to be replaced.
Marshall W. Meyer, a China specialist at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, says demographic changes in China are reducing the supply of young workers entering the labor force, and that’s behind some of the wage pressure.
“Demography will do what the Strategic & Economic Dialogue hasn’t: raise the cost of Chinese goods,” he said, referring to U.S.-China talks on Chinese currency reform and other economic issues. “There is no way out.”
Economists say many of the same forces that were at work in 2007 and 2008 — when China’s economy was overheating — have returned and even intensified this year.
Local governments have stepped up enforcement of labor and environmental regulations, driving up production costs.
And perhaps most troubling for companies here is the prospect of an appreciating Chinese currency, which would make their exports more expensive overseas.
Beijing has long promised to allow its currency to fluctuate more freely. But when the global financial crisis shuttered many Chinese factories, the government effectively re-pegged the renminbi to the dollar. That was a way to protect exporters.
Even though labor accounts for a small percentage of the final cost of many products, salary increases are expected to affect much of the supply chain and force companies to raise prices.
For many exporters, profit margins are already razor thin, and raising prices could hurt business.
“They’re going to have to find a way to pass this on to the end user,” says Mr. Tao at Credit Suisse.
Still, economists say a necessary restructuring is under way, one that should allow the nation’s huge “floating population” of migrant workers to better share in the benefits of growth and spur domestic consumption.
United States and European Union officials have been pressing China to help improve the health of the global economy by consuming more and reducing the country’s massive trade surpluses.
Rising labor costs here aren’t the end of cheap production in China, analysts say, but they are likely to help change the country’s manufacturing mix.
“China isn’t going to lose its manufacturing base because it’s got a huge domestic market,” said Mary Gallagher, director of the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of Michigan. “But it will move them toward higher-end goods. And that matches the Chinese government’s ambition. They don’t just want to be the workshop of the world. They want to produce high-tech goods.”
renminbi-Another name for the Chinese yuan.
desperate to- you want or need it very much indeed. A desperate situation is very difficult , serious, or dangerous.
fluctuate-If something fluctuates, it changes a lot in an irregular way.
Questions.
1. Is it helpful to international trade, if prices raise in china?
2. what is the best efficient way in china economy?
Youn's
The New York Times June 6, 2010
Japanese Leader Tells Obama He’ll Work to Fulfill Base Pact
By MARTIN FACKLER
TOKYO — Japan’s new prime minister, Naoto Kan, told President Obama on Sunday that he would work to fulfill an agreement to relocate an American air base, moving to get beyond a contentious issue that had confounded his predecessor.
Making his diplomatic debut with a phone call to the White House, Mr. Kan also reaffirmed that his nation’s security alliance with the United States remained the “cornerstone” of Japanese foreign policy, Japan’s Foreign Ministry said.
The ministry released few details of the 15-minute call, which it said Mr. Obama had requested.
Mr. Kan, who succeeded Yukio Hatoyama on Friday, has promised to focus on pocketbook issues in an attempt to re-energize his governing Democratic Party, which has lost popularity since its election victory last summer.
However, he also inherits difficult decisions on relocating the American base, Marine Corps Air Station Futenma on Okinawa, a politically toxic issue that drove Mr. Hatoyama to resign after he gave in to the Obama administration’s demands that the base stay on the island.
It remains to be seen whether Mr. Kan can better balance Washington’s demands with those of Okinawans, who have opposed the base. Mr. Kan must also appease national public opinion, which turned against Mr. Hatoyama for appearing indecisive and causing mistrust with the United States, Japan’s longtime protector.
Mr. Hatoyama stepped down a week after announcing an agreement with the Obama administration to move the base to a less populated part of Okinawa. In making the deal, he broke a prominent campaign pledge to move the base off the island.
Under the new agreement, Tokyo has until August to announce the details of the new air field’s construction. That means Mr. Kan will likely have to make tough choices early in his government because any new construction could face mass opposition on Okinawa.
Japanese Leader Tells Obama He’ll Work to Fulfill Base Pact
By MARTIN FACKLER
TOKYO — Japan’s new prime minister, Naoto Kan, told President Obama on Sunday that he would work to fulfill an agreement to relocate an American air base, moving to get beyond a contentious issue that had confounded his predecessor.
Making his diplomatic debut with a phone call to the White House, Mr. Kan also reaffirmed that his nation’s security alliance with the United States remained the “cornerstone” of Japanese foreign policy, Japan’s Foreign Ministry said.
The ministry released few details of the 15-minute call, which it said Mr. Obama had requested.
Mr. Kan, who succeeded Yukio Hatoyama on Friday, has promised to focus on pocketbook issues in an attempt to re-energize his governing Democratic Party, which has lost popularity since its election victory last summer.
However, he also inherits difficult decisions on relocating the American base, Marine Corps Air Station Futenma on Okinawa, a politically toxic issue that drove Mr. Hatoyama to resign after he gave in to the Obama administration’s demands that the base stay on the island.
It remains to be seen whether Mr. Kan can better balance Washington’s demands with those of Okinawans, who have opposed the base. Mr. Kan must also appease national public opinion, which turned against Mr. Hatoyama for appearing indecisive and causing mistrust with the United States, Japan’s longtime protector.
Mr. Hatoyama stepped down a week after announcing an agreement with the Obama administration to move the base to a less populated part of Okinawa. In making the deal, he broke a prominent campaign pledge to move the base off the island.
Under the new agreement, Tokyo has until August to announce the details of the new air field’s construction. That means Mr. Kan will likely have to make tough choices early in his government because any new construction could face mass opposition on Okinawa.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
News
Gay rights in developing countries
A well-locked closet
Gays are under attack in poor countries—and not just because of “local culture”
May 27th 2010 From The Economist print edition
Militancy in Mauritius
THEIR crimes were “gross indecency” and “unnatural acts”. Their sentence was 14 years’ hard labour: one intended, said the judge, to scare others. He has succeeded. A court in Malawi last week horrified many with its treatment of Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, a gay couple engaged to be married. The two men are the latest victims of a crackdown on gay rights in much of the developing world, particularly Africa.
Some 80 countries criminalise consensual homosexual sex. Over half rely on “sodomy” laws left over from British colonialism. But many are trying to make their laws even more repressive. Last year, Burundi’s president, Pierre Nkurunziza, signed a law criminalising consensual gay sex, despite the Senate’s overwhelming rejection of the bill. A draconian bill proposed in Uganda would dole out jail sentences for failing to report gay people to the police and could impose the death penalty for gay sex if one of the participants is HIV-positive. In March Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, who once described gay people as worse than dogs or pigs, ruled out constitutional changes outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation.
In many former colonies, denouncing homosexuality as an “unAfrican” Western import has become an easy way for politicians to boost both their popularity and their nationalist credentials. But Peter Tatchell, a veteran gay-rights campaigner, says the real import into Africa is not homosexuality but politicised homophobia.
This has, he argues, coincided with an influx of conservative Christians, mainly from America, who are eager to engage African clergy in their own domestic battle against homosexuality. David Bahati, the Ugandan MP who proposed its horrid bill, is a member of the Fellowship, a conservative American religious and political organisation. “Africa must seem an exciting place for evangelical Christians from places like America,” says Marc Epprecht, a Canadian academic who studies homosexuality in Africa. “They can make much bigger gains in their culture wars there than they can in their own countries.” Their ideas have found fertile ground. In May this year, George Kunda, Zambia’s vice-president, lambasted gay people, saying they undermined the country’s Christian values and that sadism and Satanism could be the result.
Discrimination against gays, in Africa in particular, risks undermining the fight against HIV/AIDS. In February, those suspected of being gay were targeted in Kenya in mob violence at a government health centre providing HIV/AIDS services. Bishop Joshua Banda, chairman of Zambia’s National AIDS Council, said that donor countries’ efforts to speak out against violations of gay rights were against Zambia’s “traditional values”. The increasing crackdown on gay rights in Africa will be a disaster for public health, according to Mr Epprecht, as gay people go underground and do not get treatment for HIV/AIDS.
The problem goes beyond Africa and is more than one of state-sponsored homophobia. In Iraq, for example, homosexuality is legal. But in 2009 Human Rights Watch described the persecution that men suspected of being gay there face, including kidnappings, rape, torture and extrajudicial killings. In the aftermath of the 2003 invasion, there has been a growing fear of the “feminisation” of Iraqi men. The Mahdi Army, a Shia militia, has played on these fears and, claiming to uphold religious values and morality, offered violent “solutions”. Members of the Iraqi security forces have also been accused of colluding in the violence.
South Africa was the first country anywhere to ban homophobic discrimination in its constitution. It is the only country in Africa to allow gay marriage. In formal legal terms, it is a beacon for gay rights, says Mr Tatchell. But the growing phenomenon of “corrective rape” both there and in Zimbabwe, where women are assaulted in an attempt to “cure” them of lesbianism, suggests these laws often fail on the ground. As worrying to campaigners as the violence itself is a reluctance by the authorities to acknowledge that the attacks are motivated by homophobia. In April 2008 Eudy Simelane, a South African football player who was a lesbian, was gang-raped and stabbed to death. Two men were convicted of her murder but, in his sentencing, the judge denied that Ms Simelane’s sexuality played a part in the crime.
Hopes rose a little in June 2009 when India overturned its 149-year-old sodomy law but since then the global trend seems to have been in the opposite direction. Campaigners argue the proposed laws have implications beyond gay rights. How countries treat one particularly vulnerable group is a good measure of how they will act towards the rest of their citizens.
A well-locked closet
Gays are under attack in poor countries—and not just because of “local culture”
May 27th 2010 From The Economist print edition
Militancy in Mauritius
THEIR crimes were “gross indecency” and “unnatural acts”. Their sentence was 14 years’ hard labour: one intended, said the judge, to scare others. He has succeeded. A court in Malawi last week horrified many with its treatment of Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, a gay couple engaged to be married. The two men are the latest victims of a crackdown on gay rights in much of the developing world, particularly Africa.
Some 80 countries criminalise consensual homosexual sex. Over half rely on “sodomy” laws left over from British colonialism. But many are trying to make their laws even more repressive. Last year, Burundi’s president, Pierre Nkurunziza, signed a law criminalising consensual gay sex, despite the Senate’s overwhelming rejection of the bill. A draconian bill proposed in Uganda would dole out jail sentences for failing to report gay people to the police and could impose the death penalty for gay sex if one of the participants is HIV-positive. In March Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, who once described gay people as worse than dogs or pigs, ruled out constitutional changes outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation.
In many former colonies, denouncing homosexuality as an “unAfrican” Western import has become an easy way for politicians to boost both their popularity and their nationalist credentials. But Peter Tatchell, a veteran gay-rights campaigner, says the real import into Africa is not homosexuality but politicised homophobia.
This has, he argues, coincided with an influx of conservative Christians, mainly from America, who are eager to engage African clergy in their own domestic battle against homosexuality. David Bahati, the Ugandan MP who proposed its horrid bill, is a member of the Fellowship, a conservative American religious and political organisation. “Africa must seem an exciting place for evangelical Christians from places like America,” says Marc Epprecht, a Canadian academic who studies homosexuality in Africa. “They can make much bigger gains in their culture wars there than they can in their own countries.” Their ideas have found fertile ground. In May this year, George Kunda, Zambia’s vice-president, lambasted gay people, saying they undermined the country’s Christian values and that sadism and Satanism could be the result.
Discrimination against gays, in Africa in particular, risks undermining the fight against HIV/AIDS. In February, those suspected of being gay were targeted in Kenya in mob violence at a government health centre providing HIV/AIDS services. Bishop Joshua Banda, chairman of Zambia’s National AIDS Council, said that donor countries’ efforts to speak out against violations of gay rights were against Zambia’s “traditional values”. The increasing crackdown on gay rights in Africa will be a disaster for public health, according to Mr Epprecht, as gay people go underground and do not get treatment for HIV/AIDS.
The problem goes beyond Africa and is more than one of state-sponsored homophobia. In Iraq, for example, homosexuality is legal. But in 2009 Human Rights Watch described the persecution that men suspected of being gay there face, including kidnappings, rape, torture and extrajudicial killings. In the aftermath of the 2003 invasion, there has been a growing fear of the “feminisation” of Iraqi men. The Mahdi Army, a Shia militia, has played on these fears and, claiming to uphold religious values and morality, offered violent “solutions”. Members of the Iraqi security forces have also been accused of colluding in the violence.
South Africa was the first country anywhere to ban homophobic discrimination in its constitution. It is the only country in Africa to allow gay marriage. In formal legal terms, it is a beacon for gay rights, says Mr Tatchell. But the growing phenomenon of “corrective rape” both there and in Zimbabwe, where women are assaulted in an attempt to “cure” them of lesbianism, suggests these laws often fail on the ground. As worrying to campaigners as the violence itself is a reluctance by the authorities to acknowledge that the attacks are motivated by homophobia. In April 2008 Eudy Simelane, a South African football player who was a lesbian, was gang-raped and stabbed to death. Two men were convicted of her murder but, in his sentencing, the judge denied that Ms Simelane’s sexuality played a part in the crime.
Hopes rose a little in June 2009 when India overturned its 149-year-old sodomy law but since then the global trend seems to have been in the opposite direction. Campaigners argue the proposed laws have implications beyond gay rights. How countries treat one particularly vulnerable group is a good measure of how they will act towards the rest of their citizens.
America and Israel
Not quite as it was Support remains strong but is no longer unquestioning
Jun 3rd 2010 WASHINGTON, DC From The Economist print edition
FROM Barack Obama’s point of view, the timing could not have been worse. The administration has been pushing hard in the Security Council for new sanctions against Iran and had invested heavily in the Israeli-Palestinian “proximity talks” brokered by Mr Obama’s special envoy, George Mitchell. Both of these efforts are now in jeopardy. Moreover, the Israeli raid came soon after Mr Obama had decided to rescue America’s relations with Israel from the ditch into which they fell in March, when Israel announced plans for a Jewish suburb in occupied East Jerusalem just as the proximity talks were about to begin.
During that confrontation Mr Obama asked Binyamin Netanyahu to freeze Jewish settlement in Jerusalem, an undertaking the Israeli prime minister refused to give. Mr Netanyahu received a frosty reception at the White House in March. But for one reason or another the Obama administration decided several weeks ago that it was time to make up. Mr Netanyahu was invited back and was supposed to drop by this week. After the raid he flew directly home to Israel from a visit to Canada.
Whatever the private thoughts of Mr Obama, America has refused to join the international outcry against its wayward ally. In New York American diplomats ensured that a special meeting of the UN Security Council did not condemn Israel and called only for an impartial investigation of the facts. In a telephone call with Turkey’s enraged prime minister, Mr Obama was cautious. He expressed his condolences and affirmed the need to provide humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza—but, according to a White House summary of the conversation, “without undermining Israel’s security”.
As ever, domestic politics have played a part in shaping Mr Obama’s responses. Israel’s friends on Capitol Hill have pushed back hard since the March spat. A letter affirming the value of a close relationship with Israel was signed by 334 of the 435 members of the House, and a similar one by 76 of the 100 senators. Despite the emergence of J Street, a feisty and doveish pro-Israel lobby, AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, has far more muscle and is not afraid to flex it.
Even in Congress, however, support for Israel is not rock solid, and is showing signs of change. Dan Senor, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, noted recently that there were “real divisions” among congressional Democrats over Israel, “and those divisions are widening and cementing in ways not seen in decades”. For most Republicans, on the other hand, supporting the Jewish state remains, literally, an article of faith.
With mid-term congressional elections due in November and the Democrats braced for a drubbing, this would be a tricky time for Mr Obama to pick a fresh fight with Israel. That may be why, since early May, the White House has been labouring to correct what Rahm Emanuel, Mr Obama’s chief of staff, has described as the administration’s flawed “messaging”. A posse of senior officials have stressed that the ties to Israel are unbreakable.
That said, the influence of domestic politics can be exaggerated. Despite the pre-flotilla thaw, Mr Obama has made it abundantly clear in recent months that Israel can no longer take American support for granted. He seems genuinely to believe that the United States can and should bring about a two-state solution in Palestine. Mr Netanyahu says that is his aim too, but in his case there are strong reasons to doubt whether he is sincere. So long as both leaders remain in office, with their convictions unchanged, that will be a recipe for growing estrangement.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
UN to ban texting by drivers of its vehicles
(Form China Daily 2010-05-20)
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Wednesday he was banning all drivers of United Nations vehicles from texting while driving, to back efforts to curb a practice believed to kill thousands of people each year.
Ban made the announcement at a UN event where the United States and Russia issued what they called a "global call to end distracted driving."
Ban said he was issuing an "administrative instruction" to promote road safety that would include a prohibition on texting at the wheel. UN officials said the world body's legal department was studying the order and could not say what sanctions anyone caught sending text messages on cellphones or other hand-held devices while driving would receive.
The instruction potentially applies to all UN employees, of whom there are more than 70,000 worldwide.
"I want every driver in the world to get the message: texting while driving kills," the UN chief said.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said that in the United States alone, nearly 6,000 people died and more than half a million were injured in "distracted driving" crashes in 2008.
Some 32 countries have passed laws restricting the use of cellphones and other hand-held devices while driving.
Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said measures to combat the "epidemic" of distracted driving were being incorporated into an action plan being prepared by the World Health Organization and other UN agencies for a road safety decade due to run from 2011 to 2020.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Wednesday he was banning all drivers of United Nations vehicles from texting while driving, to back efforts to curb a practice believed to kill thousands of people each year.
Ban made the announcement at a UN event where the United States and Russia issued what they called a "global call to end distracted driving."
Ban said he was issuing an "administrative instruction" to promote road safety that would include a prohibition on texting at the wheel. UN officials said the world body's legal department was studying the order and could not say what sanctions anyone caught sending text messages on cellphones or other hand-held devices while driving would receive.
The instruction potentially applies to all UN employees, of whom there are more than 70,000 worldwide.
"I want every driver in the world to get the message: texting while driving kills," the UN chief said.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said that in the United States alone, nearly 6,000 people died and more than half a million were injured in "distracted driving" crashes in 2008.
Some 32 countries have passed laws restricting the use of cellphones and other hand-held devices while driving.
Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said measures to combat the "epidemic" of distracted driving were being incorporated into an action plan being prepared by the World Health Organization and other UN agencies for a road safety decade due to run from 2011 to 2020.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Lee Jeong Hyun
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/business/global/03foxconn.html?ref=asia
June 2, 2010
After Spate of Suicides, Technology Firm in China Raises Workers’ SalariesBy DAVID BARBOZA
SHANGHAI — Stung by labor shortages and a rash of suicides this year at its large factories in southern China, Foxconn Technology said Wednesday that it would immediately raise the salaries of many of its Chinese workers by 33 percent.
The pay increase is the latest indication that labor costs are rising in China’s coastal manufacturing centers and that workers are demanding higher pay to offset an increase in inflation and soaring food and property prices.
On Wednesday, Honda Motor said it had resolved a strike in southern China and resumed operations at a transmission plant there after agreeing to give 1,900 Chinese workers a 24 percent pay raise.
The Honda strike, which lasted more than two weeks, was a rare show of power by Chinese workers, who are not commonly allowed by the government to publicly strike and walk off the job for higher wages.
At Foxconn, the basic salary for an assembly line worker in Shenzhen is expected to rise from 900 renminbi ($132) a month to 1,200 renminbi ($176). The minimum monthly wage in Shenzhen is 900 renminbi, about 83 cents an hour.
The announcement comes just a week after Foxconn’s chairman, Terry Gou, visited its factories in the southern city of Shenzhen and promised to do everything possible to halt a spate of worker suicides and improve conditions at Foxconn, which is the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer.
The police say 10 Foxconn workers have committed suicide this year in Shenzhen.
The company, which is based in Taiwan and employs more than 800,000 workers in China, has denied that the suicides were work-related or above the national average, saying instead that they were the result of social ills and personal problems of young, migrant workers. Foxconn said Wednesday that the decision to raise salaries was not a direct response to the suicides.
But Foxconn, which produces electronics and computer components for Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Apple, has come under growing scrutiny in recent years because of recurring reports of harsh labor conditions at its factories, including long working hours and claims by labor rights activists that the company treats workers like machines.
Apple, Dell and H.P. each said last week that they were concerned about the recent suicides and were investigating the situation at Foxconn.
Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, said Tuesday during a technology conference in California that he was concerned about the deaths at Foxconn, but said that the factory was not a “sweatshop” and added that Apple was “over there trying to understand what is happening.”
Like most manufacturers in southern China, Foxconn is also struggling to hire thousands of workers at a time when the economy is booming and there is a shortage of unskilled migrant workers in many parts of coastal China.
Many migrant workers who typically move from inland provinces to coastal cities looking for factory work have complained that factory salaries have not kept pace with inflation. Many of them have decided to look for work closer to home.
Foxconn executives say the company’s factories in Shenzhen alone have hired more than 100,000 workers during the last year, and that labor rights groups have pressed the company to raise salaries.
“First, a pay raise will give our workers more leisure time,” said Arthur Huang, a Foxconn spokesman. “Second, such a huge pay raise will attract more qualified workers.”
Southern China’s manufacturing centers have been struggling with labor shortages since about 2003, and many coastal cities have raised the minimum wage in recent years.
Indeed, to help offset inflation and rising food, energy and housing costs — and to spur domestic consumption among the lower classes — Beijing urged local governments early this year to raise the minimum wage in the regions.
Many cities responded by raising the minimum wage by about 10 to 15 percent, to about 750 to 1,100 renminbi.
To cope with labor shortages and hold down costs, many factories in southern China expect employees to work a considerable amount of overtime. And often half of an employee’s wages come from overtime pay.
As a result, Foxconn’s 33 percent increase in wages could translate into even higher labor costs. Mr. Huang at Foxconn said the company had not yet calculated its impact on profitability.
But Debby Chan, project officer at Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior, a labor rights group based in Hong Kong, said the wage increases were insufficient.
“We’re advocating the living wage, and we think the standard should be between 1,700 to 2,100 renminbi a month,” Ms. Chan said Wednesday. “And we also have other demands, like Foxconn should look into the problems of their management methodology.”
June 2, 2010
After Spate of Suicides, Technology Firm in China Raises Workers’ SalariesBy DAVID BARBOZA
SHANGHAI — Stung by labor shortages and a rash of suicides this year at its large factories in southern China, Foxconn Technology said Wednesday that it would immediately raise the salaries of many of its Chinese workers by 33 percent.
The pay increase is the latest indication that labor costs are rising in China’s coastal manufacturing centers and that workers are demanding higher pay to offset an increase in inflation and soaring food and property prices.
On Wednesday, Honda Motor said it had resolved a strike in southern China and resumed operations at a transmission plant there after agreeing to give 1,900 Chinese workers a 24 percent pay raise.
The Honda strike, which lasted more than two weeks, was a rare show of power by Chinese workers, who are not commonly allowed by the government to publicly strike and walk off the job for higher wages.
At Foxconn, the basic salary for an assembly line worker in Shenzhen is expected to rise from 900 renminbi ($132) a month to 1,200 renminbi ($176). The minimum monthly wage in Shenzhen is 900 renminbi, about 83 cents an hour.
The announcement comes just a week after Foxconn’s chairman, Terry Gou, visited its factories in the southern city of Shenzhen and promised to do everything possible to halt a spate of worker suicides and improve conditions at Foxconn, which is the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer.
The police say 10 Foxconn workers have committed suicide this year in Shenzhen.
The company, which is based in Taiwan and employs more than 800,000 workers in China, has denied that the suicides were work-related or above the national average, saying instead that they were the result of social ills and personal problems of young, migrant workers. Foxconn said Wednesday that the decision to raise salaries was not a direct response to the suicides.
But Foxconn, which produces electronics and computer components for Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Apple, has come under growing scrutiny in recent years because of recurring reports of harsh labor conditions at its factories, including long working hours and claims by labor rights activists that the company treats workers like machines.
Apple, Dell and H.P. each said last week that they were concerned about the recent suicides and were investigating the situation at Foxconn.
Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, said Tuesday during a technology conference in California that he was concerned about the deaths at Foxconn, but said that the factory was not a “sweatshop” and added that Apple was “over there trying to understand what is happening.”
Like most manufacturers in southern China, Foxconn is also struggling to hire thousands of workers at a time when the economy is booming and there is a shortage of unskilled migrant workers in many parts of coastal China.
Many migrant workers who typically move from inland provinces to coastal cities looking for factory work have complained that factory salaries have not kept pace with inflation. Many of them have decided to look for work closer to home.
Foxconn executives say the company’s factories in Shenzhen alone have hired more than 100,000 workers during the last year, and that labor rights groups have pressed the company to raise salaries.
“First, a pay raise will give our workers more leisure time,” said Arthur Huang, a Foxconn spokesman. “Second, such a huge pay raise will attract more qualified workers.”
Southern China’s manufacturing centers have been struggling with labor shortages since about 2003, and many coastal cities have raised the minimum wage in recent years.
Indeed, to help offset inflation and rising food, energy and housing costs — and to spur domestic consumption among the lower classes — Beijing urged local governments early this year to raise the minimum wage in the regions.
Many cities responded by raising the minimum wage by about 10 to 15 percent, to about 750 to 1,100 renminbi.
To cope with labor shortages and hold down costs, many factories in southern China expect employees to work a considerable amount of overtime. And often half of an employee’s wages come from overtime pay.
As a result, Foxconn’s 33 percent increase in wages could translate into even higher labor costs. Mr. Huang at Foxconn said the company had not yet calculated its impact on profitability.
But Debby Chan, project officer at Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior, a labor rights group based in Hong Kong, said the wage increases were insufficient.
“We’re advocating the living wage, and we think the standard should be between 1,700 to 2,100 renminbi a month,” Ms. Chan said Wednesday. “And we also have other demands, like Foxconn should look into the problems of their management methodology.”
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Roh Youn's for the 26th of May
by Newsweek
Why Americans Think (Wrongly) That Illegal Immigrants Hurt the Economy
Job insecurity, strapped state budgets, and xenophobia may all play a role. But there's more to it than that.
By Arian Campo-Flores
At the heart of the debate over illegal immigration lies one key question: are immigrants good or bad for the economy? The American public overwhelmingly thinks they're bad. In a recent New York Times/CBS News poll, 74 percent of respondents said illegal immigrants weakened the economy, compared to only 17 percent who said they strengthened it. Yet the consensus among most economists is that immigration, both legal and illegal, provides a small net boost to the economy. Immigrants provide cheap labor, lower the prices of everything from produce to new homes, and leave consumers with a little more money in their pockets. They also replenish—and help fund benefits for—an aging American labor force that will retire in huge numbers over the next few decades. So why is there such a discrepancy between the perception of immigrants' impact on the economy and the reality?
There are a number of familiar theories. Some point to the ravages of the Great Recession, arguing that people are anxious and feel threatened by an influx of new workers (though anti-immigrant sentiment ran high at times prior to the crash of 2008). Others highlight the strain that undocumented immigrants place on public services, like schools, hospitals, and jails. Still others emphasize the role of race, arguing that foreigners provide a convenient repository for the nation's fears and insecurities. There's some truth to all of these explanations, but they aren't quite sufficient.
To get a better understanding of what's going on, consider the way immigration's impact is felt. Though its overall effect may be positive, its costs and benefits are distributed unevenly. David Card, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley notes that the ones who profit most directly from immigrants' low-cost labor are businesses and employers—meatpacking plants in Nebraska, for instance, or agribusinesses in California's Central Valley. Granted, these producers' savings probably translate into lower prices at the grocery store, but how many consumers make that mental connection at the checkout counter? As for the drawbacks of illegal immigration, these, too, are concentrated. Native low-skilled workers suffer most from the competition of foreign labor. According to a study by George Borjas, a Harvard economist, immigration reduced the wages of American high-school dropouts by 9 percent between 1980 and 2000. Not surprisingly, surveys show that those without a high-school diploma tend to oppose illegal immigration most fervently.
There's another distortion in the way immigration's costs and benefits are parceled out. Many undocumented workers pay money to the federal government, in the form of Social Security contributions and income taxes, and take less in return, says Gordon Hanson, an economist at the University of California, San Diego. At the state and local level, however, it's a different story. There, illegal immigrants also make contributions, through property and sales taxes, but on balance, they use more in public services, such as schools, health benefits, and welfare assistance. As a result, says Hanson, the federal government ends up with a net gain in its coffers, while "states get stuck with the bill."
This breeds resentment among taxpayers. In a 2005 paper, Hanson analyzed how the size of the undocumented population and its use of public assistance affected attitudes toward immigration. He found that among low-skilled workers, opposition to immigration stemmed mainly from the competitive threat posed by the newcomers. Among high-skilled, better-educated employees, however, opposition was strongest in states with both high numbers of immigrants and relatively generous social services. What worried them most, in other words, was the fiscal burden of immigration. That conclusion was reinforced by another finding: that their opposition appeared to soften when that fiscal burden decreased, as occurred with welfare reform in the 1990s, which curbed immigrants' access to certain benefits.
Beyond these economic rationales for anti-immigrant views, there's a demographic one as well. Illegal immigrants used to be clustered in a handful of big states, like California, Texas, and New York. But in the 1990s, they began dispersing en masse, chasing jobs in the remote reaches of the country. As a result, California's share of the undocumented population dropped from 42 percent in 1990 to 22 percent in 2008, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. A group of 28 fast-growing states, such as North Carolina and Georgia, more than doubled their share, from 14 percent in 1990 to 32 percent in 2008. Natives in those areas had barely any experience with undocumented immigrants, and they felt overwhelmed by the sudden change. The once distant debate over illegal immigration was now bubbling up in the heart of their communities.
In a new book, “Brokered Boundaries,” Douglas Massey and Magaly Sánchez cite research showing that such rapid demographic change tends to trigger anti-immigrant sentiment when it gets entangled in inflammatory political rhetoric. They argue that in the past several decades, a "Latino threat narrative" has come to dominate political and media discourse. In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan began framing immigration as an issue of "national security," they write. In the 1990s, the image of the immigrant-as-freeloader gained wide circulation. And in the 2000s, there was Lou Dobbs, railing against an "invasion of illegal aliens" that waged "war on the middle class." "The majority of Americans are more ambivalent than hostile [to undocumented immigration]," says Massey, a professor at Princeton. But "the hostile part can be mobilized from time to time," by what he calls "anti-immigrant entrepreneurs."
The irony is that for all the overexcited debate, the net effect of immigration is minimal (about a one tenth of 1 percent gain in gross domestic product, according to Hanson). Even for those most acutely affected—say, low-skilled workers, or California residents—the impact isn't all that dramatic. "The shrill voices have tended to dominate our perceptions," says Daniel Tichenor, a political science professor at the University of Oregon. "But when all those factors are put together and the economists crunch the numbers, it ends up being a net positive, but a small one." Too bad most people don't realize it.
Why Americans Think (Wrongly) That Illegal Immigrants Hurt the Economy
Job insecurity, strapped state budgets, and xenophobia may all play a role. But there's more to it than that.
By Arian Campo-Flores
At the heart of the debate over illegal immigration lies one key question: are immigrants good or bad for the economy? The American public overwhelmingly thinks they're bad. In a recent New York Times/CBS News poll, 74 percent of respondents said illegal immigrants weakened the economy, compared to only 17 percent who said they strengthened it. Yet the consensus among most economists is that immigration, both legal and illegal, provides a small net boost to the economy. Immigrants provide cheap labor, lower the prices of everything from produce to new homes, and leave consumers with a little more money in their pockets. They also replenish—and help fund benefits for—an aging American labor force that will retire in huge numbers over the next few decades. So why is there such a discrepancy between the perception of immigrants' impact on the economy and the reality?
There are a number of familiar theories. Some point to the ravages of the Great Recession, arguing that people are anxious and feel threatened by an influx of new workers (though anti-immigrant sentiment ran high at times prior to the crash of 2008). Others highlight the strain that undocumented immigrants place on public services, like schools, hospitals, and jails. Still others emphasize the role of race, arguing that foreigners provide a convenient repository for the nation's fears and insecurities. There's some truth to all of these explanations, but they aren't quite sufficient.
To get a better understanding of what's going on, consider the way immigration's impact is felt. Though its overall effect may be positive, its costs and benefits are distributed unevenly. David Card, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley notes that the ones who profit most directly from immigrants' low-cost labor are businesses and employers—meatpacking plants in Nebraska, for instance, or agribusinesses in California's Central Valley. Granted, these producers' savings probably translate into lower prices at the grocery store, but how many consumers make that mental connection at the checkout counter? As for the drawbacks of illegal immigration, these, too, are concentrated. Native low-skilled workers suffer most from the competition of foreign labor. According to a study by George Borjas, a Harvard economist, immigration reduced the wages of American high-school dropouts by 9 percent between 1980 and 2000. Not surprisingly, surveys show that those without a high-school diploma tend to oppose illegal immigration most fervently.
There's another distortion in the way immigration's costs and benefits are parceled out. Many undocumented workers pay money to the federal government, in the form of Social Security contributions and income taxes, and take less in return, says Gordon Hanson, an economist at the University of California, San Diego. At the state and local level, however, it's a different story. There, illegal immigrants also make contributions, through property and sales taxes, but on balance, they use more in public services, such as schools, health benefits, and welfare assistance. As a result, says Hanson, the federal government ends up with a net gain in its coffers, while "states get stuck with the bill."
This breeds resentment among taxpayers. In a 2005 paper, Hanson analyzed how the size of the undocumented population and its use of public assistance affected attitudes toward immigration. He found that among low-skilled workers, opposition to immigration stemmed mainly from the competitive threat posed by the newcomers. Among high-skilled, better-educated employees, however, opposition was strongest in states with both high numbers of immigrants and relatively generous social services. What worried them most, in other words, was the fiscal burden of immigration. That conclusion was reinforced by another finding: that their opposition appeared to soften when that fiscal burden decreased, as occurred with welfare reform in the 1990s, which curbed immigrants' access to certain benefits.
Beyond these economic rationales for anti-immigrant views, there's a demographic one as well. Illegal immigrants used to be clustered in a handful of big states, like California, Texas, and New York. But in the 1990s, they began dispersing en masse, chasing jobs in the remote reaches of the country. As a result, California's share of the undocumented population dropped from 42 percent in 1990 to 22 percent in 2008, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. A group of 28 fast-growing states, such as North Carolina and Georgia, more than doubled their share, from 14 percent in 1990 to 32 percent in 2008. Natives in those areas had barely any experience with undocumented immigrants, and they felt overwhelmed by the sudden change. The once distant debate over illegal immigration was now bubbling up in the heart of their communities.
In a new book, “Brokered Boundaries,” Douglas Massey and Magaly Sánchez cite research showing that such rapid demographic change tends to trigger anti-immigrant sentiment when it gets entangled in inflammatory political rhetoric. They argue that in the past several decades, a "Latino threat narrative" has come to dominate political and media discourse. In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan began framing immigration as an issue of "national security," they write. In the 1990s, the image of the immigrant-as-freeloader gained wide circulation. And in the 2000s, there was Lou Dobbs, railing against an "invasion of illegal aliens" that waged "war on the middle class." "The majority of Americans are more ambivalent than hostile [to undocumented immigration]," says Massey, a professor at Princeton. But "the hostile part can be mobilized from time to time," by what he calls "anti-immigrant entrepreneurs."
The irony is that for all the overexcited debate, the net effect of immigration is minimal (about a one tenth of 1 percent gain in gross domestic product, according to Hanson). Even for those most acutely affected—say, low-skilled workers, or California residents—the impact isn't all that dramatic. "The shrill voices have tended to dominate our perceptions," says Daniel Tichenor, a political science professor at the University of Oregon. "But when all those factors are put together and the economists crunch the numbers, it ends up being a net positive, but a small one." Too bad most people don't realize it.
Sangmin Han' Selection
May 24, 2010
Clinton and Geithner Face Hurdles in China Talks
By MARK LANDLER
BEIJING — China and the United States opened three days of high-level meetings here on Monday meant to broaden and deepen the ties between the world’s largest developed and developing economies.
But the opening session instead laid bare a recurring theme between Beijing and Washington: the United States came with a long wish list for China on both economic and security issues, while China mostly wants to be left alone to pursue policies that are turning it into an economic superpower without putting at risk its prized geopolitical stability.
President Hu Jintao, welcoming the 200-strong American delegation in the Great Hall of the People, praised the “mutually beneficial and win-win cooperation” between the United States and China. Such coordination, he said, had helped speed the recovery from the 2008 financial crisis.
On the crucial issue of China revaluing its currency — something the Obama administration had pushed for — Mr. Hu made a specific reference to continuing “reform of the reminbi exchange-rate mechanism.” His language repeated China’s past promises to make its effectively fixed exchange rate respond more to the market, but the fact that the country’s top leader mentioned reform at all suggested it is on the leadership’s agenda.
Still, Mr. Hu also repeated that Beijing would move “under the principle of independent decision-making, controllability, and gradual progress.” Translation: China alone will determine the timing of any such move.
Economists said the deepening debt crisis in Greece, which came up immediately in the discussions on Monday, would make Beijing more reluctant to allow its currency to appreciate in value in the immediate future.
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner did not mention China’s currency in his opening remarks, and the United States did not broach it in the first working session. The administration has decided not to prod Beijing at this meeting, officials said, concluding that it would resist outside pressure.
The United States is hitting similar hurdles on security issues. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pressed China to support measures against North Korea following the strong evidence that it torpedoed a South Korean warship in March. But China has been skeptical of North Korea’s role and is reluctant to punish Pyongyang, with which it has close ties.
And while China agreed to a watered-down United Nations resolution on Iran’s nuclear program, it has not signed off on annexes against specific Iranian individuals and companies. With big investments in Iran’s oil and gas industry, China may well be in business with some of them.
In her speech to the opening session, Mrs. Clinton cited Iran and North Korea as issues in which Beijing and Washington must find common cause. “Today, we face another serious challenge provoked by the sinking of the South Korean ship,” she said. “So we must work together, again, to address this challenge and advance our shared objectives of peace and stability.”
A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, Ma Zhaoxu, was noncommittal, saying of the Korea crisis, “We hope all the relevant parties will exercise restraint and remain cool-headed.”
Some of this is cultural, to be sure. Chinese officials tend to speak far less directly than Americans. Mr. Hu did not mention Iran and North Korea at all, referring only to regional “hot spots.” The fact that he frankly addressed the exchange rate of China’s currency, the renminbi, surprised some observers, and lent itself to varying interpretations.
For some experts, Mr. Hu’s pledge to “steadily advance the reform mechanism of the RMB exchange rate,” without repeating his previous references to the rate being “basically stable” was a sign of conciliation. “It’s important, the fact they haven’t mentioned it,” said Ben Simpfendorfer, the China economist for the Royal Bank of Scotland.
But others interpreted it as a pre-emptive move to take the issue off the table. Eswar Prasad, an economist at Cornell University, noted that the crisis in Greece had rattled the Chinese on two levels. It was likely to curb their exports to Europe, and it had strengthened the renminbi relative to the swooning euro, which makes Chinese goods more costly in foreign markets.
“That double hit on China’s exports almost certainly means that they’re not going to move forward unless there is evidence of stabilization in the euro and stabilization in Europe’s recovery,” Mr. Prasad said.
A senior Chinese official said that Beijing would keep a “high alert and attention on the euro zone sovereign debt crisis.” He noted that it could affect not only Europe’s economic recovery but also Chinese exports. China exports more to the European Union than to the United States.
The United States needed a 48-vehicle motorcade to ferry its delegation to this second round of the so-called strategic and economic dialogue. Among the prominent names: the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben A. Bernanke, the commander of the military’s Pacific Command, Adm. Robert F. Willard, and the secretary of health and human services, Kathleen Sebelius.
Some of the topics under discussion veered far from economics and security. Mrs. Clinton singled out Melanne Verveer, the State Department’s ambassador-at-large for women’s issues, who is meeting with Chinese women’s groups to discuss their progress in women’s rights.
Mr. Geithner lobbied against Chinese government procurement rules that give preference to products with intellectual property developed in China. American businesses, particularly in technology, complain that this handicaps them and deprives China of state-of-the-art products.
“Innovation flourishes best when markets are open, competition is fair, and strong protections exist for ideas and inventions,” he said.
The Chinese have their pet issues as well: Beijing is pushing for the United States to loosen controls on exports of high-technology equipment with potential military applications. A raft of questions from reporters for state-run Chinese media organizations suggested a coordinated campaign.
If the United States seemed likely to leave Beijing with many of its wishes unfulfilled, there was one notable difference in this year’s meeting compared to the one last year in Washington: the American economy is growing again, which gave Mr. Geithner a rare chance to crow a bit.
Rather than identify the United States with the troubled economies of Europe, Mr. Geithner said America was holding its own with the big emerging economies like Brazil, India, and China.
“Economic growth in the U.S. and China is broader and stronger than many had anticipated, even a few months ago,” he said.
Michael Wines contributed reporting from Beijing, and Keith Bradsher from Hong Kong.
Clinton and Geithner Face Hurdles in China Talks
By MARK LANDLER
BEIJING — China and the United States opened three days of high-level meetings here on Monday meant to broaden and deepen the ties between the world’s largest developed and developing economies.
But the opening session instead laid bare a recurring theme between Beijing and Washington: the United States came with a long wish list for China on both economic and security issues, while China mostly wants to be left alone to pursue policies that are turning it into an economic superpower without putting at risk its prized geopolitical stability.
President Hu Jintao, welcoming the 200-strong American delegation in the Great Hall of the People, praised the “mutually beneficial and win-win cooperation” between the United States and China. Such coordination, he said, had helped speed the recovery from the 2008 financial crisis.
On the crucial issue of China revaluing its currency — something the Obama administration had pushed for — Mr. Hu made a specific reference to continuing “reform of the reminbi exchange-rate mechanism.” His language repeated China’s past promises to make its effectively fixed exchange rate respond more to the market, but the fact that the country’s top leader mentioned reform at all suggested it is on the leadership’s agenda.
Still, Mr. Hu also repeated that Beijing would move “under the principle of independent decision-making, controllability, and gradual progress.” Translation: China alone will determine the timing of any such move.
Economists said the deepening debt crisis in Greece, which came up immediately in the discussions on Monday, would make Beijing more reluctant to allow its currency to appreciate in value in the immediate future.
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner did not mention China’s currency in his opening remarks, and the United States did not broach it in the first working session. The administration has decided not to prod Beijing at this meeting, officials said, concluding that it would resist outside pressure.
The United States is hitting similar hurdles on security issues. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pressed China to support measures against North Korea following the strong evidence that it torpedoed a South Korean warship in March. But China has been skeptical of North Korea’s role and is reluctant to punish Pyongyang, with which it has close ties.
And while China agreed to a watered-down United Nations resolution on Iran’s nuclear program, it has not signed off on annexes against specific Iranian individuals and companies. With big investments in Iran’s oil and gas industry, China may well be in business with some of them.
In her speech to the opening session, Mrs. Clinton cited Iran and North Korea as issues in which Beijing and Washington must find common cause. “Today, we face another serious challenge provoked by the sinking of the South Korean ship,” she said. “So we must work together, again, to address this challenge and advance our shared objectives of peace and stability.”
A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, Ma Zhaoxu, was noncommittal, saying of the Korea crisis, “We hope all the relevant parties will exercise restraint and remain cool-headed.”
Some of this is cultural, to be sure. Chinese officials tend to speak far less directly than Americans. Mr. Hu did not mention Iran and North Korea at all, referring only to regional “hot spots.” The fact that he frankly addressed the exchange rate of China’s currency, the renminbi, surprised some observers, and lent itself to varying interpretations.
For some experts, Mr. Hu’s pledge to “steadily advance the reform mechanism of the RMB exchange rate,” without repeating his previous references to the rate being “basically stable” was a sign of conciliation. “It’s important, the fact they haven’t mentioned it,” said Ben Simpfendorfer, the China economist for the Royal Bank of Scotland.
But others interpreted it as a pre-emptive move to take the issue off the table. Eswar Prasad, an economist at Cornell University, noted that the crisis in Greece had rattled the Chinese on two levels. It was likely to curb their exports to Europe, and it had strengthened the renminbi relative to the swooning euro, which makes Chinese goods more costly in foreign markets.
“That double hit on China’s exports almost certainly means that they’re not going to move forward unless there is evidence of stabilization in the euro and stabilization in Europe’s recovery,” Mr. Prasad said.
A senior Chinese official said that Beijing would keep a “high alert and attention on the euro zone sovereign debt crisis.” He noted that it could affect not only Europe’s economic recovery but also Chinese exports. China exports more to the European Union than to the United States.
The United States needed a 48-vehicle motorcade to ferry its delegation to this second round of the so-called strategic and economic dialogue. Among the prominent names: the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben A. Bernanke, the commander of the military’s Pacific Command, Adm. Robert F. Willard, and the secretary of health and human services, Kathleen Sebelius.
Some of the topics under discussion veered far from economics and security. Mrs. Clinton singled out Melanne Verveer, the State Department’s ambassador-at-large for women’s issues, who is meeting with Chinese women’s groups to discuss their progress in women’s rights.
Mr. Geithner lobbied against Chinese government procurement rules that give preference to products with intellectual property developed in China. American businesses, particularly in technology, complain that this handicaps them and deprives China of state-of-the-art products.
“Innovation flourishes best when markets are open, competition is fair, and strong protections exist for ideas and inventions,” he said.
The Chinese have their pet issues as well: Beijing is pushing for the United States to loosen controls on exports of high-technology equipment with potential military applications. A raft of questions from reporters for state-run Chinese media organizations suggested a coordinated campaign.
If the United States seemed likely to leave Beijing with many of its wishes unfulfilled, there was one notable difference in this year’s meeting compared to the one last year in Washington: the American economy is growing again, which gave Mr. Geithner a rare chance to crow a bit.
Rather than identify the United States with the troubled economies of Europe, Mr. Geithner said America was holding its own with the big emerging economies like Brazil, India, and China.
“Economic growth in the U.S. and China is broader and stronger than many had anticipated, even a few months ago,” he said.
Michael Wines contributed reporting from Beijing, and Keith Bradsher from Hong Kong.
Junghwa Noh
U.S. Backs South Korea in Cutting Trade With the North
By CHOE SANG-HUN and MARK LANDLER
Published: May 24, 2010
SEOUL, South Korea — Tensions escalated sharply Monday on the Korean Peninsula as the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, said that his nation would sever nearly all trade with North Korea, deny North Korean merchant ships use of South Korean sea lanes and ask the United Nations Security Council to punish the North for what he called the deliberate sinking of a South Korean warship two months ago.
In Washington, the Obama administration said the South Korean measures were “entirely appropriate.” President Obama instructed American military commanders to coordinate closely with their South Korean counterparts to “insure readiness and deter aggression.”
“The Republic of Korea can continue to count on the full support of the United States,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in Beijing, where she was attending high-level talks between China and the United States that have been overshadowed by the crisis. “Our support for South Korea’s defense is unequivocal.”
The steps outlined by Mr. Lee in a nationally televised speech — coupled with new moves by South Korea’s military to resume “psychological warfare” propaganda broadcasts at the border after a six-year suspension — amounted to the most serious action the South could take short of an armed retaliation for the sinking of the ship, the South’s worst military loss since the Korean War ended in a truce in 1953.
“We have always tolerated North Korea’s brutality, time and again,” Mr. Lee said. “But now things are different. North Korea will pay a price corresponding to its provocative acts. Trade and exchanges between South and North Korea will be suspended.”
North Korea’s military immediately warned that if South Korea put up propaganda loudspeakers and slogans at the border, it would destroy them with artillery shells, the North’s official K.C.N.A. news agency reported.
Mr. Lee’s speech came just as economic and security talks between China and the United States began in Beijing. In meetings on Sunday evening and Monday, Mrs. Clinton pressed Chinese leaders to take a much tougher position toward North Korea, China’s historical ally. Mr. Lee’s speech was bound to add to the pressure on the Chinese, who have called for restraint.
Mrs. Clinton expressed confidence that the Chinese would agree to take at least some measures, noting that Beijing supported additional sanctions against the North after it tested a nuclear device last year. But other American officials cautioned that Beijing remains unconvinced of the need to punish North Korea in the case of the warship.
“I can say the Chinese recognize the gravity of the situation we face,” Mrs. Clinton said to reporters after Mr. Lee’s speech. “This is a highly precarious situation that the North Koreans have caused in the region; it is one that every country that neighbors or is in proximity to North Korea understands must be contained.”
President Hu Jintao did not mention North Korea in his speech welcoming the American delegation, though he did say the two countries should “strengthen coordination on regional hot-spot and global issues.”
North Korea has denied responsibility for the sinking of the South Korean warship, the Cheonan, on March 26, which left 46 sailors dead. A growing body of evidence assembled by the South has suggested a North Korean torpedo sank the ship.
Cutting off trade with North Korea is the most punishing unilateral action the South could take against the impoverished North. It will deprive North Korea of 14.5 percent of its external trade and $253 million in cash revenues a year, according to estimates by Lim Kang-taek, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul.
Mr. Lee also said that South Korea would block North Korean merchant ships from using South Korean waters, which would force the ships to detour and use more fuel. North Korean merchant ships made 717 trips to South Korean ports or through South Korean sea lanes last year.
Besides these unilateral measures, South Korea will “refer this matter to the U.N. Security Council, so that the international community can join us in holding the North accountable,” Mr. Lee said. “Many countries around the world have expressed their full support for our position.”
Mrs. Clinton declined to detail specific steps the United States is weighing until after she meets Mr. Lee in Seoul on Wednesday. Other administration officials said the United States might conduct joint naval exercises with South Korea in anti-submarine warfare in the waters off the Korean Peninsula.
But Mrs. Clinton did not suggest that the State Department would soon add North Korea’s name to its list of state sponsors of terrorism, as some members of Congress have demanded. Reinstating North Korea, which was taken off the list by the Bush administration, would only happen if there was evidence that it was involved in acts of terrorism, she said.
In a separate announcement, the Defense Ministry announced the resumption of propaganda blitzes aimed at the North, a cold war tactic with loudspeaker broadcasts along the border, propaganda radio broadcasts and leaflets dropped by balloon. The resumption was bound to irritate the North Korea leader, Kim Jong-il, whose grip on power rests partly on denying outside information to citizens.
North Korea has already warned that such a move would prompt it to shut down the border with the South completely, raising the possibility of stranding 1,000 South Korean workers at a joint industrial park in the North Korean town of Kaesong. President Lee cited evidence that a multinational team of investigators released last week on the sinking of the ship, saying, “No responsible country in the international community will be able to deny the fact that the Cheonan was sunk by North Korea.” But he did not mention China by name.
Mr. Lee also stopped short of terminating the Kaesong industrial complex.
Delivering his speech from the Korean War Memorial in Seoul, Mr. Lee drew an analogy between the North’s surprise invasion that started the three-year Korean War on June 25, 1950, and the blast that sank the Cheonan.
“Again, the perpetrator was North Korea. Their attack came at a time when the people of the Republic of Korea were enjoying their well-earned rest after a hard day’s work,” he said. “Once again, North Korea violently shattered our peace.”
Choe Sang-hun reported from Seoul, and Mark Landler from Beijing.
QUESTIONS
Do you think that is it right to solve this problem?
Did North korea is really deed to South korea ship?
By CHOE SANG-HUN and MARK LANDLER
Published: May 24, 2010
SEOUL, South Korea — Tensions escalated sharply Monday on the Korean Peninsula as the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, said that his nation would sever nearly all trade with North Korea, deny North Korean merchant ships use of South Korean sea lanes and ask the United Nations Security Council to punish the North for what he called the deliberate sinking of a South Korean warship two months ago.
In Washington, the Obama administration said the South Korean measures were “entirely appropriate.” President Obama instructed American military commanders to coordinate closely with their South Korean counterparts to “insure readiness and deter aggression.”
“The Republic of Korea can continue to count on the full support of the United States,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in Beijing, where she was attending high-level talks between China and the United States that have been overshadowed by the crisis. “Our support for South Korea’s defense is unequivocal.”
The steps outlined by Mr. Lee in a nationally televised speech — coupled with new moves by South Korea’s military to resume “psychological warfare” propaganda broadcasts at the border after a six-year suspension — amounted to the most serious action the South could take short of an armed retaliation for the sinking of the ship, the South’s worst military loss since the Korean War ended in a truce in 1953.
“We have always tolerated North Korea’s brutality, time and again,” Mr. Lee said. “But now things are different. North Korea will pay a price corresponding to its provocative acts. Trade and exchanges between South and North Korea will be suspended.”
North Korea’s military immediately warned that if South Korea put up propaganda loudspeakers and slogans at the border, it would destroy them with artillery shells, the North’s official K.C.N.A. news agency reported.
Mr. Lee’s speech came just as economic and security talks between China and the United States began in Beijing. In meetings on Sunday evening and Monday, Mrs. Clinton pressed Chinese leaders to take a much tougher position toward North Korea, China’s historical ally. Mr. Lee’s speech was bound to add to the pressure on the Chinese, who have called for restraint.
Mrs. Clinton expressed confidence that the Chinese would agree to take at least some measures, noting that Beijing supported additional sanctions against the North after it tested a nuclear device last year. But other American officials cautioned that Beijing remains unconvinced of the need to punish North Korea in the case of the warship.
“I can say the Chinese recognize the gravity of the situation we face,” Mrs. Clinton said to reporters after Mr. Lee’s speech. “This is a highly precarious situation that the North Koreans have caused in the region; it is one that every country that neighbors or is in proximity to North Korea understands must be contained.”
President Hu Jintao did not mention North Korea in his speech welcoming the American delegation, though he did say the two countries should “strengthen coordination on regional hot-spot and global issues.”
North Korea has denied responsibility for the sinking of the South Korean warship, the Cheonan, on March 26, which left 46 sailors dead. A growing body of evidence assembled by the South has suggested a North Korean torpedo sank the ship.
Cutting off trade with North Korea is the most punishing unilateral action the South could take against the impoverished North. It will deprive North Korea of 14.5 percent of its external trade and $253 million in cash revenues a year, according to estimates by Lim Kang-taek, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul.
Mr. Lee also said that South Korea would block North Korean merchant ships from using South Korean waters, which would force the ships to detour and use more fuel. North Korean merchant ships made 717 trips to South Korean ports or through South Korean sea lanes last year.
Besides these unilateral measures, South Korea will “refer this matter to the U.N. Security Council, so that the international community can join us in holding the North accountable,” Mr. Lee said. “Many countries around the world have expressed their full support for our position.”
Mrs. Clinton declined to detail specific steps the United States is weighing until after she meets Mr. Lee in Seoul on Wednesday. Other administration officials said the United States might conduct joint naval exercises with South Korea in anti-submarine warfare in the waters off the Korean Peninsula.
But Mrs. Clinton did not suggest that the State Department would soon add North Korea’s name to its list of state sponsors of terrorism, as some members of Congress have demanded. Reinstating North Korea, which was taken off the list by the Bush administration, would only happen if there was evidence that it was involved in acts of terrorism, she said.
In a separate announcement, the Defense Ministry announced the resumption of propaganda blitzes aimed at the North, a cold war tactic with loudspeaker broadcasts along the border, propaganda radio broadcasts and leaflets dropped by balloon. The resumption was bound to irritate the North Korea leader, Kim Jong-il, whose grip on power rests partly on denying outside information to citizens.
North Korea has already warned that such a move would prompt it to shut down the border with the South completely, raising the possibility of stranding 1,000 South Korean workers at a joint industrial park in the North Korean town of Kaesong. President Lee cited evidence that a multinational team of investigators released last week on the sinking of the ship, saying, “No responsible country in the international community will be able to deny the fact that the Cheonan was sunk by North Korea.” But he did not mention China by name.
Mr. Lee also stopped short of terminating the Kaesong industrial complex.
Delivering his speech from the Korean War Memorial in Seoul, Mr. Lee drew an analogy between the North’s surprise invasion that started the three-year Korean War on June 25, 1950, and the blast that sank the Cheonan.
“Again, the perpetrator was North Korea. Their attack came at a time when the people of the Republic of Korea were enjoying their well-earned rest after a hard day’s work,” he said. “Once again, North Korea violently shattered our peace.”
Choe Sang-hun reported from Seoul, and Mark Landler from Beijing.
QUESTIONS
Do you think that is it right to solve this problem?
Did North korea is really deed to South korea ship?
Monday, May 24, 2010
news article
Women and veils Running for cover
May 13th 2010 PARIS From The Economist print edition
Both in Western Europe and the Muslim world (see article) the covering of female heads and faces is stirring passion—and posing a dilemma for governments
STRIKING a balance between personal and religious freedom, and the ideals of common citizenship, is proving to be an enormous test for all European countries with large Muslim populations—especially when some seem determined to assert, or even caricature, the practices of their homelands.
Certain things are easily settled: virtually everybody in Europe agrees in abhorring female genital mutilation, as practised in bits of Africa; or the harsh punishment of children in Koranic schools, which has occurred in Britain. But in recent months a third controversy has shown up contrasts between European countries and within them. This is over female headgear—and in particular, forms of dress in which all, or virtually all, the face is hidden. These include the head-covering burqa; and the commoner niqab, in which only a slit is left for the eyes. The burqa, imposed on Afghan women by the Taliban, has become a catchall term for headgear in which the face is wholly or mainly concealed.
Last month 136 of Belgium’s 138 lower-house legislators (who agree on little else, leaving their country near paralysis) voted to outlaw the burqa. Belgian police already have the right to stop people masking their faces, under an old security law; and in some cities this right is invoked to issue warnings to burqa-wearers, who number only a few dozen in the country. So it is hard to see what need the law serves. But a parliamentarian in Brussels said it created a rare moment of “pride in being Belgian” by “smashing the lock that has left quite a lot of women in slavery.” He hoped at least four European countries would follow.
This week France’s parliament approved a resolution deploring full-face cover, and legislation is due shortly. In Switzerland one of the 26 cantons has voted to work for a nationwide ban; the justice minister, Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, backs a ban, at least in cantons that want it. The Dutch authorities considered outlawing the burqa, then stepped back. But in Europe as a whole, the idea of making people show their faces is no longer a xenophobic fantasy, but a mainstream political project.
With a fresh election due in June, Belgium’s law is on hold; but it may be the first of many European bans on “all clothing hiding the face totally, or mostly.” Belgian women who wear the burqa in public will risk a modest fine or even seven days’ jail. In Italy a woman was fined €500 ($630) last week for wearing the burqa in a town where the Northern League mayor had barred clothing that hinders police checks.
The resolution passed by French legislators has no legal force but it has huge symbolic impact. Recalling the 1789 Declaration of Human Rights, it says the all-over veil “puts women in a relationship of subordination to men”. On grounds of “dignity” and “equality between men and women”, it judges the garment “contrary to the values of the republic”. A law to ban the burqa will go to cabinet on May 19th.
In some places such moves have been promoted by the far right. Italy’s Northern League, which wants a national burqa ban, is xenophobic. In Britain the anti-European United Kingdom Independence Party is the only party to agitate for a burqa ban. Ed Balls, a minister in the outgoing Labour government, said it was “not British” to tell people what to wear in the street. Jack Straw, a senior Labour figure who once voiced dismay over women who hid their face when meeting him, is still “fundamentally opposed” to a ban. And Barack Obama said in Cairo last year that Western countries should not be “dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear”.
In France, by contrast, the backers of a ban are neither extremists nor fringe feminists. It was first mooted by Nicolas Sarkozy, the centre-right president, who said last year that the burqa was “not welcome” on French soil. The first to call for a parliamentary motion was André Gerin, a Communist. This week’s resolution won broad support, including from the Socialists.
In many ways, the French move is the most intriguing test. France is home to Europe’s biggest Muslim minority, numbering 5m to 6m. It expects immigrants, or their offspring, of all faiths to adapt to French ways, not the other way round. France holds dear the ideal of laïcité, a strict ban on religion in the public arena that emerged from anticlerical struggles in the 19th century. It was in the name of laïcité that France banned the Muslim headscarf (and other “conspicuous” religious symbols) in state schools in 2004.
But France’s leaders do not cite laïcité as a reason for the burqa ban; to do so, they note, would mean accepting that hiding female faces is mandated by Islam. Most influential Muslims in France, including the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM), an official body, and Fadela Amara, a female Muslim minister, reject that reading. Mohammed Moussaoui, head of the CFCM, says “no Koranic text prescribes the wearing of the burqa or niqab.”
So the upcoming law—stating that “nobody may wear clothing that masks the face in any public place”—has been justified on two other grounds. One is security, and the need to be identifiable. (There was consternation earlier this year when two men clad in burqas robbed a post office near Paris.) The other is human dignity and equality between the sexes. “This is not a religious question,” argues Jean-François Copé, parliamentary leader of the ruling UMP party. Most French people view the burqa as a clear token of oppression; if libertarians defend it, this is seen as implying softness on ills such as domestic violence.
Recent news has reinforced that view. This week, in a town west of Paris, police arrested a man suspected of forcing his wife to wear the burqa, and of raping and beating her. (With such cases in mind, the upcoming French law would reserve the harshest penalties for a man found to have made his wife wear the burqa.) Mr Copé firmly rejects the idea that France is unjustifiably curbing liberty. He notes that: “On Fifth Avenue, you do not have the liberty to walk down the street completely nude.”
The motives of young French Muslim women—sometimes more inclined to hide their faces than their mothers were—are hotly contested. Many French analysts say a “re-veiling” trend among young girls reflects manipulation by zealots. Although no more than 2,000 women in France cover their face, the phenomenon is growing. Dounia Bouzar, a French Muslim anthropologist, told a parliamentary inquiry that many of the women were young. Intelligence sources say two-thirds are French nationals, and nearly a quarter converts. Many come from North Africa, where there is no face-covering tradition.
So France’s leaders are determined to press ahead. Two risks stand out. First, the ban, which some see as a ruse by Mr Sarkozy to woo far-right voters, may stigmatise Islam and create a defensive reaction. (This is why Mr Moussaoui, who dislikes the burqa, opposes a ban.) As the debate took off, a mosque in south-east France was sprayed with gunfire.
Second, it is unclear how the ban would work in practice. The Conseil d’Etat, the highest administrative court, has questioned the legal basis for the ban. And what about foreigners? Mr Copé says that the ban would apply to visitors too: but would women from the Gulf states be hauled away from smart boutiques?
And then there are other problems: how could one prove that a woman wore a burqa under orders from her menfolk? And isn’t there a risk of such women facing further isolation in the home? That would be an odd result for a law designed in part to ensure sexual equality.
May 13th 2010 PARIS From The Economist print edition
Both in Western Europe and the Muslim world (see article) the covering of female heads and faces is stirring passion—and posing a dilemma for governments
STRIKING a balance between personal and religious freedom, and the ideals of common citizenship, is proving to be an enormous test for all European countries with large Muslim populations—especially when some seem determined to assert, or even caricature, the practices of their homelands.
Certain things are easily settled: virtually everybody in Europe agrees in abhorring female genital mutilation, as practised in bits of Africa; or the harsh punishment of children in Koranic schools, which has occurred in Britain. But in recent months a third controversy has shown up contrasts between European countries and within them. This is over female headgear—and in particular, forms of dress in which all, or virtually all, the face is hidden. These include the head-covering burqa; and the commoner niqab, in which only a slit is left for the eyes. The burqa, imposed on Afghan women by the Taliban, has become a catchall term for headgear in which the face is wholly or mainly concealed.
Last month 136 of Belgium’s 138 lower-house legislators (who agree on little else, leaving their country near paralysis) voted to outlaw the burqa. Belgian police already have the right to stop people masking their faces, under an old security law; and in some cities this right is invoked to issue warnings to burqa-wearers, who number only a few dozen in the country. So it is hard to see what need the law serves. But a parliamentarian in Brussels said it created a rare moment of “pride in being Belgian” by “smashing the lock that has left quite a lot of women in slavery.” He hoped at least four European countries would follow.
This week France’s parliament approved a resolution deploring full-face cover, and legislation is due shortly. In Switzerland one of the 26 cantons has voted to work for a nationwide ban; the justice minister, Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, backs a ban, at least in cantons that want it. The Dutch authorities considered outlawing the burqa, then stepped back. But in Europe as a whole, the idea of making people show their faces is no longer a xenophobic fantasy, but a mainstream political project.
With a fresh election due in June, Belgium’s law is on hold; but it may be the first of many European bans on “all clothing hiding the face totally, or mostly.” Belgian women who wear the burqa in public will risk a modest fine or even seven days’ jail. In Italy a woman was fined €500 ($630) last week for wearing the burqa in a town where the Northern League mayor had barred clothing that hinders police checks.
The resolution passed by French legislators has no legal force but it has huge symbolic impact. Recalling the 1789 Declaration of Human Rights, it says the all-over veil “puts women in a relationship of subordination to men”. On grounds of “dignity” and “equality between men and women”, it judges the garment “contrary to the values of the republic”. A law to ban the burqa will go to cabinet on May 19th.
In some places such moves have been promoted by the far right. Italy’s Northern League, which wants a national burqa ban, is xenophobic. In Britain the anti-European United Kingdom Independence Party is the only party to agitate for a burqa ban. Ed Balls, a minister in the outgoing Labour government, said it was “not British” to tell people what to wear in the street. Jack Straw, a senior Labour figure who once voiced dismay over women who hid their face when meeting him, is still “fundamentally opposed” to a ban. And Barack Obama said in Cairo last year that Western countries should not be “dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear”.
In France, by contrast, the backers of a ban are neither extremists nor fringe feminists. It was first mooted by Nicolas Sarkozy, the centre-right president, who said last year that the burqa was “not welcome” on French soil. The first to call for a parliamentary motion was André Gerin, a Communist. This week’s resolution won broad support, including from the Socialists.
In many ways, the French move is the most intriguing test. France is home to Europe’s biggest Muslim minority, numbering 5m to 6m. It expects immigrants, or their offspring, of all faiths to adapt to French ways, not the other way round. France holds dear the ideal of laïcité, a strict ban on religion in the public arena that emerged from anticlerical struggles in the 19th century. It was in the name of laïcité that France banned the Muslim headscarf (and other “conspicuous” religious symbols) in state schools in 2004.
But France’s leaders do not cite laïcité as a reason for the burqa ban; to do so, they note, would mean accepting that hiding female faces is mandated by Islam. Most influential Muslims in France, including the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM), an official body, and Fadela Amara, a female Muslim minister, reject that reading. Mohammed Moussaoui, head of the CFCM, says “no Koranic text prescribes the wearing of the burqa or niqab.”
So the upcoming law—stating that “nobody may wear clothing that masks the face in any public place”—has been justified on two other grounds. One is security, and the need to be identifiable. (There was consternation earlier this year when two men clad in burqas robbed a post office near Paris.) The other is human dignity and equality between the sexes. “This is not a religious question,” argues Jean-François Copé, parliamentary leader of the ruling UMP party. Most French people view the burqa as a clear token of oppression; if libertarians defend it, this is seen as implying softness on ills such as domestic violence.
Recent news has reinforced that view. This week, in a town west of Paris, police arrested a man suspected of forcing his wife to wear the burqa, and of raping and beating her. (With such cases in mind, the upcoming French law would reserve the harshest penalties for a man found to have made his wife wear the burqa.) Mr Copé firmly rejects the idea that France is unjustifiably curbing liberty. He notes that: “On Fifth Avenue, you do not have the liberty to walk down the street completely nude.”
The motives of young French Muslim women—sometimes more inclined to hide their faces than their mothers were—are hotly contested. Many French analysts say a “re-veiling” trend among young girls reflects manipulation by zealots. Although no more than 2,000 women in France cover their face, the phenomenon is growing. Dounia Bouzar, a French Muslim anthropologist, told a parliamentary inquiry that many of the women were young. Intelligence sources say two-thirds are French nationals, and nearly a quarter converts. Many come from North Africa, where there is no face-covering tradition.
So France’s leaders are determined to press ahead. Two risks stand out. First, the ban, which some see as a ruse by Mr Sarkozy to woo far-right voters, may stigmatise Islam and create a defensive reaction. (This is why Mr Moussaoui, who dislikes the burqa, opposes a ban.) As the debate took off, a mosque in south-east France was sprayed with gunfire.
Second, it is unclear how the ban would work in practice. The Conseil d’Etat, the highest administrative court, has questioned the legal basis for the ban. And what about foreigners? Mr Copé says that the ban would apply to visitors too: but would women from the Gulf states be hauled away from smart boutiques?
And then there are other problems: how could one prove that a woman wore a burqa under orders from her menfolk? And isn’t there a risk of such women facing further isolation in the home? That would be an odd result for a law designed in part to ensure sexual equality.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
A guilty verdict for North Korea
Their number is up
Evidence that North Korea torpedoed the Cheonan puts it—and China—on the spot
May 20th 2010 SEOUL AND TOKYO From The Economist print edition
WHOEVER failed to erase the words “Number One” in blue Korean script etched inside the propulsion shaft of a deadly torpedo may well be in deep trouble in Pyongyang. On May 15th a ship dredging the site of the attack on a South Korean warship in March that killed 46 seamen made a spectacular find: propellers, motors and a steering section that international investigators say “perfectly match” those of a CHT-02D torpedo that North Korea sells abroad. What’s more, the blue marking was similar to one on a previously captured North Korean torpedo. This was as close to a smoking gun as the South Koreans could have hoped to find.
The discovery, combined with intelligence reports indicating North Korean submarines were out of port during the attack, allowed the investigators to conclude on May 20th that the Cheonan “was sunk as the result of an external underwater explosion caused by a torpedo made in North Korea.” Or as one person close to the investigation succinctly put it: “It was either the North Koreans, or it was the Martians.”
The South Korean government of President Lee Myung-bak had barely dared hope to find hard evidence of North Korean guilt, however strong its suspicions. In doing so, it pushes the belligerent regime in Pyongyang into a corner. True to form, it continued to deny its involvement on May 20th, calling the investigation a “fabrication” and threatened “all-out war” if new sanctions were imposed.
Diplomats say it will also make it harder for North Korea ’s main ally, China, not to accept the regime’s culpability. A senior official in Beijing reportedly called the incident “very unfortunate”. He did not comment on the investigation, though an official in Seoul said China’s ambassador was briefed on the results on May 18th.
In coming days China will come under pressure to issue a tougher response, during what could be some uncomfortable diplomatic meetings. Hillary Clinton, America’s secretary of state, is to visit Beijing on May 24th and 25th. Following that, the leaders of China, South Korea and Japan are scheduled to hold a summit in South Korea on May 29th and 30th.
The proof of North Korean involvement, say diplomats, may help South Korea and its allies persuade China to back some form of United Nations condemnation of the attack. South Korea’s allies such as America, Japan, Britain and Australia were quick to express their outrage. But the toughest condemnation, in the form of a Security-Council resolution, needs China’s support, or at least abstention.
Beyond diplomatic measures, South Korea’s retaliatory options are relatively puny—and dangerous. South Korean diplomats suggest that the government may announce a halt to remaining business ties with the North, except through the cross-border industrial complex, known as Kaesong. It may close a shipping shortcut to North Korean vessels, and conduct joint training exercises with American maritime forces in the Yellow Sea.
A retaliatory strike, which some hawkish South Koreans are calling for, is something the pro-business President Lee is considered reluctant to do for fear of escalating the conflict. His party faces local elections that it is expected to win on June 2nd (his liberal opponents already accuse him, perhaps unfairly, of using the incident for political ends). After that he hosts an important G20 summit in November.
Among the population at large, there seems little stomach for a fight. Indeed, despite a national outpouring of grief, the senseless attack aroused surprisingly few public demonstrations of wrath with the North. Brian Myers, a writer on North Korea, notes that there was more palpable anger in 2002 when an American army vehicle ran over two South Korean schoolgirls.
However, he and other North Korea watchers think tough measures may eventually be called for. The more the cash-strapped regime in Pyongyang feels economically isolated, the more it is likely to step up its provocations against the South unless it is decisively put in its place, Mr Myers says. As it is, the North is in desperate economic straits. Six-party talks that aimed to encourage it to give up nuclear weapons in exchange for cash are stalled indefinitely as a result of the torpedo attack. International sanctions have hit other sources of hard currency.
China is its economic lifeline, as was shown again when Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s dictator, made a hasty trip to Beijing not long after the Cheonan incident to beg for continued economic support. At that point, Beijing had an excuse, in public at least, to take his claims of innocence at face value. It no longer does.
Evidence that North Korea torpedoed the Cheonan puts it—and China—on the spot
May 20th 2010 SEOUL AND TOKYO From The Economist print edition
WHOEVER failed to erase the words “Number One” in blue Korean script etched inside the propulsion shaft of a deadly torpedo may well be in deep trouble in Pyongyang. On May 15th a ship dredging the site of the attack on a South Korean warship in March that killed 46 seamen made a spectacular find: propellers, motors and a steering section that international investigators say “perfectly match” those of a CHT-02D torpedo that North Korea sells abroad. What’s more, the blue marking was similar to one on a previously captured North Korean torpedo. This was as close to a smoking gun as the South Koreans could have hoped to find.
The discovery, combined with intelligence reports indicating North Korean submarines were out of port during the attack, allowed the investigators to conclude on May 20th that the Cheonan “was sunk as the result of an external underwater explosion caused by a torpedo made in North Korea.” Or as one person close to the investigation succinctly put it: “It was either the North Koreans, or it was the Martians.”
The South Korean government of President Lee Myung-bak had barely dared hope to find hard evidence of North Korean guilt, however strong its suspicions. In doing so, it pushes the belligerent regime in Pyongyang into a corner. True to form, it continued to deny its involvement on May 20th, calling the investigation a “fabrication” and threatened “all-out war” if new sanctions were imposed.
Diplomats say it will also make it harder for North Korea ’s main ally, China, not to accept the regime’s culpability. A senior official in Beijing reportedly called the incident “very unfortunate”. He did not comment on the investigation, though an official in Seoul said China’s ambassador was briefed on the results on May 18th.
In coming days China will come under pressure to issue a tougher response, during what could be some uncomfortable diplomatic meetings. Hillary Clinton, America’s secretary of state, is to visit Beijing on May 24th and 25th. Following that, the leaders of China, South Korea and Japan are scheduled to hold a summit in South Korea on May 29th and 30th.
The proof of North Korean involvement, say diplomats, may help South Korea and its allies persuade China to back some form of United Nations condemnation of the attack. South Korea’s allies such as America, Japan, Britain and Australia were quick to express their outrage. But the toughest condemnation, in the form of a Security-Council resolution, needs China’s support, or at least abstention.
Beyond diplomatic measures, South Korea’s retaliatory options are relatively puny—and dangerous. South Korean diplomats suggest that the government may announce a halt to remaining business ties with the North, except through the cross-border industrial complex, known as Kaesong. It may close a shipping shortcut to North Korean vessels, and conduct joint training exercises with American maritime forces in the Yellow Sea.
A retaliatory strike, which some hawkish South Koreans are calling for, is something the pro-business President Lee is considered reluctant to do for fear of escalating the conflict. His party faces local elections that it is expected to win on June 2nd (his liberal opponents already accuse him, perhaps unfairly, of using the incident for political ends). After that he hosts an important G20 summit in November.
Among the population at large, there seems little stomach for a fight. Indeed, despite a national outpouring of grief, the senseless attack aroused surprisingly few public demonstrations of wrath with the North. Brian Myers, a writer on North Korea, notes that there was more palpable anger in 2002 when an American army vehicle ran over two South Korean schoolgirls.
However, he and other North Korea watchers think tough measures may eventually be called for. The more the cash-strapped regime in Pyongyang feels economically isolated, the more it is likely to step up its provocations against the South unless it is decisively put in its place, Mr Myers says. As it is, the North is in desperate economic straits. Six-party talks that aimed to encourage it to give up nuclear weapons in exchange for cash are stalled indefinitely as a result of the torpedo attack. International sanctions have hit other sources of hard currency.
China is its economic lifeline, as was shown again when Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s dictator, made a hasty trip to Beijing not long after the Cheonan incident to beg for continued economic support. At that point, Beijing had an excuse, in public at least, to take his claims of innocence at face value. It no longer does.
Man Who Shot Police Had Antigovernment Views
May 21, 2010 (New York Time-Jihwan Kim)
Man Who Shot Police Had Antigovernment Views
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — An antigovernment Ohio man who had had several run-ins with the police around the country was identified Friday as one of two people suspected of gunning down two officers during a traffic stop in Arkansas.
The Arkansas State Police on Friday identified the pair — killed Thursday during an exchange of gunfire with the police — as Jerry R. Kane Jr., 45, of Forest, Ohio, and his son Joseph T. Kane, believed to be 16.
About 90 minutes before the shootout with the police, Sgt. Brandon Paudert, 39, and Officer Bill Evans, 38, were killed with AK-47 assault rifles after stopping a minivan on Interstate 40 in West Memphis, Ark., the authorities said.
Jerry Kane, who used the Internet to question federal and local government authority over him, made money holding debt-elimination seminars around the country. He had a long police record and had recently complained about being arrested at what he called a “Nazi checkpoint” near Carrizozo, N.M., where court records showed he spent three days in jail on charges of driving without a license and concealing his identity before posting a $1,500 bond.
Sheriff Gene Kelly of Clark County, Ohio, told The Associated Press on Friday that he had issued a warning to officers on July 21, 2004, saying that Mr. Kane might be dangerous to law enforcement officers. Sheriff Kelly said he had based his conclusion on a conversation the two men had had about a sentence Mr. Kane had received for some traffic violations.
Sheriff Kelly said that Mr. Kane complained in 2004 about being sentenced to six days of community service for driving with an expired license plate and no seat belt, saying that the judge had tried to “enslave” him. Mr. Kane had added that he was a “free man” and had asked for $100,000 per day in gold or silver.
“I feel that he is expecting and prepared for confrontations with any law enforcement officer that may come in contact with him,” Sheriff Kelly wrote in his warning to officers.
On an Internet radio show, Mr. Kane expressed outrage about his New Mexico arrest. “I ran into a Nazi checkpoint in the middle of New Mexico where they were demanding papers or jail,” he said. “That was the option. Either produce your papers or go to jail. So I entered into commerce with them under threat, duress and coercion, and spent 47 hours in there.”
Mr. Kane said he planned to file a counterclaim alleging kidnapping and extortion. “I already have done a background check on him,” he said of the arresting officer. “I found out where he lives, his address, his wife’s name.”
Mark Potok, who directs hate-group research at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said Mr. Kane had not been in the group’s database before Thursday. But he said that was not surprising, given the “explosive growth” in the antigovernment movement in recent years. With 363 new groups in 2009, there are now 512, Mr. Potok said.
JJ MacNab, who has testified before Congress on tax and financial schemes, said that she had been tracking Mr. Kane for about two years and that his business centered on debt-avoidance swindles.
Mr. Potok said such schemes were common in the movement, whose members consider themselves sovereign citizens.
“He basically promised them they would never have to repay their mortgage or credit card debt,” Ms. MacNab said.
Man Who Shot Police Had Antigovernment Views
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — An antigovernment Ohio man who had had several run-ins with the police around the country was identified Friday as one of two people suspected of gunning down two officers during a traffic stop in Arkansas.
The Arkansas State Police on Friday identified the pair — killed Thursday during an exchange of gunfire with the police — as Jerry R. Kane Jr., 45, of Forest, Ohio, and his son Joseph T. Kane, believed to be 16.
About 90 minutes before the shootout with the police, Sgt. Brandon Paudert, 39, and Officer Bill Evans, 38, were killed with AK-47 assault rifles after stopping a minivan on Interstate 40 in West Memphis, Ark., the authorities said.
Jerry Kane, who used the Internet to question federal and local government authority over him, made money holding debt-elimination seminars around the country. He had a long police record and had recently complained about being arrested at what he called a “Nazi checkpoint” near Carrizozo, N.M., where court records showed he spent three days in jail on charges of driving without a license and concealing his identity before posting a $1,500 bond.
Sheriff Gene Kelly of Clark County, Ohio, told The Associated Press on Friday that he had issued a warning to officers on July 21, 2004, saying that Mr. Kane might be dangerous to law enforcement officers. Sheriff Kelly said he had based his conclusion on a conversation the two men had had about a sentence Mr. Kane had received for some traffic violations.
Sheriff Kelly said that Mr. Kane complained in 2004 about being sentenced to six days of community service for driving with an expired license plate and no seat belt, saying that the judge had tried to “enslave” him. Mr. Kane had added that he was a “free man” and had asked for $100,000 per day in gold or silver.
“I feel that he is expecting and prepared for confrontations with any law enforcement officer that may come in contact with him,” Sheriff Kelly wrote in his warning to officers.
On an Internet radio show, Mr. Kane expressed outrage about his New Mexico arrest. “I ran into a Nazi checkpoint in the middle of New Mexico where they were demanding papers or jail,” he said. “That was the option. Either produce your papers or go to jail. So I entered into commerce with them under threat, duress and coercion, and spent 47 hours in there.”
Mr. Kane said he planned to file a counterclaim alleging kidnapping and extortion. “I already have done a background check on him,” he said of the arresting officer. “I found out where he lives, his address, his wife’s name.”
Mark Potok, who directs hate-group research at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said Mr. Kane had not been in the group’s database before Thursday. But he said that was not surprising, given the “explosive growth” in the antigovernment movement in recent years. With 363 new groups in 2009, there are now 512, Mr. Potok said.
JJ MacNab, who has testified before Congress on tax and financial schemes, said that she had been tracking Mr. Kane for about two years and that his business centered on debt-avoidance swindles.
Mr. Potok said such schemes were common in the movement, whose members consider themselves sovereign citizens.
“He basically promised them they would never have to repay their mortgage or credit card debt,” Ms. MacNab said.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Mexican Drug Trafficking
Although Mexico has been a producer and transit route for illegal drugs for generations, the country now finds itself in a pitched battle with powerful and well-financed drug cartels. Top police commanders have been assassinated and grenades thrown, in one case into the crowd at an Independence Day celebration.
The authorities say most of the deaths have resulted from drug cartels fighting rivals. But soldiers and police have also been killed, as well as innocents.
The upsurge in violence is traced to the end of 2006 when President Felipe Calderon launched a frontal assault on the cartels by deploying tens of thousands of soldiers and federal police to take them on. Mr. Calderon has successfully pushed the United States to acknowledge its own responsibility for the violence in Mexico since it is American drug consumers who fuel demand and American guns smuggled into Mexico that are used by the drug gangs.
With the prospect of a quick victory increasingly elusive, a rising chorus of voices on both sides of the border is questioning the cost and the fallout of the assault on the cartels.
Read More...
To many Mexicans, the rising count of gruesome drug-related murders is evidence that the government's strategy is not working. In September 2009, newspapers estimated the number of killings at more than 13,600 since Mr. Calderón took office.
The struggle began to effect relations with the United States as well. On March 13, 2010, gunmen believed to be linked to drug traffickers shot a pregnant American consulate worker and her husband to death in the violence-racked border town of Ciudad Juárez. The gunmen also killed the husband of another consular employee and wounded his two young children.
The shootings took place minutes apart and appeared to be the first deadly attacks on American officials and their families by Mexico's powerful drug organizations, provoking an angry reaction from the White House. They came during a particularly bloody weekend when nearly 50 people were killed nationwide in drug-gang violence, including attacks in Acapulco as American college students began arriving for spring break.
The killings followed threats against American diplomats along the Mexican border and complaints from consulate workers that drug-related violence was growing untenable, American officials said. Even before the shootings, the State Department had quietly made the decision to allow consulate workers to evacuate their families across the border to the United States.
In response to critics, Mr. Calderón has said his government was the first one to take on the drug trafficking organizations.
The strategy "has not only reversed the rising trend of crime and drug trafficking, but it has also weakened the conditions that allowed them to reproduce and to expand," Mr. Calderón said.
But Mexicans wonder if they are paying too high a price and some have begun openly speaking of decriminalizing drugs to reduce the sizeable profits the gangs receive.
Americans, from border state governors to military analysts in Washington, have begun to question whether the spillover violence presents a threat to their own national security and, to the outrage of many Mexicans, whether the state itself will crumble under the strain of the war.
While Mr. Calderon dismisses suggestions that Mexico is a failed state, he and his aides have spoken frankly of the cartels' attempts to set up a state within a state, levying taxes, throwing up roadblocks and enforcing their own perverse codes of behavior. The Mexican government has identified 233 "zones of impunity'' across the country, where crime is largely uncontrolled, a figure that is down from 2,204 zones a year ago.
The authorities have made a string of high-profile arrests of drug chieftains and have had success seizing large amounts of illegal drugs, guns and money. But the violence remains high and authorities acknowledge that they will never wipe out this multi-billion-dollar-a-year industry. The goal now is to turn what is a national security problem into one that can be handled by law enforcement.
Responding to a growing sense that Mexico's military-led fight against drug traffickers is not gaining ground, the United States and Mexico set their counternarcotics strategy on a new course in March 2010 by refocusing their efforts on strengthening civilian law enforcement institutions and rebuilding communities crippled by poverty and crime.
The $331 million plan was at the center of a visit to Mexico in March by several senior Obama administration officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
The revised strategy has many elements meant to expand on and improve programs already under way as part of the so-called Mérida Initiative that was started by the Bush administration including cooperation among American and Mexican intelligence agencies and American support for training Mexican police officers, judges, prosecutors and public defenders.
Under the new strategy, officials said, American and Mexican agencies would work together to refocus border enforcement efforts away from building a better wall to creating systems that would allow goods and people to be screened before they reach the crossing points. The plan would also provide support for Mexican programs intended to strengthen communities where socioeconomic hardships force many young people into crime.
The most striking difference between the old strategy and the new one is the shift away from military assistance. More than half of the $1.3 billion spent under Merida was used to buy aircraft, inspection equipment and information technology for the Mexican military and police. Next year's foreign aid budget provides for civilian police training, not equipment.
Military-to-military cooperation was expected to continue, officials said, despite reports by human rights groups of an increase in human rights violations by Mexican soldiers.
This revised strategy, officials said, would first go into effect in Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez, the largest cities on Mexico's border with the United States. Ciudad Juárez, a city of 1.7 million, has become a symbol of the Mexican government's failed attempts to rein in the drug gangs.
The public outcry generated by the violence in Ciudad Juárez forced Mr. Calderón to acknowledge that the drug war would not be won with troops alone.
The authorities say most of the deaths have resulted from drug cartels fighting rivals. But soldiers and police have also been killed, as well as innocents.
The upsurge in violence is traced to the end of 2006 when President Felipe Calderon launched a frontal assault on the cartels by deploying tens of thousands of soldiers and federal police to take them on. Mr. Calderon has successfully pushed the United States to acknowledge its own responsibility for the violence in Mexico since it is American drug consumers who fuel demand and American guns smuggled into Mexico that are used by the drug gangs.
With the prospect of a quick victory increasingly elusive, a rising chorus of voices on both sides of the border is questioning the cost and the fallout of the assault on the cartels.
Read More...
To many Mexicans, the rising count of gruesome drug-related murders is evidence that the government's strategy is not working. In September 2009, newspapers estimated the number of killings at more than 13,600 since Mr. Calderón took office.
The struggle began to effect relations with the United States as well. On March 13, 2010, gunmen believed to be linked to drug traffickers shot a pregnant American consulate worker and her husband to death in the violence-racked border town of Ciudad Juárez. The gunmen also killed the husband of another consular employee and wounded his two young children.
The shootings took place minutes apart and appeared to be the first deadly attacks on American officials and their families by Mexico's powerful drug organizations, provoking an angry reaction from the White House. They came during a particularly bloody weekend when nearly 50 people were killed nationwide in drug-gang violence, including attacks in Acapulco as American college students began arriving for spring break.
The killings followed threats against American diplomats along the Mexican border and complaints from consulate workers that drug-related violence was growing untenable, American officials said. Even before the shootings, the State Department had quietly made the decision to allow consulate workers to evacuate their families across the border to the United States.
In response to critics, Mr. Calderón has said his government was the first one to take on the drug trafficking organizations.
The strategy "has not only reversed the rising trend of crime and drug trafficking, but it has also weakened the conditions that allowed them to reproduce and to expand," Mr. Calderón said.
But Mexicans wonder if they are paying too high a price and some have begun openly speaking of decriminalizing drugs to reduce the sizeable profits the gangs receive.
Americans, from border state governors to military analysts in Washington, have begun to question whether the spillover violence presents a threat to their own national security and, to the outrage of many Mexicans, whether the state itself will crumble under the strain of the war.
While Mr. Calderon dismisses suggestions that Mexico is a failed state, he and his aides have spoken frankly of the cartels' attempts to set up a state within a state, levying taxes, throwing up roadblocks and enforcing their own perverse codes of behavior. The Mexican government has identified 233 "zones of impunity'' across the country, where crime is largely uncontrolled, a figure that is down from 2,204 zones a year ago.
The authorities have made a string of high-profile arrests of drug chieftains and have had success seizing large amounts of illegal drugs, guns and money. But the violence remains high and authorities acknowledge that they will never wipe out this multi-billion-dollar-a-year industry. The goal now is to turn what is a national security problem into one that can be handled by law enforcement.
Responding to a growing sense that Mexico's military-led fight against drug traffickers is not gaining ground, the United States and Mexico set their counternarcotics strategy on a new course in March 2010 by refocusing their efforts on strengthening civilian law enforcement institutions and rebuilding communities crippled by poverty and crime.
The $331 million plan was at the center of a visit to Mexico in March by several senior Obama administration officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
The revised strategy has many elements meant to expand on and improve programs already under way as part of the so-called Mérida Initiative that was started by the Bush administration including cooperation among American and Mexican intelligence agencies and American support for training Mexican police officers, judges, prosecutors and public defenders.
Under the new strategy, officials said, American and Mexican agencies would work together to refocus border enforcement efforts away from building a better wall to creating systems that would allow goods and people to be screened before they reach the crossing points. The plan would also provide support for Mexican programs intended to strengthen communities where socioeconomic hardships force many young people into crime.
The most striking difference between the old strategy and the new one is the shift away from military assistance. More than half of the $1.3 billion spent under Merida was used to buy aircraft, inspection equipment and information technology for the Mexican military and police. Next year's foreign aid budget provides for civilian police training, not equipment.
Military-to-military cooperation was expected to continue, officials said, despite reports by human rights groups of an increase in human rights violations by Mexican soldiers.
This revised strategy, officials said, would first go into effect in Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez, the largest cities on Mexico's border with the United States. Ciudad Juárez, a city of 1.7 million, has become a symbol of the Mexican government's failed attempts to rein in the drug gangs.
The public outcry generated by the violence in Ciudad Juárez forced Mr. Calderón to acknowledge that the drug war would not be won with troops alone.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Sangmin Han
Strict cellphone ban expected in Prince George's schools
By Michael Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 13, 2010; 5:42 PM
First it was a quick phone call in a bathroom. Then it was texting underneath the desk. Now it's video of fights and confrontations in hallways.
Prince George's County educators have watched as advancing technology has expanded the ways in which cellphones can distract and get students in trouble. So, the school board is poised to adopt the strictest cellphone ban in the region.
Under the proposal, students would be required to leave their phones turned off and in their lockers, from the first bell of the morning to the final bell of the school day. Students would be able to use their phones only with the principal's permission, or if a teacher wanted them to use it for some educational purpose.
The board was scheduled to vote on the proposal Thursday, but tabled action to incorporate suggestions from the teachers' union and refine other details of the policy.
The ban is the latest chapter in a national struggle over the spread of iPhones, BlackBerrys and other smartphones. Schools must balance demands from parents, many of whom appreciate being able to contact their children during the day, with demands from teachers, who say that even an otherwise quiet classroom can be distracted by silent electronic exchanges underneath the desk.
"When kids are in school, they need to be focused on academics," said Prince George's Board of Education member Donna Hathaway Beck (At Large), who wrote the policy with the backing of the rest of the board. "I kept hearing from teachers about what kids were doing with their cellphones," she said -- texting each other test answers, planning fights, "sexting" each other from the bathroom stalls -- and she thought a stronger, uniform policy was needed.
Evolving technology, and the changing ways students use it, has resulted in a shifting policies nationwide: Montgomery County loosened restrictions on cellphones this school year; New York City, by contrast, won a lawsuit brought by parents who disliked its ban against students possessing cellphones in school.
Most school systems in the Washington region have flexible policies, allowing students to carry powered-down cellphones in their pockets during the school day and turning a blind eye to lunchtime calls; most confiscate phones used inappropriately during class.
Prince George's County has had restrictions on cellphones, but the consequences were unclear and applied unevenly from school to school, board members said. Under the new policy, the first time a student is caught with a cellphone, it will be confiscated and returned at the end of the school day. The second time, a parent will have to pick it up. After a third offense, the student would be prohibited from bringing a cellphone to school at all.
Educators acknowledge that the devices have become thoroughly enmeshed in their students' lives. Still, they say, they need to create an atmosphere where students can concentrate on their lessons.
"We definitely acknowledge that it's become a part of their normal routine," said Rudolph Saunders, principal of Frederick Douglass High School in Upper Marlboro. He said his students sometimes text each other if they know a fight will happen after school. Students have also recorded fights with their phones' cameras.
"If I confiscated one every time I saw one, I'd have a boxful of phones," Saunders said. "I'd say teachers have to at least one time a day tell someone to put their phone away."
Next up for cellphone restrictions? Teachers, Beck said. One time, she said, "I walked into a classroom, and the teacher wouldn't get off her phone."
But that will have to be part of contract negotiations.
By Michael Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 13, 2010; 5:42 PM
First it was a quick phone call in a bathroom. Then it was texting underneath the desk. Now it's video of fights and confrontations in hallways.
Prince George's County educators have watched as advancing technology has expanded the ways in which cellphones can distract and get students in trouble. So, the school board is poised to adopt the strictest cellphone ban in the region.
Under the proposal, students would be required to leave their phones turned off and in their lockers, from the first bell of the morning to the final bell of the school day. Students would be able to use their phones only with the principal's permission, or if a teacher wanted them to use it for some educational purpose.
The board was scheduled to vote on the proposal Thursday, but tabled action to incorporate suggestions from the teachers' union and refine other details of the policy.
The ban is the latest chapter in a national struggle over the spread of iPhones, BlackBerrys and other smartphones. Schools must balance demands from parents, many of whom appreciate being able to contact their children during the day, with demands from teachers, who say that even an otherwise quiet classroom can be distracted by silent electronic exchanges underneath the desk.
"When kids are in school, they need to be focused on academics," said Prince George's Board of Education member Donna Hathaway Beck (At Large), who wrote the policy with the backing of the rest of the board. "I kept hearing from teachers about what kids were doing with their cellphones," she said -- texting each other test answers, planning fights, "sexting" each other from the bathroom stalls -- and she thought a stronger, uniform policy was needed.
Evolving technology, and the changing ways students use it, has resulted in a shifting policies nationwide: Montgomery County loosened restrictions on cellphones this school year; New York City, by contrast, won a lawsuit brought by parents who disliked its ban against students possessing cellphones in school.
Most school systems in the Washington region have flexible policies, allowing students to carry powered-down cellphones in their pockets during the school day and turning a blind eye to lunchtime calls; most confiscate phones used inappropriately during class.
Prince George's County has had restrictions on cellphones, but the consequences were unclear and applied unevenly from school to school, board members said. Under the new policy, the first time a student is caught with a cellphone, it will be confiscated and returned at the end of the school day. The second time, a parent will have to pick it up. After a third offense, the student would be prohibited from bringing a cellphone to school at all.
Educators acknowledge that the devices have become thoroughly enmeshed in their students' lives. Still, they say, they need to create an atmosphere where students can concentrate on their lessons.
"We definitely acknowledge that it's become a part of their normal routine," said Rudolph Saunders, principal of Frederick Douglass High School in Upper Marlboro. He said his students sometimes text each other if they know a fight will happen after school. Students have also recorded fights with their phones' cameras.
"If I confiscated one every time I saw one, I'd have a boxful of phones," Saunders said. "I'd say teachers have to at least one time a day tell someone to put their phone away."
Next up for cellphone restrictions? Teachers, Beck said. One time, she said, "I walked into a classroom, and the teacher wouldn't get off her phone."
But that will have to be part of contract negotiations.
Angry Voters, but How Many?
The New York Times May 16, 2010
Angry Voters, but How Many?
By JOHN HARWOOD
Three United States Senate primaries on Tuesday offer new signs of the election-year intentions of America’s dyspeptic voters.
A few voters, anyway.
In Kentucky, Rand Paul’s bid for the Republican nomination will again test the strength of the Tea Party right against the establishment, represented by Trey Grayson.
In Arkansas, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter’s attempt to oust the incumbent Democrat, Senator Blanche Lincoln, will measure the left’s resistance to compromise in the age of Obama.
In Pennsylvania, the fight by Senator Arlen Specter, the Republican turned Democrat, to hold off Representative Joe Sestak for his new party’s nomination will show whether the combination of incumbency, age and partisan inconstancy is simply too much to bear.
Yet the voters rendering those verdicts will represent only a sliver of the population.
Consider the 2010 evidence to date:
Just 17 percent of registered voters cast ballots in the Texas primary for governor, which was a much-publicized battle between the incumbent Republican, Rick Perry, and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.
Just 22 percent showed up in Illinois for contests for governor and for the Senate seat once held by President Obama. That turnout was the lowest in two decades.
“No groundswell of voters so far,” concluded Rhodes Cook, an expert on voting patterns. Nor does history suggest that one is likely in November.
Polls show that Republicans are at least poised to erode the Democrats’ House and Senate majorities. But as with the Democrats’ midterm gains four years ago, the uprising will almost certainly be narrow and targeted — not a mass movement.
Modest Turnouts
In 2008, when Mr. Obama’s candidacy galvanized Democrats and intrigued the nation, nearly 4 in 10 Americans declined to vote. Even at peak interest, the American appetite for democratic rituals is hardly universal.
Without a presidential race to lead the ballot, the appetite is even weaker. The last time more than half of the eligible citizens voted in a midterm election was nearly three decades ago, in 1982, census figures show.
Students of modern political history point out that this is often a problem for Democrats. Their less-affluent constituency traditionally goes to the polls at lower rates.
“We usually do well when the turnout is low,” said John Morgan, a longtime Republican demographic specialist.
Comparing 2010 to one election with modest turnout in which his party captured both houses of Congress, Mr. Morgan observed, “This smells like 1946.”
Elections with low turnout can allow parties to tilt the outcome substantially through small shifts in the composition of those voting.
In the 1994 midterms, for example, overall turnout as a proportion of eligible citizens dropped slightly. But since Representative Newt Gingrich’s party was energized that year and President Bill Clinton’s was downcast, the result earned the moniker “Republican Revolution.”
“You can have a big-wave result,” Mr. Cook said, “without a big wave of voters.”
Important Blocs
Mark Gersh, who provides targeting data to Democratic candidates at the National Committee for an Effective Congress, sees several challenges for his party. One is defections to Republicans among important constituencies, including independents, suburban women and small-town voters.
Another is a wide enthusiasm deficit. In last week’s NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 65 percent of Republicans called themselves highly interested in the campaign, compared with 46 percent of Democrats.
A third is the vulnerability of Democratic-held House seats that were won during the boom elections of 2006 and 2008, the latter with help from an exceptional Obama-driven turnout among young and black voters.
In 2008, nearly half of eligible citizens ages 18 to 24 went to the polls, the highest level since 1972, when 18-year-olds first gained the right to vote. Nearly two-thirds of eligible African-Americans voted, slightly exceeding the rate among whites.
Without Mr. Obama on the ballot, turnout among both groups will drop this year. But the fate of the Democrats’ Congressional majorities may turn on how much, which is why Democrats are spending $50 million to mobilize recently registered “surge voters.”
The party calculates that even a small return on that investment could salvage some seats now in jeopardy. “We’re talking about adding 3 or 4 percent in the toughest environment any candidate can have,” said Mitch Stewart, director of the Democratic Party network Organizing for America.
Mr. Gersh added, “If you have a 95 percent failure rate and still get 5 percent of them, that could be a big deal.”
Republicans acknowledge that Democrats may reap some residual benefit from Mr. Obama’s 2008 proficiency at finding and mobilizing new voters. But they also recall that Republicans had similar success in President George W. Bush’s 2004 campaign, only to struggle with motivating supporters two years later.
“The upgrade they got to their toolbox is not to be underestimated,” said Heath Thompson, a Republican consultant. “It gives them new targets. But they still have to motivate those targets.”
Angry Voters, but How Many?
By JOHN HARWOOD
Three United States Senate primaries on Tuesday offer new signs of the election-year intentions of America’s dyspeptic voters.
A few voters, anyway.
In Kentucky, Rand Paul’s bid for the Republican nomination will again test the strength of the Tea Party right against the establishment, represented by Trey Grayson.
In Arkansas, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter’s attempt to oust the incumbent Democrat, Senator Blanche Lincoln, will measure the left’s resistance to compromise in the age of Obama.
In Pennsylvania, the fight by Senator Arlen Specter, the Republican turned Democrat, to hold off Representative Joe Sestak for his new party’s nomination will show whether the combination of incumbency, age and partisan inconstancy is simply too much to bear.
Yet the voters rendering those verdicts will represent only a sliver of the population.
Consider the 2010 evidence to date:
Just 17 percent of registered voters cast ballots in the Texas primary for governor, which was a much-publicized battle between the incumbent Republican, Rick Perry, and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.
Just 22 percent showed up in Illinois for contests for governor and for the Senate seat once held by President Obama. That turnout was the lowest in two decades.
“No groundswell of voters so far,” concluded Rhodes Cook, an expert on voting patterns. Nor does history suggest that one is likely in November.
Polls show that Republicans are at least poised to erode the Democrats’ House and Senate majorities. But as with the Democrats’ midterm gains four years ago, the uprising will almost certainly be narrow and targeted — not a mass movement.
Modest Turnouts
In 2008, when Mr. Obama’s candidacy galvanized Democrats and intrigued the nation, nearly 4 in 10 Americans declined to vote. Even at peak interest, the American appetite for democratic rituals is hardly universal.
Without a presidential race to lead the ballot, the appetite is even weaker. The last time more than half of the eligible citizens voted in a midterm election was nearly three decades ago, in 1982, census figures show.
Students of modern political history point out that this is often a problem for Democrats. Their less-affluent constituency traditionally goes to the polls at lower rates.
“We usually do well when the turnout is low,” said John Morgan, a longtime Republican demographic specialist.
Comparing 2010 to one election with modest turnout in which his party captured both houses of Congress, Mr. Morgan observed, “This smells like 1946.”
Elections with low turnout can allow parties to tilt the outcome substantially through small shifts in the composition of those voting.
In the 1994 midterms, for example, overall turnout as a proportion of eligible citizens dropped slightly. But since Representative Newt Gingrich’s party was energized that year and President Bill Clinton’s was downcast, the result earned the moniker “Republican Revolution.”
“You can have a big-wave result,” Mr. Cook said, “without a big wave of voters.”
Important Blocs
Mark Gersh, who provides targeting data to Democratic candidates at the National Committee for an Effective Congress, sees several challenges for his party. One is defections to Republicans among important constituencies, including independents, suburban women and small-town voters.
Another is a wide enthusiasm deficit. In last week’s NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 65 percent of Republicans called themselves highly interested in the campaign, compared with 46 percent of Democrats.
A third is the vulnerability of Democratic-held House seats that were won during the boom elections of 2006 and 2008, the latter with help from an exceptional Obama-driven turnout among young and black voters.
In 2008, nearly half of eligible citizens ages 18 to 24 went to the polls, the highest level since 1972, when 18-year-olds first gained the right to vote. Nearly two-thirds of eligible African-Americans voted, slightly exceeding the rate among whites.
Without Mr. Obama on the ballot, turnout among both groups will drop this year. But the fate of the Democrats’ Congressional majorities may turn on how much, which is why Democrats are spending $50 million to mobilize recently registered “surge voters.”
The party calculates that even a small return on that investment could salvage some seats now in jeopardy. “We’re talking about adding 3 or 4 percent in the toughest environment any candidate can have,” said Mitch Stewart, director of the Democratic Party network Organizing for America.
Mr. Gersh added, “If you have a 95 percent failure rate and still get 5 percent of them, that could be a big deal.”
Republicans acknowledge that Democrats may reap some residual benefit from Mr. Obama’s 2008 proficiency at finding and mobilizing new voters. But they also recall that Republicans had similar success in President George W. Bush’s 2004 campaign, only to struggle with motivating supporters two years later.
“The upgrade they got to their toolbox is not to be underestimated,” said Heath Thompson, a Republican consultant. “It gives them new targets. But they still have to motivate those targets.”
In working couples, women's careers still take backseat
[ 2010-04-06 09:28 ] From China Daily
Women might be on a more even footing at work but at home their careers tend to take a backseat to their husband's job with women most likely to quit when both are working long hours, according to a U.S. study.
Researcher Youngjoo Cha, from Cornell University, found that working women with a husband who worked 50 hours or more a week found themselves still doing most of the housework and the care giving and were more likely to end up quitting their job.
An analysis of 8,484 professional workers and 17,648 nonprofessionals from dual-earner families showed that if women had a husband who worked 60 hours or more per week it increased the woman's odds of quitting her paid job by 42 percent.
Cha said the odds of quitting increased to 51 percent for professional women whose husbands work 60 hours or more per week, and for professional mothers the odds they would quit their jobs jumped 112 percent.
However, it did not significantly affect a man's odds of quitting his job if his wife worked 60 hours or more per week, according to the study published in the American Sociological Review in April.
For professional men, both parents and non-parents, the effects of a wife working long hours were negligible, according to the study called "Reinforcing Separate Spheres: The Effect of Spousal Overwork on Men's and Women's Employment in Dual-Earner Households."
"As long work-hours introduce conflict between work and family into many dual-earner families, couples often resolve conflict in ways that prioritize husbands' careers," Cha, who used data from the U.S. Census Bureau, said in a statement.
"This effect is magnified among workers in professional and managerial occupations, where the norm of overwork and the culture of intensive parenting tend to be strongest. The findings suggest that the prevalence of overwork may lead many dual-earner couples to return to a separate spheres arrangement -- breadwinning men and homemaking women."
Vocabulary
take a backseat: to allow somebody else to play a more active and important role in a particular situation than you do
Women might be on a more even footing at work but at home their careers tend to take a backseat to their husband's job with women most likely to quit when both are working long hours, according to a U.S. study.
Researcher Youngjoo Cha, from Cornell University, found that working women with a husband who worked 50 hours or more a week found themselves still doing most of the housework and the care giving and were more likely to end up quitting their job.
An analysis of 8,484 professional workers and 17,648 nonprofessionals from dual-earner families showed that if women had a husband who worked 60 hours or more per week it increased the woman's odds of quitting her paid job by 42 percent.
Cha said the odds of quitting increased to 51 percent for professional women whose husbands work 60 hours or more per week, and for professional mothers the odds they would quit their jobs jumped 112 percent.
However, it did not significantly affect a man's odds of quitting his job if his wife worked 60 hours or more per week, according to the study published in the American Sociological Review in April.
For professional men, both parents and non-parents, the effects of a wife working long hours were negligible, according to the study called "Reinforcing Separate Spheres: The Effect of Spousal Overwork on Men's and Women's Employment in Dual-Earner Households."
"As long work-hours introduce conflict between work and family into many dual-earner families, couples often resolve conflict in ways that prioritize husbands' careers," Cha, who used data from the U.S. Census Bureau, said in a statement.
"This effect is magnified among workers in professional and managerial occupations, where the norm of overwork and the culture of intensive parenting tend to be strongest. The findings suggest that the prevalence of overwork may lead many dual-earner couples to return to a separate spheres arrangement -- breadwinning men and homemaking women."
Vocabulary
take a backseat: to allow somebody else to play a more active and important role in a particular situation than you do
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Japanese Leader Backtracks on Revising Base Agreement
May 4, 2010 (From New York Times- Jihwan Kim)
Japanese Leader Backtracks on Revising Base Agreement
By MARTIN FACKLER and HIROKO TABUCHI
TOKYO — Backtracking on a prominent campaign pledge, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama told angry residents of Okinawa on Tuesday that it was unrealistic to expect the United States to move its entire Marine Corps air base off the island.
Mr. Hatoyama’s government could hang in the balance. He has pledged to come up with a plan by the end of this month to relocate the Marine air base and resolve a stubborn problem that has created months of discord with Washington. His delays and apparent flip-flopping on the issue have fed a growing feeling of disappointment in the prime minister’s leadership, driving his approval ratings below 30 percent.
Visiting Okinawa for the first time since becoming prime minister, Mr. Hatoyama asked residents to entertain a compromise that would keep some of the functions of the base on the island while the government explored moving some facilities elsewhere.
“Realistically speaking, it is impossible” to move the entire base, called Futenma, off the island, he said. “We’re facing a situation that is realistically difficult to move everything out of the prefecture. We must ask the people of Okinawa to share the burden.”
But Okinawans seemed in no mood for burden-sharing, heckling him after he met with local officials. “Shame on you!” one man shouted.
During the campaign for last summer’s election, in which his Democratic Party dislodged the Liberal Democrats who had ruled Japan almost continuously for more than 50 years, Mr. Hatoyama called for adjusting a 2006 agreement with the United States, which stations about 50,000 troops in Japan. Under that plan, Futenma was to be moved to a less crowded part of Okinawa to address local concerns over noise, air pollution and safety.
But the Obama administration pushed back, with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates apparently refusing to entertain any thought of reopening the agreement. The standoff threatened to open the first breach in the two countries’ post-World War II security alliance. Later, during a trip to Japan, President Obama smoothed things over, reluctantly agreeing to consider Mr. Hatoyama’s proposals.
While Mr. Hatoyama has tried to accommodate the competing desires of the Americans and local residents, he finally had to admit that it could not be done. On Tuesday, Mr. Hatoyama had the unpleasant task of delivering the bad news, acknowledging that moving the base off Okinawa was unrealistic.
“When we consider the presence of North Korea and the state of the wider region, it is clear that we must maintain the Japan-U.S. alliance as a deterrent force, and that we must ask Okinawa to bear some of that burden,” he said after the meeting with local leaders.
“It has become clear from our negotiations with the Americans that we cannot ask them to relocate the base to too far-flung a location,” he said.
Mr. Hatoyama still has not divulged the specifics of his plan. But it is widely expected that it will involve the small island of Tokunoshima, where since January, when word got out, residents have marshaled their resources for a fight.
Tokunoshima, a small, semitropical island located between Okinawa and Japan’s main islands and blanketed with fields of sugar cane, was mentioned as a possible site for training activities and up to 1,000 of Futenma’s 2,500 Marines, said Takeshi Tokuda, the island’s representative in the lower house of Parliament, who was briefed on the plan.
But enraged islanders vowed that the move would never happen. “If he comes, our old people and mothers with children will sit in the street to block his way,” Seiichi Yoshitama, 65, a coffee farmer, said of Mr. Hatoyama. “We’ll even use our fighting bulls to stop him.”
They have held a series of increasingly large anti-base rallies, the largest on April 18, when more than half of the island’s 26,000 residents gathered, organizers said.
The mood on Tokunoshima is now overwhelmingly against the plan. The main road along the coast is lined with hand-painted signs saying “No Base!” The mayors of the island’s three towns agreed on Saturday to meet with the prime minister, but only to express their opposition in person, they say.
On Tokunoshima, as opposed to Okinawa, the opposition is driven by more than just a simple case of not-in-my-backyard syndrome, political experts and local residents say. The islanders say they do not want to end up like Okinawa, where there is widespread discontent over the American bases’ crime and noise. Older residents also have bitter memories of the war and its aftermath, when islanders staged hunger strikes against the American occupiers.
Residents and experts say Mr. Hatoyama’s troubles also reflect a weakening of Tokyo’s ability to impose its will on Japan’s regions. The Liberal Democratic Party relied on generous public works spending and back-room bargains to push through big projects like this one. Mr. Hatoyama, who rode to power with vows to cut wasteful spending and increase transparency in politics, may find his ability to make deals thwarted by such changes.
“It’s all more fluid now at the end of the L.D.P. era,” said Akira Okubo, mayor of Isen, one of Tokunoshima’s towns. “The center is weakening in Japan, and that gives us more freedom at the fringes.”
Not all islanders are against the base. A group of business owners led by Hidetada Maeda, an undertaker and former town council chairman in Amagi, another of Tokunoshima’s towns, released a list last week of incentives for accepting the base. They included subsidies for tourism and forgiveness of the $250 million debt of the island’s towns.
“This is a one-in-a-thousand chance to revitalize our island,” said Mr. Maeda, 62.
Most islanders, however, said they did not want economic incentives, which they said would only make their island dependent on Tokyo. “Once you start accepting that development money, it becomes addictive, like a drug,” said Koichi Tokuda, who owns a factory that makes vinegar from sugar cane. “We are not rich, but we are self-sufficient. We want to stay that way.”
Hiroko Tabuchi contributed reporting.
Japanese Leader Backtracks on Revising Base Agreement
By MARTIN FACKLER and HIROKO TABUCHI
TOKYO — Backtracking on a prominent campaign pledge, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama told angry residents of Okinawa on Tuesday that it was unrealistic to expect the United States to move its entire Marine Corps air base off the island.
Mr. Hatoyama’s government could hang in the balance. He has pledged to come up with a plan by the end of this month to relocate the Marine air base and resolve a stubborn problem that has created months of discord with Washington. His delays and apparent flip-flopping on the issue have fed a growing feeling of disappointment in the prime minister’s leadership, driving his approval ratings below 30 percent.
Visiting Okinawa for the first time since becoming prime minister, Mr. Hatoyama asked residents to entertain a compromise that would keep some of the functions of the base on the island while the government explored moving some facilities elsewhere.
“Realistically speaking, it is impossible” to move the entire base, called Futenma, off the island, he said. “We’re facing a situation that is realistically difficult to move everything out of the prefecture. We must ask the people of Okinawa to share the burden.”
But Okinawans seemed in no mood for burden-sharing, heckling him after he met with local officials. “Shame on you!” one man shouted.
During the campaign for last summer’s election, in which his Democratic Party dislodged the Liberal Democrats who had ruled Japan almost continuously for more than 50 years, Mr. Hatoyama called for adjusting a 2006 agreement with the United States, which stations about 50,000 troops in Japan. Under that plan, Futenma was to be moved to a less crowded part of Okinawa to address local concerns over noise, air pollution and safety.
But the Obama administration pushed back, with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates apparently refusing to entertain any thought of reopening the agreement. The standoff threatened to open the first breach in the two countries’ post-World War II security alliance. Later, during a trip to Japan, President Obama smoothed things over, reluctantly agreeing to consider Mr. Hatoyama’s proposals.
While Mr. Hatoyama has tried to accommodate the competing desires of the Americans and local residents, he finally had to admit that it could not be done. On Tuesday, Mr. Hatoyama had the unpleasant task of delivering the bad news, acknowledging that moving the base off Okinawa was unrealistic.
“When we consider the presence of North Korea and the state of the wider region, it is clear that we must maintain the Japan-U.S. alliance as a deterrent force, and that we must ask Okinawa to bear some of that burden,” he said after the meeting with local leaders.
“It has become clear from our negotiations with the Americans that we cannot ask them to relocate the base to too far-flung a location,” he said.
Mr. Hatoyama still has not divulged the specifics of his plan. But it is widely expected that it will involve the small island of Tokunoshima, where since January, when word got out, residents have marshaled their resources for a fight.
Tokunoshima, a small, semitropical island located between Okinawa and Japan’s main islands and blanketed with fields of sugar cane, was mentioned as a possible site for training activities and up to 1,000 of Futenma’s 2,500 Marines, said Takeshi Tokuda, the island’s representative in the lower house of Parliament, who was briefed on the plan.
But enraged islanders vowed that the move would never happen. “If he comes, our old people and mothers with children will sit in the street to block his way,” Seiichi Yoshitama, 65, a coffee farmer, said of Mr. Hatoyama. “We’ll even use our fighting bulls to stop him.”
They have held a series of increasingly large anti-base rallies, the largest on April 18, when more than half of the island’s 26,000 residents gathered, organizers said.
The mood on Tokunoshima is now overwhelmingly against the plan. The main road along the coast is lined with hand-painted signs saying “No Base!” The mayors of the island’s three towns agreed on Saturday to meet with the prime minister, but only to express their opposition in person, they say.
On Tokunoshima, as opposed to Okinawa, the opposition is driven by more than just a simple case of not-in-my-backyard syndrome, political experts and local residents say. The islanders say they do not want to end up like Okinawa, where there is widespread discontent over the American bases’ crime and noise. Older residents also have bitter memories of the war and its aftermath, when islanders staged hunger strikes against the American occupiers.
Residents and experts say Mr. Hatoyama’s troubles also reflect a weakening of Tokyo’s ability to impose its will on Japan’s regions. The Liberal Democratic Party relied on generous public works spending and back-room bargains to push through big projects like this one. Mr. Hatoyama, who rode to power with vows to cut wasteful spending and increase transparency in politics, may find his ability to make deals thwarted by such changes.
“It’s all more fluid now at the end of the L.D.P. era,” said Akira Okubo, mayor of Isen, one of Tokunoshima’s towns. “The center is weakening in Japan, and that gives us more freedom at the fringes.”
Not all islanders are against the base. A group of business owners led by Hidetada Maeda, an undertaker and former town council chairman in Amagi, another of Tokunoshima’s towns, released a list last week of incentives for accepting the base. They included subsidies for tourism and forgiveness of the $250 million debt of the island’s towns.
“This is a one-in-a-thousand chance to revitalize our island,” said Mr. Maeda, 62.
Most islanders, however, said they did not want economic incentives, which they said would only make their island dependent on Tokyo. “Once you start accepting that development money, it becomes addictive, like a drug,” said Koichi Tokuda, who owns a factory that makes vinegar from sugar cane. “We are not rich, but we are self-sufficient. We want to stay that way.”
Hiroko Tabuchi contributed reporting.
Friday, May 14, 2010
lee jeong hyun
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1989311,00.html
U.S. Base Impasse Could Topple Japan PM
By AP / ERIC TALMADGE
(TOKYO) — It is possibly the most controversial U.S. military facility in the world after the prison at Guantanamo Bay. Local residents like to call it the world's most dangerous base. An impasse over its future could bring down the government of a key U.S. ally.
But this hotspot isn't in Kyrgyzstan, or Afghanistan.
It's an airstrip on the sleepy, semitropical tourist haven of Okinawa that hasn't directly been involved in a conflict since the Japanese surrender in 1945 ended World War II. For decades, Marine Corps Air Station Futenma has instead been a political quagmire — and now D-Day appears to be looming. (See pictures of Japan and the world.)
Haunted by a campaign pledge to relocate the base, Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has vowed to settle the issue — or at least form a coherent set of proposals — by the end of this month. Polls suggest he will be under heavy pressure to resign, after barely nine months in office, if he fails to do so.
The debate has grown so convoluted and the pressure to find a compromise so intense that Hatoyama is suggesting a replacement airstrip be built on raised pilings so as not to destroy marine life below — an expensive, high-tech option that experts doubt would work and which has so far failed to appease many Okinawans. (See pictures of Japan in the 1980s and today.)
"It is a terrible idea," said Masaaki Gabe, a professor of international relations at the University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa's most prestigious college. "It's no better than the previous plan. It won't persuade Okinawans, and I don't think it will be welcomed by Washington, either."
So far, it hasn't been — working-level talks in Washington this week ended in discord.
The base, home to about 2,000 U.S. Marines, has long symbolized Okinawan concerns over safety, crime and economic development. But efforts to remove it have shaken support for America's most important alliance in Asia, a region where — with China ascending and North Korea unstable — Washington badly needs reliable partners.
All sides agree in theory that the base, a noisy helicopter and transport-plane hub located in a crowded city, should be closed.
An agreement to that effect was made in 1996, following uproar over the brutal rape of a 12-year-old schoolgirl by two Marines and a sailor. The U.S. also has agreed to move about 8,600 Marines from other Okinawa units to the tiny Pacific territory of Guam by 2014.
But the devil is in the details.
Washington is demanding Futenma's replacement be built nearby. But suggested alternate sites have fiercely protested having the base moved into their backyard and, with Tokyo unwilling to rebuff its most important ally, the impasse has only festered.
Facing key elections in July, Hatoyama is scrambling to find a consensus by his self-imposed deadline of the end of the month. But his public support ratings have plummeted to the 20 percent level. Polls say many voters think he should step down if he can't demonstrate more leadership, and one of his coalition partners has said it may have to quit the government if Okinawa's concerns are not fully addressed.
Though the Obama administration has largely stayed out of the fray, the process has been a humiliating initiation for Hatoyama.
He ousted Japan's long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party last September with promises to forge a more equal relationship with Washington. As part of that pledge, he said Futenma's operations should be moved off Okinawa, where more than half of the 47,000 U.S. troops in Japan are stationed.
Hatoyama recently backed down, painfully apologizing to Okinawa during a trip there for the "nuisance" the base causes. At the same time, he said there was no feasible alternative to building the new landing strip farther to the north in the town of Nago.
"The Hatoyama government is as docile a satellite of the U.S. as the LDP ever thought of being," said Chalmers Johnson, president of the Japan Policy Research Institute, a private think tank based in San Francisco. "The U.S. is certainly the more culpable partner in simply refusing to negotiate, but the Japanese government is at fault in never standing up to us."
Johnson said Washington has stood firm because it is afraid that agreeing to close the base outright could lead to a flood of demands to close more. The U.S. has more than 100 bases and facilities — including depots and ports — across Japan.
The Pentagon operates more than 700 overseas bases worldwide.
"We had to be kicked out of the Philippines and Ecuador, and we paid through the nose to remain in Kyrgyzstan, probably including bribes to the former government there that has just been overthrown," Johnson said.
U.S. officials say a replacement for the Futenma base is essential because its air assets support the infantry units that will remain on Okinawa. They also argue that Okinawa — site of one of the bloodiest battlefields of World War II — is a key to Washington's strategy in the Pacific because of its proximity to China, Taiwan and the Korean peninsula.
"Is the Marine presence necessary in Okinawa? In terms of geostrategic location, the answer is a definite yes," said Mike Green, Japan chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "Okinawa is only a few days' sailing time and only a few hours' flight time from the major hotspots in the Western Pacific. Time matters in a crisis."
But that argument is drowned out in Japan's public debate.
Instead, a helicopter crash in 2004 just outside the base's gates on a university campus is used to justify claims the heavily populated area around Futenma is unsafe, though no one died in that accident. Japanese media frequently show images of schoolchildren playing soccer as C-130 transport planes buzz overhead, or of the razorwire fences and "keep out" signs that ring the airstrip.
Last month, 90,000 Okinawans protested the base and the relocation plan — the biggest demonstration against the base ever. This weekend, to mark the 1972 reversion of Okinawa from U.S. to Japanese administration, a human chain around Futenma is planned.
Organizers say they expect more than 10,000 people.
Weston Konishi, a Japan expert with the Washington-based Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation, said Hatoyama's dithering has allowed opposition to the security alliance to swell.
"The political leadership in Tokyo has not adequately counterbalanced that sentiment," he said. "The U.S. forces are increasingly seen as both unnecessary and bothersome to local communities that host them."
U.S. Base Impasse Could Topple Japan PM
By AP / ERIC TALMADGE
(TOKYO) — It is possibly the most controversial U.S. military facility in the world after the prison at Guantanamo Bay. Local residents like to call it the world's most dangerous base. An impasse over its future could bring down the government of a key U.S. ally.
But this hotspot isn't in Kyrgyzstan, or Afghanistan.
It's an airstrip on the sleepy, semitropical tourist haven of Okinawa that hasn't directly been involved in a conflict since the Japanese surrender in 1945 ended World War II. For decades, Marine Corps Air Station Futenma has instead been a political quagmire — and now D-Day appears to be looming. (See pictures of Japan and the world.)
Haunted by a campaign pledge to relocate the base, Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has vowed to settle the issue — or at least form a coherent set of proposals — by the end of this month. Polls suggest he will be under heavy pressure to resign, after barely nine months in office, if he fails to do so.
The debate has grown so convoluted and the pressure to find a compromise so intense that Hatoyama is suggesting a replacement airstrip be built on raised pilings so as not to destroy marine life below — an expensive, high-tech option that experts doubt would work and which has so far failed to appease many Okinawans. (See pictures of Japan in the 1980s and today.)
"It is a terrible idea," said Masaaki Gabe, a professor of international relations at the University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa's most prestigious college. "It's no better than the previous plan. It won't persuade Okinawans, and I don't think it will be welcomed by Washington, either."
So far, it hasn't been — working-level talks in Washington this week ended in discord.
The base, home to about 2,000 U.S. Marines, has long symbolized Okinawan concerns over safety, crime and economic development. But efforts to remove it have shaken support for America's most important alliance in Asia, a region where — with China ascending and North Korea unstable — Washington badly needs reliable partners.
All sides agree in theory that the base, a noisy helicopter and transport-plane hub located in a crowded city, should be closed.
An agreement to that effect was made in 1996, following uproar over the brutal rape of a 12-year-old schoolgirl by two Marines and a sailor. The U.S. also has agreed to move about 8,600 Marines from other Okinawa units to the tiny Pacific territory of Guam by 2014.
But the devil is in the details.
Washington is demanding Futenma's replacement be built nearby. But suggested alternate sites have fiercely protested having the base moved into their backyard and, with Tokyo unwilling to rebuff its most important ally, the impasse has only festered.
Facing key elections in July, Hatoyama is scrambling to find a consensus by his self-imposed deadline of the end of the month. But his public support ratings have plummeted to the 20 percent level. Polls say many voters think he should step down if he can't demonstrate more leadership, and one of his coalition partners has said it may have to quit the government if Okinawa's concerns are not fully addressed.
Though the Obama administration has largely stayed out of the fray, the process has been a humiliating initiation for Hatoyama.
He ousted Japan's long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party last September with promises to forge a more equal relationship with Washington. As part of that pledge, he said Futenma's operations should be moved off Okinawa, where more than half of the 47,000 U.S. troops in Japan are stationed.
Hatoyama recently backed down, painfully apologizing to Okinawa during a trip there for the "nuisance" the base causes. At the same time, he said there was no feasible alternative to building the new landing strip farther to the north in the town of Nago.
"The Hatoyama government is as docile a satellite of the U.S. as the LDP ever thought of being," said Chalmers Johnson, president of the Japan Policy Research Institute, a private think tank based in San Francisco. "The U.S. is certainly the more culpable partner in simply refusing to negotiate, but the Japanese government is at fault in never standing up to us."
Johnson said Washington has stood firm because it is afraid that agreeing to close the base outright could lead to a flood of demands to close more. The U.S. has more than 100 bases and facilities — including depots and ports — across Japan.
The Pentagon operates more than 700 overseas bases worldwide.
"We had to be kicked out of the Philippines and Ecuador, and we paid through the nose to remain in Kyrgyzstan, probably including bribes to the former government there that has just been overthrown," Johnson said.
U.S. officials say a replacement for the Futenma base is essential because its air assets support the infantry units that will remain on Okinawa. They also argue that Okinawa — site of one of the bloodiest battlefields of World War II — is a key to Washington's strategy in the Pacific because of its proximity to China, Taiwan and the Korean peninsula.
"Is the Marine presence necessary in Okinawa? In terms of geostrategic location, the answer is a definite yes," said Mike Green, Japan chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "Okinawa is only a few days' sailing time and only a few hours' flight time from the major hotspots in the Western Pacific. Time matters in a crisis."
But that argument is drowned out in Japan's public debate.
Instead, a helicopter crash in 2004 just outside the base's gates on a university campus is used to justify claims the heavily populated area around Futenma is unsafe, though no one died in that accident. Japanese media frequently show images of schoolchildren playing soccer as C-130 transport planes buzz overhead, or of the razorwire fences and "keep out" signs that ring the airstrip.
Last month, 90,000 Okinawans protested the base and the relocation plan — the biggest demonstration against the base ever. This weekend, to mark the 1972 reversion of Okinawa from U.S. to Japanese administration, a human chain around Futenma is planned.
Organizers say they expect more than 10,000 people.
Weston Konishi, a Japan expert with the Washington-based Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation, said Hatoyama's dithering has allowed opposition to the security alliance to swell.
"The political leadership in Tokyo has not adequately counterbalanced that sentiment," he said. "The U.S. forces are increasingly seen as both unnecessary and bothersome to local communities that host them."
news
May 8, 2010
Tell-All Generation Learns to Keep Things Offline
By LAURA M. HOLSON
Min Liu, a 21-year-old liberal arts student at the New School in New York City, got a Facebook account at 17 and chronicled her college life in detail, from rooftop drinks with friends to dancing at a downtown club. Recently, though, she has had second thoughts.
Concerned about her career prospects, she asked a friend to take down a photograph of her drinking and wearing a tight dress. When the woman overseeing her internship asked to join her Facebook circle, Ms. Liu agreed, but limited access to her Facebook page. “I want people to take me seriously,” she said.
The conventional wisdom suggests that everyone under 30 is comfortable revealing every facet of their lives online, from their favorite pizza to most frequent sexual partners. But many members of the tell-all generation are rethinking what it means to live out loud.
While participation in social networks is still strong, a survey released last month by the University of California, Berkeley, found that more than half the young adults questioned had become more concerned about privacy than they were five years ago — mirroring the number of people their parent’s age or older with that worry.
They are more diligent than older adults, however, in trying to protect themselves. In a new study to be released this month, the Pew Internet Project has found that people in their 20s exert more control over their digital reputations than older adults, more vigorously deleting unwanted posts and limiting information about themselves. “Social networking requires vigilance, not only in what you post, but what your friends post about you,” said Mary Madden, a senior research specialist who oversaw the study by Pew, which examines online behavior. “Now you are responsible for everything.”
The erosion of privacy has become a pressing issue among active users of social networks. Last week, Facebook scrambled to fix a security breach that allowed users to see their friends’ supposedly private information, including personal chats.
Sam Jackson, a junior at Yale who started a blog when he was 15 and who has been an intern at Google, said he had learned not to trust any social network to keep his information private. “If I go back and look, there are things four years ago I would not say today,” he said. “I am much more self-censoring. I’ll try to be honest and forthright, but I am conscious now who I am talking to.”
He has learned to live out loud mostly by trial and error and has come up with his own theory: concentric layers of sharing.
His Facebook account, which he has had since 2005, is strictly personal. “I don’t want people to know what my movie rentals are,” he said. “If I am sharing something, I want to know what’s being shared with others.”
Mistrust of the intentions of social sites appears to be pervasive. In its telephone survey of 1,000 people, the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology at the University of California found that 88 percent of the 18- to 24-year-olds it surveyed last July said there should be a law that requires Web sites to delete stored information. And 62 percent said they wanted a law that gave people the right to know everything a Web site knows about them.
That mistrust is translating into action. In the Pew study, to be released shortly, researchers interviewed 2,253 adults late last summer and found that people ages 18 to 29 were more apt to monitor privacy settings than older adults are, and they more often delete comments or remove their names from photos so they cannot be identified. Younger teenagers were not included in these studies, and they may not have the same privacy concerns. But anecdotal evidence suggests that many of them have not had enough experience to understand the downside to oversharing.
Elliot Schrage, who oversees Facebook’s global communications and public policy strategy, said it was a good thing that young people are thinking about what they put online. “We are not forcing anyone to use it,” he said of Facebook. But at the same time, companies like Facebook have a financial incentive to get friends to share as much as possible. That’s because the more personal the information that Facebook collects, the more valuable the site is to advertisers, who can mine it to serve up more targeted ads.
Two weeks ago, Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, petitioned the Federal Trade Commission to review the privacy policies of social networks to make sure consumers are not being deliberately confused or misled. The action was sparked by a recent change to Facebook’s settings that forced its more than 400 million users to choose to “opt out” of sharing private information with third-party Web sites instead of “opt in,” a move which confounded many of them.
Mr. Schrage of Facebook said, “We try diligently to get people to understand the changes.”
But in many cases, young adults are teaching one another about privacy.
Ms. Liu is not just policing her own behavior, but her sister’s, too. Ms. Liu sent a text message to her 17-year-old sibling warning her to take down a photo of a guy sitting on her sister’s lap. Why? Her sister wants to audition for “Glee” and Ms. Liu didn’t want the show’s producers to see it. Besides, what if her sister became a celebrity? “It conjures up an image where if you became famous anyone could pull up a picture and send it to TMZ,” Ms. Liu said.
Andrew Klemperer, a 20-year-old at Georgetown University, said it was a classmate who warned him about the implications of the recent Facebook change — through a status update on (where else?) Facebook. Now he is more diligent in monitoring privacy settings and apt to warn others, too.
Helen Nissenbaum, a professor of culture, media and communication at New York University and author of “Privacy in Context,” a book about information sharing in the digital age, said teenagers were naturally protective of their privacy as they navigate the path to adulthood, and the frequency with which companies change privacy rules has taught them to be wary.
That was the experience of Kanupriya Tewari, a 19-year-old pre-med student at Tufts University. Recently she sought to limit the information a friend could see on Facebook but found the process cumbersome. “I spent like an hour trying to figure out how to limit my profile, and I couldn’t,” she said. She gave up because she had chemistry homework to do, but vowed to figure it out after finals.
“I don’t think they would look out for me,” she said. “I have to look out for me.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/fashion/09privacy.html?fta=y
Tell-All Generation Learns to Keep Things Offline
By LAURA M. HOLSON
Min Liu, a 21-year-old liberal arts student at the New School in New York City, got a Facebook account at 17 and chronicled her college life in detail, from rooftop drinks with friends to dancing at a downtown club. Recently, though, she has had second thoughts.
Concerned about her career prospects, she asked a friend to take down a photograph of her drinking and wearing a tight dress. When the woman overseeing her internship asked to join her Facebook circle, Ms. Liu agreed, but limited access to her Facebook page. “I want people to take me seriously,” she said.
The conventional wisdom suggests that everyone under 30 is comfortable revealing every facet of their lives online, from their favorite pizza to most frequent sexual partners. But many members of the tell-all generation are rethinking what it means to live out loud.
While participation in social networks is still strong, a survey released last month by the University of California, Berkeley, found that more than half the young adults questioned had become more concerned about privacy than they were five years ago — mirroring the number of people their parent’s age or older with that worry.
They are more diligent than older adults, however, in trying to protect themselves. In a new study to be released this month, the Pew Internet Project has found that people in their 20s exert more control over their digital reputations than older adults, more vigorously deleting unwanted posts and limiting information about themselves. “Social networking requires vigilance, not only in what you post, but what your friends post about you,” said Mary Madden, a senior research specialist who oversaw the study by Pew, which examines online behavior. “Now you are responsible for everything.”
The erosion of privacy has become a pressing issue among active users of social networks. Last week, Facebook scrambled to fix a security breach that allowed users to see their friends’ supposedly private information, including personal chats.
Sam Jackson, a junior at Yale who started a blog when he was 15 and who has been an intern at Google, said he had learned not to trust any social network to keep his information private. “If I go back and look, there are things four years ago I would not say today,” he said. “I am much more self-censoring. I’ll try to be honest and forthright, but I am conscious now who I am talking to.”
He has learned to live out loud mostly by trial and error and has come up with his own theory: concentric layers of sharing.
His Facebook account, which he has had since 2005, is strictly personal. “I don’t want people to know what my movie rentals are,” he said. “If I am sharing something, I want to know what’s being shared with others.”
Mistrust of the intentions of social sites appears to be pervasive. In its telephone survey of 1,000 people, the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology at the University of California found that 88 percent of the 18- to 24-year-olds it surveyed last July said there should be a law that requires Web sites to delete stored information. And 62 percent said they wanted a law that gave people the right to know everything a Web site knows about them.
That mistrust is translating into action. In the Pew study, to be released shortly, researchers interviewed 2,253 adults late last summer and found that people ages 18 to 29 were more apt to monitor privacy settings than older adults are, and they more often delete comments or remove their names from photos so they cannot be identified. Younger teenagers were not included in these studies, and they may not have the same privacy concerns. But anecdotal evidence suggests that many of them have not had enough experience to understand the downside to oversharing.
Elliot Schrage, who oversees Facebook’s global communications and public policy strategy, said it was a good thing that young people are thinking about what they put online. “We are not forcing anyone to use it,” he said of Facebook. But at the same time, companies like Facebook have a financial incentive to get friends to share as much as possible. That’s because the more personal the information that Facebook collects, the more valuable the site is to advertisers, who can mine it to serve up more targeted ads.
Two weeks ago, Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, petitioned the Federal Trade Commission to review the privacy policies of social networks to make sure consumers are not being deliberately confused or misled. The action was sparked by a recent change to Facebook’s settings that forced its more than 400 million users to choose to “opt out” of sharing private information with third-party Web sites instead of “opt in,” a move which confounded many of them.
Mr. Schrage of Facebook said, “We try diligently to get people to understand the changes.”
But in many cases, young adults are teaching one another about privacy.
Ms. Liu is not just policing her own behavior, but her sister’s, too. Ms. Liu sent a text message to her 17-year-old sibling warning her to take down a photo of a guy sitting on her sister’s lap. Why? Her sister wants to audition for “Glee” and Ms. Liu didn’t want the show’s producers to see it. Besides, what if her sister became a celebrity? “It conjures up an image where if you became famous anyone could pull up a picture and send it to TMZ,” Ms. Liu said.
Andrew Klemperer, a 20-year-old at Georgetown University, said it was a classmate who warned him about the implications of the recent Facebook change — through a status update on (where else?) Facebook. Now he is more diligent in monitoring privacy settings and apt to warn others, too.
Helen Nissenbaum, a professor of culture, media and communication at New York University and author of “Privacy in Context,” a book about information sharing in the digital age, said teenagers were naturally protective of their privacy as they navigate the path to adulthood, and the frequency with which companies change privacy rules has taught them to be wary.
That was the experience of Kanupriya Tewari, a 19-year-old pre-med student at Tufts University. Recently she sought to limit the information a friend could see on Facebook but found the process cumbersome. “I spent like an hour trying to figure out how to limit my profile, and I couldn’t,” she said. She gave up because she had chemistry homework to do, but vowed to figure it out after finals.
“I don’t think they would look out for me,” she said. “I have to look out for me.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/fashion/09privacy.html?fta=y
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