Moscow Bomb

The head of Russia's main security agency says Caucasus rebels are believed to have carried out two sucide bombings on Moscow's subway system that killed 36 people.
Officials say two female suicide bombers blew themselves up on trains as the subway was packed with rush-hour passengers Monday morning.
In a televised meeting with President Dmitry Medvedev, the head of the Federal Security Service said preliminary investigation points to terrorists connected to the restive Caucasus region that includes Chechnya.
Alexander Bortnikov said the assessment was based on fragments of the bombers' bodies. He did not elaborate.

Two female suicide bombers blew themselves up on Moscow's subway system as it was jam-packed with rush-hour passengers Monday, killing at least 35 people and wounding 38, the city's mayor and other officials said.
Emergency Ministry spokeswoman Svetlana Chumikova said 23 people were killed in an explosion shortly before 8 a.m. at the Lubyanka station in central Moscow. The station is underneath the building that houses the main offices of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the KGB's main successor agency.
A second explosion hit the Park Kultury station about 45 minutes later. Chumikova said at least 12 were dead there. The ministry later said 38 people were injured.
"I heard a bang, turned my head and smoke was everywhere. People ran for the exits screaming," said 24-year-old Alexander Vakulov, who said he was waiting on the platform opposite the targeted train at Park Kultury.
"I saw a dead person for the first time in my life," said 19-year-old Valtin Popov, who also was standing on the opposite platform.
Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov said both explosions were believed to have been set off on the trains.
"The first data that the FSB has given us is that there were two female suicide bombers," Luzhkov told reporters at the Park Kultury site.
The blasts practically paralyzed movement in the city center as emergency vehicles sped to the stations.
In the Park Kultury blast, the bomber was wearing a belt packed with plastic explosive and set it off as the train's doors opened, said Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for Russia's top investigative body. The woman has not been identified, he told reporters.
A woman who sells newspapers outside the Lubyanka station, Ludmila Famokatova, said there appeared to be no panic, but that many of the people who streamed out were distraught.
"One man was weeping, crossing himself, saying 'thank God I survived'," she said.
The last confirmed terrorist attack in Moscow was in August 2004, when a suicide bomber blew herself up outside a city subway station, killing 10 people.
Responsibility for that blast was claimed by Chechen rebels and suspicion in Monday's explosions is likely to focus on them and other separatist groups in the restive North Caucasus region.
Russian police have killed several Islamic militant leaders in the North Caucasus recently, including one last week in the Kabardino-Balkariya region. The killing of Anzor Astemirov was mourned by contributors to two al-Qaida-affiliated Web sites.
The killings have raised fears of retaliatory strikes by the militants.
In February, Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov warned in an interview on a rebel-affiliated Website that "the zone of military operations will be extended to the territory of Russia ... the war is coming to their cities."
Umarov also claimed his fighters were responsible for the November bombing of the Nevsky Express passenger train that killed 26 people en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg.
The Moscow subway system is one of the world's busiest, carrying around 7 million passengers on an average workday, and is a key element in running the sprawling and traffic-choked city.
Helicopters hovered over the Park Kultury station area, which is near the renowned Gorky Park.

David Mikael Taclino
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China Miners Trapped

Rescuers raced Monday to free 153 coal miners trapped by a flood that may have started when workers digging a new mine in northern China accidentally broke into a network of old, water-filled shafts.
Such derelict tunnels are posing new risks to miners across China even as the country ramps up safety in its notoriously hazardous mines, where accidents kill thousands each year.
Rescuers raced to pump water from the Wangjialing coal mine in north China's Shanxi province that started flooding Sunday afternoon, officials said. The state-owned mine about 400 miles (650 kilometers) southwest of Beijing was under construction and had been scheduled to start production later this year, the China Daily newspaper reported.
The accident could be one of the worst mining disasters in recent years if rescue efforts fail and would set back marked improvements in mining safety.
Some 261 workers were inside the mine when it flooded, and 108 escaped or were rescued, China's State Administration of Work Safety said in a statement on its Web site early Monday.
At the Wangjialing mine, located at the end of a long winding mountain road, rescue workers strapped metal pipes and other parts of a pump onto a metal trolley and pushed it along rail tracks into the entrance, where it was lowered into the shaft.
About 30 people, many of them miners, stood quietly behind the police cordon in a light drizzle watching the rescuers work.
Fan Leisheng, one of the miners who escaped, described the sudden rush of water that tore through the mine.
"It looked like a tidal wave and I was so scared," Fan told China Central Television. "I immediately ran away and looked back to see some others hanging behind. I shouted at them to get out. It was unbelievable because I got out from 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) underground."
Pipes and pumping equipment were rushed to the site and water was being pumped out of the mine, Liu Dezheng, a chief engineer with the work safety bureau in Shanxi, said during a televised news conference Monday.
The official Xinhua News Agency reported that President Hu Jintao ordered local authorities to "spare no effort" in saving the trapped workers.
Officials have yet to declare the cause of the accident but experts said it was likely that workers broke into the old shafts or pits of derelict mines that had filled with water.
"It could be that they broke into old workings, works that were not properly mapped out," said David Feickert, a coal mine safety adviser to the Chinese government. "That's a common problem with flooding, and Shanxi is an area where they have very extensive mining, a lot of old mines."
Though China's mining industry is still the world's deadliest, it has dramatically improved its safety record over the last seven years, said Feickert, who is based in Wanganui, New Zealand and Beijing.
Accidents killed 2,631 coal miners last year, less than half the 6,995 deaths in 2002, the most dangerous year on record, according to the State Administration of Coal Mine Safety. That means on average more than seven miners die every day, down from 19.1 in 2002.
The decline in deaths comes amid a ramping up in the mining of coal, which fuels about 70 percent of China's voracious energy needs.
Much of the safety improvement has come from shutting down smaller, labor-intensive operators or forcing them into mergers with better-funded state companies.
Lu Jianzhang, a former researcher with the China Coal Research Institute in Beijing, also said that he suspected old mine shafts were to blame. If that were the case, it could brighten the prospects of finding survivors, he said.
"Since the amount of the water is limited and runs out after the initial flood, there is still probably hope for miners' survival," Lu said.
Wangjialing's parent company, Huajin Coking Coal Co., is co-owned by China's second-largest coal mining company, the China National Coal Group Corp., with the remaining 50 percent stake owned by the Shanxi Coking Coal Group Co., another major miner.
The worst accidents in recent years include a coal mine flood in eastern Shandong province in August 2007 that left 172 miners dead and a mine blast in northeastern Liaoning province in February 2005 that killed 214 miners.

David Mikael Taclino
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World Agenda: why can't international warships stop the Somali pirates?

It seems to matter little how many of the world’s warships gather in the Gulf of Aden to deter acts of piracy. The pirates still manage to ply their trade and in recent weeks there has been a spike in ship hijackings, including yesterday’s capture of a British-owned vessel.
How can it be that with so much focus now on countering the pirates, they remain a significant threat to international shipping? There have been more than 40 attacks since the beginning of the year, ten of which were successful.
With 1.1 million square miles of water to cover just in the Gulf of Aden alone, the international warships operating in the area have never been able to guarantee safe passage for the thousands of ships that transit the routes. They rely, instead, on the merchant seamen on board the vessels sticking to certain rules if they wish to complete their journey without being commandeered. To make ships' voyages still more dangerous, there is now evidence some of the pirates are switching their tactics and hunting in the Indian Ocean.
On any day, there are between 15 and 20 warships on counter-piracy patrol in the Gulf of Aden from different navies that range from the United States and Britain to Russia, China and India. To underline the concerns that piracy have raised, there are three separate organisations involved - the US-led Combined Task Force 151, Nato and the European Union with Operation Atalanta. Countries such as Russia and China are not part of these operations, but apparently there is good communication between all the warships.
To make their job slightly easier, all merchant ships are advised to use the special international transit corridors - one going east, the other, west - across the Gulf of Aden where the foreign warships can then concentrate their efforts. There have been successes. Of the 40 attacks this year, ten were foiled by the intervention of one or more of the warships. A military helicopter hovering over the hijack-area is often more than enough to send the pirates fleeing.
The EU naval force which currently does not include a Royal Navy warship has succeeded in detaining 16 pirates so far this year, and the combined number of arrests carried out by all the foreign ships is more than 100 since January 1. The EU has an arrangement with Kenya for arrested pirates to be dealt with through their judicial system, and the first trial is due to take place this month.
The transit channels, however, are 500 miles long and, even within these more confined areas, it is still not possible for the warships to be everywhere. The pirates, operating in small boats that provide no reflecting radar blips, have adapted their methods, and have become more heavily armed to present to targeted vessel crews a significant threat to their lives.
The counter-piracy maritime organisations urge the merchant crews to take a number of steps to deter pirates. These include putting barbed wire around their vessels to make boarding more difficult and to ensure that they have crew members manning the hoses. Delay is important. If the crews can hold off the pirates for any length of time, the chances are that the nearest warship can get within helicopter reach of the incident and send the pirates packing.
The merchant ship-owners are also recommended to keep their vessels 600 miles away from Somalia’s eastern seaboard from where most of the pirates emerge. Not all the merchant ships, however, conform to the rules. Some fail to use the transit routes, and others give scant attention to installing anti-piracy defences.
Why the spike in attacks now? There appear to be two reasons. First, the monsoon period is over and, second, the pirates are apparently low in stocks of hijacked vessels and need more to maintain their income and to sustain the lifestyle they have enjoyed as a result of the huge ransoms paid by shipowners.
“Ultimately, this problem is not going to be resolved at sea but on land [by the authorities in Somalia], but meanwhile the pirates are continuing to thwart all the efforts being made by foreign navies to stop them,” one military source said.

David Mikael Taclino
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Sarkozy down but far from out after French vote

As expected, French voters gave Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP party a hammering in the run-off elections for regional councils. The left opposition won everywhere except Alsace and two overseas regions. 
The revived Socialists are jubilant and dreaming of national power while no-longer-Super Sarko is locked in the Elysée Palace having a rethink with François Fillon, his Prime Minister [picture above]. Over on their hillside at Saint-Cloud, old Jean-Marie Le Pen and his daughter Marine are toasting the revival of the far right National Front.
So it's curtains for the hyper-president, or "hyper-loser" as Le Progrès newspaper called him today ? Le Sarkozysme is finished and "progressive", left-thinking, France is reborn, as Libération says ?
Not so fast. Three years since crowning him, France has certainly fallen out of love with King Sarko I and his frenetic, confusing reign. But he has two years to correct things before the next presidential and parliamentary elections and he can count on a mess in the Socialist party.
The picture for him is not as bleak as some think. Take his rush to reform, the shake-up of work habits, the welfare state, hospitals, schools, the law courts and so on. Two polls today show that the French are not as hostile to these reforms as we thought. A BVA survey for Les Echos found that 50 percent want him to continue with at least the same pace, while only 40 percent are in favour of a pause. Le Parisien's poll, by CSA, found that one third want to slow the pace of reform. This might reinforce the idea that a lot of Sarkozy supporters abstained from voting to show their disapproval of the President.
Also on Sarkozy's side is the unique nature of the French system -- at least compared with the rest of Europe though not Russia and the USA. National power goes not to a party but to the man or woman who wins direct election to the monarchical executive presidency. The Socialist opposition has failed to do that since 1988. It has no clear candidate for the next time, in 2012, but is pledged to choose one next year from a bunch of feuding hopefuls. Six years ago, they were in an identical position. They had swept the board in regional elections and seemed poised for power, but Sarkozy beat them in 2007.

The prospects for a replay of that have been boosted by the triumph yesterday of Ségolène Royal, the party's defeated presidential candidate. Royal, who is rated somewhere between a flake and a saint, scored 60 percent of the vote in her Poitou-Charentes region. Radiant as ever, she made absolutely clear that she wants to get a second crack at Sarkozy. That will mean beating Martine Aubry, 59, the party leader who has gained stature with the regional vote [picture below]. But the polls still show that the public's favourite Socialist for the presidency is Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund.
Beyond personalities, the Socialists also have to come up with a plan for government. They are popular as local councillors and mayors, but have yet to produce a national programme that answers the desire among much of the electorate for a return to the left. Sarkozy's team take great comfort from opinion polls that show that the French do not believe that the Left -- meaning Socialists and the rag-tag army of Greens and other leftists -- would do any better than his centre-right administration.
Within a day or two we should have a clearer idea of Sarkozy 2.0, as the relaunched presidency is being called. He is getting plenty of advice, some of it from rivals in his own camp who would be happy to get their own chance to run in 2012. They are telling him to slow down, simplify his message and act modest.
Many of Sarkozy's members of Parliament in the Union for a Popular Movement now regard him as a liability. They want him to get back to conservative basics and stop playing with leftwing ideas like carbon taxes. They also want him to get rid of the opposition personalities who he hired for his administration. Le Figaro, the national daily that is Sarkozy's most loyal supporter, warned him today that the vote "obliges the President to set a new course for the final two years of his five-year term."
Just about everyone is telling the President to change style. He needs to get off the stage and back up onto the Elysée  throne, in the manner of his more lofty, statesmanlike predecessors. He will have a help on this front next year when he takes his turn as chairman of the G8 and G20 groups of nations.
We have already seen a couple of vintages of Sarkozy Nouveau after stumbles in 2008 and last year. But the kinder gentler brand quickly faded as the higher octane Super Sarko reasserted himself. The countdown to April 2012 is now ticking. It will be an interesting couple of years. 

David Mikael Taclino
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China Only can Cripple Iran sayas US Secretary of State

Hillary Clinton used her first appearance as US Secretary of State before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to warn once again of "crippling sanctions" against Iran.
Ever since she first uttered the phrase in April last year, "crippling sanctions" has been the benchmark for threats of international action against a defiant Tehran.
Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, repeated the mantra as he headed to Moscow this week to seek Russian support to halt Iran's suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons. "Harsh sanctions must be placed on Iran, as US Secretary of State Clinton said. We need crippling sanctions," Mr Netanyahu echoed.
Such action, however, may be nothing more than a convenient fantasy. First of all, draconian measures are unlikely to be obtainable, because of the determined opposition of China. Second, they are likely to prove unworkable and could even start a war – the very outcome they are designed to avoid.

"Crippling" has become a code word for a blanket ban on Iran's import of refined petroleum products, particularly petrol. The Islamic republic has the world's second largest proven oil reserves, around 11 per cent of the world total. Its lack of oil refineries, however, means that it has to import about 40 per cent of its refined products.
Many in the West see this as Tehran's Achilles' heel.
Under mounting US pressure, BP and Royal Dutch Shell have withdrawn as suppliers, as has India's Reliance Industries. According to Oil Daily, Iran has imported petrol so far this year from just six companies: the Swiss traders Trafigura and Vitol; the French company Total; the Independent Petroleum Group in Kuwait; the Malaysian state company Petronas; and Litasco, the Geneva-based trading arm of Russia's largest privately owned oil company, Lukoil.
Legislation targeting Iran's petrol imports has passed both chambers of the US Congress, although the two versions still need to be reconciled in a conference between House and Senate, and to be signed by the President. France has mooted the possibility of energy sanctions at the UN.
But China, which imports about 15 per cent of the crude for its surging economy from Iran, is almost certain to wield its UN veto power to block such stringent measures in the Security Council.
Seen from Beijing, Iran does not seem to pose the same strategic threat as it does to Israel, the United States, France, Russia or even Britain. Indeed, the greatest Iranian threat, from a Chinese point of view, would be for Tehran to choke off oil supplies.
Without UN sanctions, friendly countries could legally supply Iran with petrol even if Western companies were forced to stop by their own governments.
Dennis Blair, the US director of national intelligence, told Congress recently that Iran has already begun lining up potential new petrol suppliers.
"Iran has made contingency plans for dealing with future additional international sanctions by identifying potential alternative suppliers of gasoline – including China and Venezuela," Mr Blair said.
To stop a Venezuelan tanker carrying petrol to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, for instance, Western nations would have to resort to their naval power in the Gulf.
Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, has pointed out that such a blockade would amount to an act of war. The Iranian response could trigger a real shooting war.
Opposition leaders inside Iran have also spoken out against petrol sanctions, saying they would hurt the public not the ruling elite. Their view is that, far from stoking opposition to the Islamic regime, petrol sanctions would strengthen the Government's hand.
So what is behind this Western drive for "crippling" sanctions? Of course, the first goal is to avert the potentially devastating war that could follow a pre-emptive strike on Iran's nuclear sites – either by Israel or the United States.
But the Western strategy is also an acknowledgement that China is the only country which might have the power to force Iran to change track.
Western diplomats involved in the six-power talks on Iran now stress the unity of the group – which means keeping China alongside Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States – above what new measures the group actually agree.
One participant said that the experience of three previous rounds of limited UN sanctions shows that Tehran starts to panic only a couple of weeks before the UN vote, when Iranian officials finally realise that China will go along with the new measures and have to explain the situation to the Supreme Leader.
Implicit in the West's thinking is that the Islamic regime will abandon its nuclear dreams only if China pulls the plug.
The strategy starts to sound similar to that pursued against North Korea. Unlike Iran, North Korea does not have a drop of oil. And yet we know what happened there.

David Mikael Taclino
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Identification of agents by Dubai police embarrasses Mossad

To have a dozen of your agents identified in police tapes after an extrajudicial killing is embarrassing. To have almost 30 operatives left with their covers blown — as appears to have happened after Dubai police released fresh details of the Hamas assassination last month — might be considered reckless.
On the official website of Mossad, Israel’s spy agency, is the biblical verse from Prophets, 11:14 — “where no counsel is, the people fall, but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety”.
Unfortunately, so many of its “counsellors” seem to have been caught on CCTV, wearing wigs and other disguises, that it was as if an early Purim carnival was being held in Dubai’s hotels and airports.
On top of the diplomatic fallout — Australia was the latest country to chastise Israel, the lead suspect in the murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh — is the growing question of how Mossad, the famously surgical scalpel of Israel’s covert defences, could have allowed so many of its people to blunder into full view of security cameras and have their faces flashed around the world in weekly instalments presented by Dubai’s police chief.
The scale of the revelations is leading some experts here to question the motives and/or competence of Dubai’s police chief, Lieutenant-General Dahi Khalfan Tamim, who has released the falsified travel documents of 26 suspects, 12 of them British.
“There is no doubt that more than a little of the information that he is disclosing or leaking to the media is part of a ploy in which bits of disinformation are planted,” said security commentator Yossi Melman in the daily newspaper Haaretz.
“He’s throwing out a lure in the hope that someone in Israel will swallow the bait and respond by incriminating himself or disclosing confidential information.”
Others have expressed concern that Mossad — whose director, Meir Dagan, has even been called upon to resign by some critics — should be concentrating more on gathering intelligence on Iran’s nuclear programme, recalling how it went on a spree of revenge killings after the Munich Olympics massacre in 1972 and missed the signs of a looming attack by Arab armies a year later.
Yet some intelligence sources are unflustered by the hoopla, pointing to the fact that such a large team was able to infiltrate Dubai, kill their target without detection and escape, leaving only a few pictures behind of suspects.
One source told The Times that for all the expertise the Dubai police have shown in assembling images of the killers, they appeared to fail to identify which of them was actually involved.
He pointed to the fact that two of the suspects “escaped” to Iran, Israel’s sworn enemy, as evidence that not all of those exposed could have been involved.
And given that the actual agents involved are professional spies they are likely to be able to operate again without too much fear of detection, he said.
“You could take all 26 of them and put them in a line walking next to the police chief of Dubai and he wouldn’t recognise them,” said the security expert.
The fact that Dubai has one of the highest densities of closed circuit TV in the world meant that the agents knew they would screened and regularly changed their disguises.
That is also why, in killing al-Mabhouh, they induced a heart attack to make it appear like a natural death. It took the Dubai police, and Hamas, ten days to figure out that he had actually been murdered, by which time his killers were long gone.
“The deterrence for Hamas is more than doubled,” said the intelligence expert, adding that those who carried out the hit are “probably sitting in a hotel room clapping their hands”.

David Mikael Taclino
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No settlement between US and Israel

Despite efforts to patch up the deepening row between Israel and America, it is unlikely that Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, will be able to avoid conflict with his country’s closest ally.
Just as Israel’s deteriorating diplomatic ties with Turkey are linked to Ankara’s agenda of restoring its historical standing in the Muslim world, America has picked a fight in part because it fears the regional perception that it is soft on Israel will undermine its efforts to win over populations in countries where it is fighting long-running wars, and facing the prospect of more.
General David Petraeus, the US commander of forces in the Middle East and Afghanistan, told a Senate hearing this week that the tensions fomented in the Muslim world by the Israel-Palestinian conflict had an enormous impact on the ability of US forces to operate in the region.
Washington’s perceived proximity to Israel — reiterated at length last week by Joe Biden, the US Vice President, even as his peace trip became a debacle with the Israeli announcement that almost 2,000 new housing units were to be built in East Jerusalem and the West Bank — has long been a source of anti-US sentiment in the Arab world.
That it apparently cannot get its ally, whom it bankrolls to the tune of $3 billion (£2 billion) a year — to end settlement growth has only further fuelled the perception that the US is losing its clout.
The Obama Administration has denied reports that General Petraeus asked for Israel and the Palestinian territories to come under his area of operations, but the commander, who is credited, with the success of the surge in Iraq, said the idea had been discussed internally.
President Obama has said that peace in the Middle East is a strategic interest of the United States. That Israel’s settlement activity may be blocking that strategic interest, and putting US lives at risk, will narrow any room for future compromise by Washington, which backed down last year when Israel refused to halt construction in East Jerusalem, which it captured in the 1967 war.
Mr Netanyahu finds himself in an awkward position.
His right-wing, hawkish coalition supports the settlements, and one of his own key partners, Avigdor Lieberman, the Foreign Minister, lives on a West Bank settlement.
The Prime Minister has had difficulty pushing through a short-term moratorium on settlement growth, and has refused to halt construction in East Jerusalem. The Palestinians refuse to return to talks until Israel does so, leaving the conflict to fester.
More than ever, Mr Netanyahu will rely on skilled diplomacy to try to navigate the rocky waters ahead.
However, Mr Leiberman has in the past proven to be less than subtle. In the blow-up with Turkey, his deputy, Danny Ayalon, publicly humiliated the Turkish ambassador during a televised meeting, putting him on a lower chair than his, with no Turkish flag, and then, speaking in Hebrew, directing the cameraman to focus on these slights of protocol.
Mr Lieberman appears not to be in a conciliatory mood, spurning Brazil’s visiting President, Luiz Lula da Silva, because the latter opted to visit Yasser Arafat’s grave but not that of the founder of Zionism, Theodor Herzl.
The Brazilian leader today condemned Israel’s expansion plans in East Jerusalem and called for it to pull down the vast security barrier it has built inside the West Bank.
Mr Lieberman’s ministry estimates that Mr Obama will probably be too concerned with domestic struggles ahead of the November mid-term elections to be troubled by Israeli settlement growth. But if that is perceived to be undermining America’s vital interests in wartime, he may have to recalculate, and quickly.

David Mikael Taclino
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Chinese - US relationship Update

The message was delivered to the world in impeccable English by the fresh-faced Zhang Lu, who was translating the words of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao at his annual press conference.
After managing flawlessly to translate: "For the ideal that I hold dear to my heart, I would not regret a thousand times to die" and "My conscience stays unstained in spite of rumours and slanders from the outside", interpreting his more important words on the Chinese currency was relatively straight forward, and the message was crystal clear.
"First of all, I do not think the renminbi (yuan) is undervalued," he said. "We are opposed to countries pointing fingers at each other or taking strong measures to force other countries to appreciate their currencies. To do this is not beneficial to reform of the renminbi exchange-rate regime."
The value of the renminbi looks set this year to dominate relations between the world’s largest economy and its third-largest. The first is a nation struggling to revive its waning economic might while the other has a cautious eye on superpower status and is showing an increasing assertiveness in its dealings on the world stage.
When it comes to the value of its currency, China wants to show that it will not be budged. This is not only an issue vital to its economic interests but one of national pride: Beijing does not want to be seen by its people to be bowing to international pressure. Indeed, it cannot afford a perception of weakness among people who expect their Communist Party leaders to stand up to the Western bullies the state-run media has created.
One newspaper commentary today took inspiration from the independent spirit of the blue-skinned heroes of Avatar. It said: "Like the Na’vi, we’ll decide, thanks." Signals are that a clash is brewing. Indeed, can it be averted? Relations between China and the United States got off to a rocky start this year with Washington’s decision to proceed with sales of arms to Taiwan and Barack Obama’s meeting, albeit private, with the Dalai Lama, whom Beijing abhors.
But the renminbi matters more to both sides.
The dispute is worsening. A bipartisan Bill was introduced this week in the US Senate that aims to press Beijing to let its currency rise in value.
Many lawmakers believe that the yuan is undervalued by as much as 25 per cent, giving Chinese companies an unfair edge in trade, particularly at a moment when the US economy is struggling to recover from its worst downturn since the 1930s.
US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner stepped into the fray, saying China would eventually decide that it needs to adopt a flexible exchange-rate policy.
Even the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, added to the pressure on Beijing, saying that the yuan was undervalued.
With a rise in inflation — a spectre that haunts the leadership — Premier Wen may well privately feel there is a case for action after effectively a 20-month peg of the yuan to the dollar.
The latest increase in inflation showed that real returns on bank deposits had slipped into negative territory. No wonder that the Chinese are pouring their cash into concrete assets — literally — by investing in property, a trend that is fuelling fears of a housing bubble.
Jim O’Neill, Goldman Sachs chief economist, was this week more measured on the renminbi anxieties, saying he did not believe that the currency was much undervalued. "It’s unfortunate that we have so much political angst around this. The key thing is that, post-crisis, China is importing a lot."
But the interpreting of Premier Wen’s remarks by the elegant and erudite Ms Zhang served to raise hackles in Washington. Mr Wen called US complaints "a kind of trade protectionism".
That only fuelled the fury of US senators. And further public calls on China to act will only prompt Beijing to slow any plans it may have even further to ensure that it is not seen as bowing to outside pressure.
It is far from clear how this impasse in Sino-US ties can be broken while allowing both sides to save face.

David Mikael Taclino
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Indonesia on Cyber Crisis

There are plenty of people in Indonesia who dislike the idea of the country’s new anti-pornography law, but few of them have quite so much to lose as the penis-gourd wearers of West Papua.
The terms of the law, broad in the extreme, define pornography as “pictures, sketches, photos, writing, voice, sound, moving picture, animation, cartoons, conversation, gestures, or other communications shown in public with salacious content or sexual exploitation that violate the moral values of society”. There seemed to be little doubt that this could be applied to the koteka, a hollowed-out gourd attached to the scrotum and the traditional dress of the tribesmen of the Papuan highlands.
It is not only Papuans who are anxious about the new law. The Hindu island of Bali, whose racy bars and nightclubs are the draw for hundreds of thousands of young tourists, has concerns of its own, as do the practitioners of the traditional, and famously, sensual jaipong dance of west Java.
Four erotic dancers were jailed for six weeks this month after being caught performing suggestive gyrations at a New Year party. But even people who do not thrust their pelvises for a living are concerned, not only about this law, but about a general sense of narrowing in the boundaries of morality in Indonesia over the past few years,
Under the dictatorship of the late Suharto, political oppression was combined with a laissez-faire attitude to matters of public morality. Indonesians were unable to freely criticise the Government, but they were able to indulge other, more physical drives in Jakarta flesh pots as unconstrained as any in Bangkok or Tokyo.
After he was driven form power in 1998, formerly suppressed groups of all kinds flourished — and they included a variety of Islamic parties whose influence had been curbed by Suharto. It is Muslim politicians, of different shades, who have brought to bear religious values on a population divided in its attitude towards them.
Islam in Indonesia, which is espoused by 80 per cent of the 230 million population, is often spoke of as being “tolerant” — and certainly the everyday practices of ordinary people are very different from the more austere traditions of the Middle East. Plenty of female Indonesian students wear jilbabs, or Islamic head dresses — but often in combination with T-shirts and jeans of fashionably tight cut.
But within Indonesia, there are plenty of religious conservatives, including the Islamic Defenders’ Front, who smash up clubs and bars deemed to be disrespectful of Muslim sensibilities during the holy month of Ramadan, and local politicians in the autonomous province of Aceh who have successfully introduced Sharia. At the far extreme the various terrorist networks who have blown up hotels, nightclubs and embassies.
It would be easy to create an alarming image of Indonesia as a country at risk of radical Islamisation. But in almost every case, attempts to impose hardcore morality have been diluted by compromise. The publishers of a Jakarta edition of Playboy magazine were faced with furious Muslim opposition — so they relocated to Bali, and took care that the toothsome playmates in their centrefolds remained fully clothed.
Sharia exists in Aceh, and the proscribed penalties include stoning for adultery — but there is a general sense of embarrassment at the legislation, which is likely to remain a theoretical of body of law only. The erotic New Year dancers were convicted but released immediately after their trial, having been sentenced to exactly the time that they had served. Even Jemaah Islamiyah, the organisation responsible of the Bali bombings and other terrorist outrages, is reported to have alienated more extreme factions because of its recent tendency to emphasise jihad through education rather than violent attacks.
Memories of dictatorship are fresh, and Indonesian progressives are understandably reluctant to yield any of their hard-won freedoms — but there is a strain of respectful commonsense in Indonesia that runs at least as deep as dogmatic notions of religious purity. The activists lost their struggle against the anti-pornography law yesterday when the Supreme Court refused to strike it down. But Bali and West Papua have promised to ignore it — and no one believes that the tribesmen of the highlands will be stripped of their penis gourds any time soon.

David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
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African Culture turning British

The official second language has switched from French to English and is now taught in every school. The enthusiasm for cricket is burgeoning. Officials are even considering switching from driving on the right to the left.
Last week the President of Rwanda was received by the Queen. His country’s flag was raised beside those of the other 53 members as Rwanda was welcomed into the Commonwealth, the newest member and one of only two never to have been ruled by Britain.
Rwanda is one corner of Africa that has embraced all things British. It is not simply Anglophile sentiment or antipathy to France that has prompted the change: it is hard-headed self-interest and the logic of market forces.
Rwanda has put behind it the legacy of Belgian colonial rule, tribal division, the turmoil of the 1994 genocide. Now it is looking east. It has joined its neighbours, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, in a new common market, the East African Community. Their heritage — like their driving — is British, not Belgian.
Britain has responded with affection and much-needed cash. In 1995, a year after 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered in 100 days of frenzied killings, London proposed an emergency aid package of £25,000. This year British aid will total £50 million, making Britain Rwanda’s biggest donor.
The British Embassy, established in Kigali after the genocide, is focused almost entirely on aid, with staff from the Department for International Development (DfID) outnumbering the small diplomatic mission.
It has also captured the hearts of Britain’s politicians. Tony Blair has visited Rwanda five times in the past two years. The nation has become the centrepiece of his commitment to Africa. The Conservatives, too, have a big political investment. Three years ago David Cameron led a group of 50 from his party to forge links with politicians, mayors and civil servants. He chose Rwanda as a model for the rethinking of Conservative aid policy.
Explaining the interest and enthusiasm, a British official said: “First of all, Rwandans say ‘thank you’. President Kagame publicly acknowledges that taxpayers’ money is spent to help his country. Such gratitude is rare elsewhere. Second, Rwanda has a culture of honesty. The money is well spent. Corruption is heavily punished. The Government has a vision of where it is going, and people work hard”.
A third reason is that there is a pay-off. Britain has invested in strengthening good governance. An early project was to spend £20 million setting up the Rwandan Revenue Authority — essential if the country was to recover from the bloody chaos of Year Zero, as 1994 is now known. That authority now brings in £20 million each month.
A current project is the first registration of all land holdings. Each farmer will be given a registration certificate, which precludes disputes on who owns what and gives millions a security against which they can borrow from a bank. The £20 million cost of the five-year scheme is underwritten by Britain.
Rwandan officials acknowledge that they are in a race to maintain prosperity. The economy grew 5 per cent last year but the population of ten million is growing even faster. A vigorous campaign aims to cut the birth rate from six children per family to three.
Prosperity, officials admit, is essential if Rwanda is to continue the remarkable post-genocide reconciliation and block any return to the ethnic animosities that brought catastrophe

David Mikael Taclino
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Hostage Released in Colombia

Leftist Colombian rebels Sunday released the first of two military hostages they have promised to free, with the liberation of the other -- one of this nation's longest-held hostages -- expected Tuesday.

Members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, released Josue Daniel Calvo, 23, to a team that included representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross, a Brazilian helicopter crew and leftist Sen. Piedad Cordoba, a key intermediary in other FARC hostage releases over the last two years.

The FARC is expected to soon release Pablo Emilio Moncayo, who has been in held for 12 years. His father has drawn attention to the case here and in Europe with walking tours and by wearing chains he said he would keep on until his son is released.

Calvo was on patrol in Meta state in April when he was wounded and became separated from his army unit. On Sunday afternoon, emerging in civilian clothes from the Brazilian helicopter after it landed in Villavicencia, capital of Meta, the smiling but pale soldier walked with a limp and cane

Appearing later with his family and in military fatigues, Calvo declined to speak to the large group of reporters assembled at the airport. His father, Luis Alberto Calvo, said his son would be going to a military hospital in Bogota for treatment of his knee, which was damaged in the firefight before his capture.

To facilitate the release, armed forces halted military operations around a predetermined jungle clearing in southeast Colombia near the border of Meta and Caqueta states where Calvo was freed.

President Alvaro Uribe condemned the FARC for using the release as an electoral show in advance of May's presidential election. But Uribe said last week that he would observe an agreed-upon standing down of armed forces despite a car bombing in Buenaventura on Wednesday that killed six. Colombian intelligence blamed the violence on the FARC.

The rebels are still holding more than 20 military and political hostages deemed of political value, and hundreds of other people for ransom. In May, insurgents kidnapped and are believed to be still holding city councilman Armando Acuna of Garzon, in southwest Colombia.

In December, a dozen rebels stormed the residence of Caqueta Gov. Luis Francisco Cuellar, spirited him out of the city and later killed him as army units closed in

In 2008 and 2009, the FARC released 12 hostages, including politicians, police and soldiers, through the intercession of Cordoba and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Fifteen others, including three U.S. defense contractors, were freed in July 2008 in a daring raid by Colombian commandos.

David Mikael Taclino
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Conflict in Congo

At least 321 people were killed and hundreds were abducted in one of the worst massacres by Africa’s most feared rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), in the Democratic Republic of Congo in December.
A three-year-old girl was burnt to death during the attack on men, women and children, an investigation by a human rights group has revealed.
Villagers who escaped death were sent back with their lips and ears cut off as a warning to others of what would happen if they talked — a tactic used frequently by the LRA, which has terrorised much of northern Uganda and the border areas with Sudan and Congo for more than two decades.
The attack — which was unreported until now — confirms that the LRA has restarted terrorising the region despite losing its bases in Sudan a few years ago, when Khartoum, its main backer, signed a peace deal with south Sudanese rebels. According to Human Rights Watch the LRA also abducted at least 250 people during the attack, including 80 children.
Anneke Van Woudenberg, of the New York-based rights group, called the massacre in the Makombo area of northeast Democratic Republic of Congo “one of the worst ever committed by the LRA in its bloody 23-year history”.
The LRA is led by Joseph Kony, a warlord dubbed the Wizard of the Nile who mixes traditional African beliefs with fundamentalist Christianity. He has made a point of abducting children terrified of his supposed magical powers to perpetuate the movement. Kony turns the boys into killing machines, often unleashing them on their relatives, and takes girls as child brides for himself and his commanders. Peace talks with the group began about two years ago but failed after Kony executed any of his commanders who showed interest in reaching a settlement.
The majority of those killed in the December attack were men. They were tied up, some bound to trees, before being hacked to death with machetes or having their skulls crushed with axes. The dead included 13 women and 23 children, according to the report, which was written after a mission visited the region in February.
Dieudonne Abakuba, a clergyman at Isiro-Niangara, in the north east of the country, confirmed that 30 members of the LRA attacked about a dozen villages of the nearby Haut Uele district.
“They killed at least 300 people. They also kidnapped between 200 and 400 others before disappearing,” he said.
“During the well-planned LRA attack,” the LRA “killed at least 321 civilians and abducted 250 others, including at least 80 children,” said the 67-page HRW report.
According to the report, written after a mission visited the region in February: The vast majority of those killed were adult men, whom LRA combatants first tied up and then hacked to death with machetes or crushed their skulls with axes and heavy wooden sticks.
“The dead include at least 13 women and 23 children, the youngest a three-year-old girl who was burned to death. LRA combatants tied some of the victims to trees before crushing their skulls with axes.”


David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
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Taylor Lautnerwon 2 Kids' Choice awards

Twilight star Taylor Lautner picked up two orange blimp trophies at the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards on Saturday.
The 18-year-old actor was named favourite movie actor for his New Moon role as werewolf Jacob Black at the gala awards ceremony at the UCLA's Pauley Pavilion in Los Angeles.
He shared the inaugural cutest couple award with his co-star Kristin Stewart.
Miley Cyrus, 17, snared the favourite movie actress blimp for her role in Hannah Montana: The Movie.
The show's celebrities are traditionally coated with green slime for the amusement of young fans. Singer Katy Perry, 25, came in for the slime treatment as she presented Cyrus's award.
Other winners were:

• U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama, who won the Big Help Award for her Let's Move campaign to reduce childhood obesity.
• Dylan Sprouse, 17, who beat out his identical twin brother and co-star, Cole Sprouse, as favourite TV actor for his role in The Sweet Life on Deck.
• Selena Gomez, 17, as favourite TV actress for her part in Wizards of Waverly Place, a series about three siblings who are wizards-in-training.
• Jay-Z as favourite male singer.
• Taylor Swift as favourite female singer.
• Black Eyed Peas as favourite music group.

The 23rd awards ceremony was hosted by boisterous comedian Kevin James, who kicked off the show with a hip-hop dance routine. The evening also featured performances by teen idol Justin Bieber and Rihanna.
James said youngsters cast more than 115 million votes for this year's awards.

 

David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
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Reporters Speak With Missing Rights Lawyer in China

A Chinese human rights lawyer who has been missing for more than a year has told reporters he is living at a Buddhist landmark in northern China.

Gao Zhisheng told reporters for Western news agencies by phone Sunday that he was living on Wutai mountain, a Buddhist landmark in Shanxi province.  The lawyer said he was free at the moment and that he wanted to "live a quiet life for a while."  

Gao has not been seen since he was seized by police in February 2009 from his brother's home in northern Shaanxi province. Gao's family had feared he was dead.

Before he disappeared, Gao had published a statement describing severe beatings and torture by Chinese authorities.

Gao was once praised by the Chinese government for his legal work, but fell out of Beijing's favor when he started defending ethnic minorities and religious persecution cases. 

He is most known for his work defending underground Christians and the banned Falun Gong spiritual group.

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi told reporters on March 16 that Gao has been sentenced to prison for subverting state power, but would not say where the lawyer is being held.

David Mikael Taclino
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Geely to buy Volvo

Zhejiang Geely Holding Group signed a binding deal Sunday to buy Ford Motor Co.'s Volvo Cars unit for $1.8 billion, representing a coup for the independent Chinese automaker that is aiming to expand in Europe.
The purchase gives Geely a European luxury car brand with a reputation for safety and quality at a time when China, which last year surpassed the U.S. as the world's largest car market, is eager to improve its competitiveness by acquiring foreign automotive brands that might help it improve its technology and expand into overseas markets.
The price, which includes a $200 million note with the remainder to be paid out in cash, is far less than the $6.45 billion Ford paid for the Swedish automaker in 1999. The U.S. automaker has been trying to sell Volvo since late 2008 to focus its resources on managing its core Ford, Lincoln and Mercury brands.
"We think it's a fair price for a good business, and yes, we're happy with the deal we've achieved with Geely," said Ford Chief Financial Officer Lewis Booth on Sunday at a news conference at Volvo Cars headquarters in Goteborg, on Sweden's west coast. Booth added that his company believes that, under Geely, "Volvo can continue to build its business and return to profitability."
The agreement was signed by Booth and Geely's chairman, Li Shufu, and witnessed by Li Yizhong, the Chinese minister of industry and information technology, as well as Swedish Minister for Enterprise and Energy Maud Olofsson.
In a statement, Geely said it has secured all the financing necessary to complete the deal, as well as "significant working capital facilities to fund Volvo Cars' ongoing business." The sale is expected to be completed in the third quarter, subject to regulatory approvals.
The deal also covers further agreements on intellectual property rights, supply, and research and development arrangements between Volvo Cars, Geely and Ford. The U.S. automaker has committed to provide engineering support, information technology, access to tooling for common parts and certain other services for a transition period to smooth the separation.
Li, whose comments were translated by an interpreter, described the deal as "a milestone" for both Geely and Volvo, adding that his group will make a Volvo CEO public "in due course."
Geely said it aims to keep Volvo's existing manufacturing facilities in Sweden and Belgium, but that it also will explore manufacturing opportunities in China. Volvo Cars will remain separate from Geely's other operations, with its own Sweden-based management team and a new board of directors, the company said.
"China, the largest car market in the world, will become Volvo's second home market. Volvo will be uniquely positioned as a world-leading premium brand, tapping into the opportunities in the fast-growing China market," Li said.
As Western automakers unload unprofitable assets, they are finding keen buyers in Asia.
In 2008, Ford sold its Jaguar and Land Rover brands to India's Tata Motors Ltd. for $1.7 billion, a third of what it paid for them. In addition, General Motors Co. attempted to sell its rugged Hummer brand to a Chinese heavy equipment maker, but is now winding that brand down as the deal collapsed. China's Beijing Automotive Industry Holdings has also agreed to buy some powertrain technology from GM's Swedish Saab unit.
Geely, an independent automaker that has struggled to upgrade its image in overseas markets, has long coveted a bigger foothold in Europe and has earlier been rumored to be bidding for Opel and Saab. The long-awaited Volvo acquisition is therefore important for the company, which has gradually built its business with little government support.
Analyst Zhang Xin, with Guotai Junan Securities in Beijing, said Geely's pledge to keep Volvo's factory and business teams in Sweden after the takeover limits its leeway to cut costs.
"Reality is always much crueler than what people would wish. Geely wants to build itself as a new 'international Geely,' so they sought a strong foreign brand like Volvo," Zhang said. "Geely should foresee many difficulties. How will it manage to run Volvo well? How will it deal with the factory and employees? How much more will Geely have to spend to operate Volvo?"
Volvo, whose first car left its Swedish factory in 1927, employs nearly 20,000 workers, most of them based in Sweden. The group, initially a subsidiary of ballbearing maker SKF, was listed on the stock exchange in 1935. In 2009, it sold 334,808 cars. It currently has 10 models on the global market, with its crossover XC60 being the best-seller. The United States, Sweden and Britain account for its three biggest markets.
In a statement Sunday, Volvo Cars CEO Stephen Odell said Volvo managers fully endorse the sale to Geely.
"We believe this is the right outcome for the business, and will provide Volvo Cars with the necessary resources, including the capital investment, to strengthen the business and to continue to move it forward in the future," he said.
Volvo dealers in the U.S. said Sunday that Geely's assurance that the cars will still be made in Sweden has allayed customers' concerns about quality control. Chinese automakers seeking to expand into U.S. markets have faced quality questions from consumers concerned about defects and problems with a number of Chinese exports ranging from drugs and foods to furniture and appliances.
"They do show concern, but we are assuring them the quality of the car is still going to be there," said Chris Gastmeyer, sales manager at Volvo of Orange County in Santa Ana, Calif., on Sunday.
He said customers are comforted by the fact that the cars are still made in Sweden and that it's business as usual at this point.
Mike Kessler, new car sales manager at Volvo of Santa Monica, said he isn't seeing much worry from shoppers as it appears the manufacturing will remain the same. But staff are eager to see what changes are in store after the transfer in ownership.
"We are dying to see what happens because we need a jump-start," he said.
The sales staff hasn't received any information yet about the plans of its new owners but Kessler hopes Geely has plans to help build new car sales and leases.
"We are basically on hold," he said. "I'm hoping it gets exciting."

David Mikael Taclino
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Obama in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan President Barack Obama made a surprise visit to Afghanistan on Sunday, marking the end of a triumphant week at home with a secret flight and whirlwind tour to visit U.S. troops and Afghan officials.
Obama arrived at Bagram Air Force Base north of Kabul at 7:25 pm Sunday local time - 10:55 am EDT Sunday - after an unscheduled 12-hour flight aboard Air Force One.
It was his first visit as president and commander in chief of the war in Afghanistan and his second visit since a tour as a Senator and presidential candidate.
The trip capped a week in which Obama won Congressional approval of a health care overhaul that was the centerpiece of his domestic agenda, signed it into law, and announced a treaty agreement with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to cut the nuclear arsenals of both countries.
With those in hand, the White House notified Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday that Obama wanted to meet.
"One of the main reasons I'm here is to just say thank you for the incredible efforts of our US troops and our coalition partners," Obama said after a half hour meeting with Karzai.
"They make tremendous sacrifices far away from home, and I want to make sure they know how proud their commander-in-chief is of them."
Greeted at the Bargam air base by Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, and U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, Obama rushed into Kabul by helicopter to meet with Karzai.
Afterward, Karzai said he wanted to "express the gratitude of our people for the help that America has given us for the last 8 years." He thanked U.S. taxpayers for "the rebuilding and re-establishing the institutions in Afghanistan."
Obama said Afghanistan has improved, noting he could see "increased electricity production" while flying in.
"The American people are encouraged by the progress that's been made," Obama said.
In addition to military progress, he said, "we also want to continue to make progress on the civilian process." He mentioned corruption and the rule of law.
U.S. National Security Adviser James Jones said the face-to-face meeting was needed to reinforce messages sent via video teleconferences between the two leaders, the last one of which took place two weeks ago.
"This is something that simply has to be done. We have to have the strategic rapport with President Karzai and his cabinet to understand how we are going to succeed this year in reversing the momentum the Taliban and the opposition forces have been able to establish since 2006," Jones said.
Karzai will visit the United States on May 12.
Obama later visited with about 2,000 troops in a cavernous temporary hangar at Bagram, many from the 82nd Airborne.

David Mikael Taclino
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