news/notes2009.04.14a

[Biography of the Day] from [Britannica]
Julie Christie
British film actress Julie Christie, born in India this day in 1941, was renowned for a wide range of roles in English and American films, as well as for her striking looks and offbeat, free-spirited personality.

[On This Day] from [Britannica]
1865: Abraham Lincoln shot
On this day in 1865, just after the American Civil War ended, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth while attending a production at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., and died the next morning.


[TODAY'S TOP STORIES] from [The Japan Times]

[BUSINESS NEWS]
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Deflation feared as wholesale prices dip
2.2% drop amid falling demand is biggest since '02

(Kyodo News) Wholesale prices in March dropped 2.2 percent from a year earlier for the sharpest fall in nearly seven years due to falling demand amid the weakening of the economy, the Bank of Japan said Monday, fueling deflation fears.

The prices, gauged by the BOJ's corporate goods price index, stood at 104.3 against the 2005 base of 100, the central bank said in a preliminary report.

Tihe headline reading fell for the third consecutive month and marked the largest drop since May 2002. The decline was also greater than the average market forecast of a 1.7 percent fall in a Kyodo News poll of economic think tanks.

"The recent economic slowdown depressed final demand, contributing to price declines," a BOJ official said, referring to depressed prices for a variety of products, including petroleum products, salmon and beef, and plastic goods.

Contributing the most to the March wholesale price index's decline were falls of prices in the petroleum and coal products segment, down 34.6 percent from a year earlier, and those in the nonferrous metal category, down 30.5 percent.

Prices for agricultural and marine products dropped 4.4 percent as consumers tightened their purse strings especially for beef and other higher priced foods, and shifted to lower priced products.

While posting a 10.6 percent yearly rise, steel and iron prices have notably fallen on a month-on-month basis recently, logging a 1.8 percent drop in March followed by a revised 1.5 percent drop in February.

"Deflationary forces are expected to strengthen gradually hereafter, and it appears that the wholesale price index is heading toward a year-on-year drop of as large as 6 percent" by around September, said Kyohei Morita, chief economist at Barclays Capital Japan Ltd.

The fresh stimulus package involving record public spending adopted Friday will not be enough to halt the deflationary trend, Morita said, citing a deteriorating job market, which is likely to cause consumers to spend less and prices to decline further.

On a month-on-month basis, prices were down 0.2 percent from February, continuing to fall for the seventh straight month since September amid the deepening global financial turmoil. The reading matched a projection of a 0.2 percent slide in the Kyodo News poll.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Calderon couple exit Japan
NARITA, Chiba Pref. (Kyodo) An undocumented Filipino couple under a deportation order departed for the Philippines on Monday evening from Narita International Airport, leaving behind their 13-year-old daughter, who was recently granted special permission to stay for one year.

Earlier Monday, relatives and colleagues of Arlan Calderon, 36, and his 38-year-old wife, Sarah, gathered at the family's home in Warabi, Saitama Prefecture, to bid the couple farewell.

"We will be waiting for you (to come back)," said construction worker Yasuhisa Nagashima, one of Calderon's colleagues, adding that this is not "goodbye."

While expressing sadness, Calderon said: "I want to thank everyone. Not just the people of Warabi, but those across the nation for supporting me and my family's cause.

"Noriko (their daughter) is here, so I hope we can return to her side as soon as possible."

The family had long been seeking special permission for residence for the entire family. But while the Justice Ministry granted their daughter special permission to stay, it refused to extend the permission to the parents.

In mid-March, the Filipino couple told immigration authorities that they would return to the Philippines in April, leaving behind their daughter, who was born and raised in Japan and who has strongly expressed her wish to stay and continue her studies.

They came to the decision to split the family out of fear that, should they continue to ignore a demand from immigration authorities to choose between the departure of the entire family or just the parents, their daughter might also be detained and deported, according to the family's lawyer, Shogo Watanabe.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
LDP claims Akita poll victory validation of Aso's stimulus
AKITA (Kyodo) Liberal Democratic Party executives Monday welcomed the victory of its candidate in Sunday's Akita gubernatorial election, a local poll widely seen as a key factor that could affect national politics.

Norihisa Satake, supported by the LDP's Akita prefectural chapter, beat three other candidates, including one fielded by the Democratic Party of Japan. Satake's win may affect whether DPJ President Ichiro Ozawa steps down over a political fund scandal involving his aide and Nishimatsu Construction Co.

The latest gubernatorial poll outcome follows the one in Chiba, in which another DPJ-backed candidate lost.

"I believe the policies of the government and the ruling bloc are gradually taking effect," LDP Secretary General Hiroyuki Hosoda said. "Although our economic measures are still premature, they are gaining voters' support."

The result of the Akita poll will likely have a favorable impact on Prime Minister Taro Aso's policy, Hosoda added.

The reaction from Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura appeared subdued, but he briefly said he welcomes the poll's outcome "as a member of the LDP."

The DPJ reacted calmly to the election outcome, dismissing any link between its defeat in Akita and public anger and distrust toward the DPJ caused by the Nishimatsu scandal.

Satake, 61, a former mayor of the city of Akita also supported by the tiny opposition Social Democratic Party, beat Hiroshi Kawaguchi, 61, backed by the prefectural chapter of the DPJ and Kokumin Shinto (People's New Party), as well as independent Shoichiro Sato, 56, and Kaneji Fujimoto, 62, of the Japanese Communist Party.

news/notes2009.04.14b

[News] from [Los Angeles Times]
Moment to shoot Somali pirates had come
It was only when U.S. cargo ship captain Richard Phillips' life seemed at immediate risk that Navy snipers fired.

By Julian E. Barnes and Greg Miller
April 14, 2009

Reporting from Washington -- Before ending a standoff with pirates by firing three fatally precise shots, U.S. Navy SEAL snipers had passed on multiple opportunities to fire.

The marksmen had moved into position after the White House expanded the authority it had given the world's most powerful navy against a ragtag foe holding an American hostage. They kept their scopes trained on their Somali targets as prospects for a peaceful resolution seemed to shrivel.

But most of all, they waited as a series of seemingly insignificant moves -- from extending the pirates a rope to bringing an injured brigand on-board -- improved their odds of success.

"Bringing them in closer gave them a smoother ride," said a senior U.S. military official, describing internal deliberations on condition of anonymity. "Also, if we had to take kinetic action -- as we did in this case -- the shot would have greater potential for success."

Even as details about the daring rescue were still emerging, U.S. national security officials were trying to assess whether it might lead to an escalation in violent tactics along the Somali coast, and were warning that a surge in pirate activity would be difficult to bring under control.

President Obama, in his first public remarks on the rescue, pledged Monday to mount a sustained campaign against the escalating attacks on ships off Somalia.

"I want to be very clear that we are resolved to halt the rise of [piracy] in that region," Obama said. "We have to continue to be prepared to confront them when they arise. And we have to ensure that those who commit acts of piracy are held accountable for their crimes."

Piracy, with the prospect of million-dollar ransoms, has spawned an industry on the Somali coast and led to the creation of specialized teams, some expert at ship assaults and others that focus on negotiation.

"There's a level of organization to these pirates," said a senior U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue. "We've even seen some coordination among different groups."

Obama was briefed on the crisis at least 18 times, including a National Security Council session on "hostage contingencies" just hours before the snipers fired their shots. But the crisis seems to have crystallized for the administration on Friday, after the White House got word that Capt. Richard Phillips had tried to escape from his captors.

The escape attempt had presented an early rescue opportunity for the military. But the Navy had no warning that Phillips was going to attempt to flee. Although a military special operations team had been mobilized, it had not yet arrived, and the Navy had no way to capitalize on Phillips' gumption.

Instead, the incident underscored the danger Phillips was in as the pirates fired their AK-47s at him as he tried to swim away, then beat him after dragging him back aboard the boat.

Hours later, senior NSC officials met in the White House Situation Room to draft a series of options to deliver to Obama. Later that night, Obama appears to have issued his first order authorizing the use of lethal force.

But military officials said the White House still hoped for a nonviolent end to the standoff.

"The president wanted the opportunity to say, 'Have we tried everything to make this reach a peaceful conclusion?' " said the senior military official. "He wanted to be a check valve so that everybody was looking at all options."

The next morning, the authority to use lethal force was expanded for what the White House described as an "additional set of U.S. forces," an apparent reference to the arrival of the SEALs off the Somali coast.

The first small contingent of SEALs parachuted into the waters around the destroyer Bainbridge at 5:10 a.m. on Saturday. A larger contingent of SEALs arrived at 6:30 p.m.

Once there, the SEALs began to position themselves and readied small, Zodiac-style inflatable boats to maneuver near the lifeboat that held the captain and pirates.

The military official said the SEAL snipers had multiple opportunities to shoot the pirates. But the team held off, not believing Phillips was in imminent peril and hoping they could persuade the pirates to give themselves up peacefully.

Military officials had what they thought was a breakthrough Sunday morning. About 6:40 a.m., a small boat carrying SEAL team members approached the lifeboat, to check on Phillips and try to talk to the pirates.

The youngest pirate asked the SEALs if he could come aboard the Bainbridge to make a phone call. The pirate had been stabbed in the hand during the initial assault Wednesday on the Alabama, and the wound had become infected.

The military took the pirate aboard, gave him a clean set of clothes and treated his wound. Officers hoped that if they treated that pirate well, the others would surrender.

"Let's show these guys we are serious about the fact that if you give yourself up you won't be harmed," said the military official, explaining the thinking behind the treatment of the surrendering pirate. "It didn't have the effect we had hoped."

The pirate did speak to the others over the radio, urging them to give themselves up. But the plea failed and military officials believe his surrender may have made the remaining pirates all the more desperate.

As Sunday dragged on, the seas grew rougher and Navy officers offered to tow the lifeboat behind the Bainbridge, telling the pirates that they would move them to calmer waters.

When the pirates initially agreed to hitch their boat to the Bainbridge on Sunday evening, they were towed from a distance of 200 feet. But the ride was still choppy. The Bainbridge began pulling the boat to within 75 or 80 feet, explaining to the pirates that moving the vessel toward the destroyer would stabilize their boat.

The snipers probably took positions on catwalks or the ship's rear-facing fantail that obscured them from the pirates' view. And the Navy made the snipers' task easier by getting the pirates to let themselves be tethered to the ship.

"I wouldn't be surprised if they turned dead into the swells," the military official said, describing how the Navy is likely to have used the warship to plow through waves and draw the rescue craft closer in a relatively smooth wake.

"From that range," he said, "they've got a fairly good margin of error."

Indeed, military officials said that once the lifeboat was tethered to the destroyer, the pirates grew more desperate, feeling that they had lost control of their boat and the situation.

The pirates also were probably experiencing a withdrawal from khat, a narcotic leaf chewed by many Somali men, according to the senior military official. Withdrawal from the amphetamine-like stimulant can induce depression.

Aboard the hot and cramped lifeboat, tensions escalated. Watching from the Bainbridge, the snipers observed an apparent argument between Phillips and one of the pirates.

Military officers talking with the lifeboat by radio also noticed that the pirates had become more agitated.

"They broke off the last communication," said the senior military official. "And, again, they said, 'If we don't get what we are demanding, we will kill the captain.' "

About an hour and a half after tying the lifeboat to the Bainbridge, the SEAL team observed two of the pirates move away from Phillips and stick their heads out from a hatch. The third pirate raised his weapon at Phillips' back.

Convinced that Phillips was about to be shot, the SEAL commander gave the order to fire.

"If the goal was just to kill these guys, there were opportunities where we could have shot them," the senior official said. "This was not the outcome we wanted. We wanted those three guys to give themselves up."

news/notes2009.04.14c

[Today' Paper] from [The New York Times]
U.S. May Drop Key Condition for Talks With Iran

By DAVID E. SANGER
Published: April 13, 2009

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration and its European allies are preparing proposals that would shift strategy toward Iran by dropping a longstanding American insistence that Tehran rapidly shut down nuclear facilities during the early phases of negotiations over its atomic program, according to officials involved in the discussions.

The proposals, exchanged in confidential strategy sessions with European allies, would press Tehran to open up its nuclear program gradually to wide-ranging inspection. But the proposals would also allow Iran to continue enriching uranium for some period during the talks. That would be a sharp break from the approach taken by the Bush administration, which had demanded that Iran halt its enrichment activities, at least briefly to initiate negotiations.

The proposals under consideration would go somewhat beyond President Obama’s promise, during the presidential campaign, to open negotiations with Iran “without preconditions.” Officials involved in the discussion said they were being fashioned to draw Iran into nuclear talks that it had so far shunned.

A review of Iran policy that Mr. Obama ordered after taking office is still under way, and aides say it is not clear how long he would be willing to allow Iran to continue its fuel production, and at what pace. But European officials said there was general agreement that Iran would not accept the kind of immediate shutdown of its facilities that the Bush administration had demanded.

“We have all agreed that is simply not going to work — experience tells us the Iranians are not going to buy it,” said a senior European official involved in the strategy sessions with the Obama administration. “So we are going to start with some interim steps, to build a little trust.”

Administration officials declined to discuss details of their confidential deliberations, but said that any new American policy would ultimately require Iran to cease enrichment, as demanded by several United Nations Security Council resolutions.

“Our goal remains exactly what it has been in the U.N. resolutions: suspension,” one senior administration official said. Another official cautioned that “we are still at the brainstorming level” and said the terms of an opening proposal to Iran were still being debated.

If the United States and its allies allow Iran to continue enriching uranium for a number of months, or longer, the approach is bound to meet objections, from both conservatives in the United States and from the new Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

If Mr. Obama signed off on the new negotiating approach, the United States and its European allies would use new negotiating sessions with Iran to press for interim steps toward suspension of its nuclear activities, starting with allowing international inspectors into sites from which they have been barred for several years.

First among them is a large manufacturing site in downtown Tehran, a former clock factory, where Iran is producing many of the next-generation centrifuges that it is installing in the underground plant at Natanz. “The facility is very large,” one United Nations inspector said last week, “and we have not been inside since last summer.”

Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency, whose inspectors would be a critical part of the strategy, said in an interview in his office in Vienna last week that the Obama administration had not consulted him on the details of a new strategy. But he was blistering about the approach that the Bush administration had taken.

“It was a ridiculous approach,” he insisted. “They thought that if you threatened enough and pounded the table and sent Cheney off to act like Darth Vader the Iranians would just stop,” Dr. ElBaradei said, shaking his head. “If the goal was to make sure that Iran would not have the knowledge and the capability to manufacture nuclear fuel, we had a policy that was a total failure.”

Now, he contended, Mr. Obama has little choice but to accept the reality that Iran has “built 5,500 centrifuges,” nearly enough to make two weapons’ worth of uranium each year. “You have to design an approach that is sensitive to Iran’s pride,” said Dr. ElBaradei, who has long argued in favor of allowing Iran to continue with a small, face-saving capacity to enrich nuclear fuel, under strict inspection.

By contrast, in warning against a more flexible American approach, a senior Israeli with access to the intelligence on Iran said during a recent visit to Washington that Mr. Obama had only until the fall or the end of the year to “completely end” the production of uranium in Iran. The official made it clear that after that point, Israel might revive its efforts to take out the Natanz plant by force.

A year ago, Israeli officials secretly came to the Bush administration seeking the bunker-destroying bombs, refueling capability and overflight rights over Iraq that it would need to execute such an attack. President George W. Bush deflected the proposal. An Obama administration official said “they have not been back with that request,” but added that “we don’t think their threats are just huffing and puffing.”

Israeli officials and some American intelligence officials say they suspect that Iran has other hidden facilities that could be used to enrich uranium, a suspicion explored in a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. But while that classified estimate referred to 10 or 15 suspect sites, officials say no solid evidence has emerged of hidden activity.

“Frankly,” said one administration official, “what’s most valuable to us now is having real freedom for the inspectors to pursue their suspicions around the country.

“We know what’s happening at Natanz,” said the official, noting that every few weeks inspectors are in and out of the plant. “It’s the rest of the country we’re most worried about.”

Matthew Bunn, a nuclear expert at the Belfer Center at Harvard University, said in a interview on Monday that the Obama administration had some latitude in defining what constitutes “suspension” of nuclear work.

One possibility, he said, was “what you call warm shutdown,” in which the centrifuges keep spinning, but not producing new enriched uranium, akin to leaving a car running, but in park.

That would allow both sides to claim victory: the Iranians could claim they had resisted American efforts to shut down the program, while the Americans and Europeans could declare that they had halted the stockpiling of material that could be used to produce weapons.

“The hard part of these negotiations is how to convince everyone that there are no covert sites,” Mr. Bunn said.

news/notes2009.04.14d

[Today's Newspaper] from [The Washington Post]
Plane of U.S. Lawmaker Fired Upon
Al-Shabab Insurgents Assert Responsibility for Attack on Craft Leaving Somali Capital

By Stephanie McCrummen
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, April 14, 2009; Page A10

MOMBASA, Kenya, April 13 -- Insurgents fired mortar rounds Monday at a plane carrying a U.S. congressman as he departed Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, marking a dramatic end to the first visit by a U.S. official to the volatile city in years.

Rep. Donald M. Payne (D-N.J.) flew into the capital flanked by armed bodyguards and drove around the bomb-blasted seaside city visiting Somalia's newly elected president, the moderate Islamist Sharif Ahmed, and other Somali officials.

As the privately chartered plane took off from the airport hours later, insurgents fired mortar rounds at it, while Payne and the other passengers remained oblivious to the danger, the congressman said. He learned about the incident only after landing in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya.

The mortar rounds killed at least five Somali civilians on the ground, local residents said. The insurgent group al-Shabab, which has ties to al-Qaeda, asserted responsibility for the attack.

"It was not exactly a typical day in the life," Payne said, speaking from the InterContinental Hotel in Nairobi on Monday night. "But we felt it was safe enough to go in. We have no regrets about going in."

The visit had been planned for weeks and just happened to coincide with the high seas military operation that freed an American captain held hostage by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean for five days. In what appeared to many Somalis as a bewildering show of force against four wayward young men, U.S. Navy snipers killed three of the pirates

Payne said Somalia's fragile transitional government supported the action. "The government feels they are now the weakest link in the fight against piracy," he said. "The pirates have money and cartels who support them. The Shabab, they have support from the outside to support them. The government is the only entity of these three that is virtually getting no financial or logistical or diplomatic support."

The rampant piracy off Somalia's coast is just one of an array of problems facing the nation's fragile, four-month-old transitional government, which barely controls a few blocks of the capital, much less the vast coastal waters. The United States has been concerned for years that the volatile Horn of Africa nation could become a base for al-Qaeda, and the government is now struggling to contain al-Shabab.

The group has labeled Ahmed -- who was once part of a broader coalition that included al-Shabab -- as a puppet of Western nations. The government relies on a coalition of clan militias to battle al-Shabab, rather than a national army or police, which are still being cobbled together.

Ahmed, a widely respected religious leader for many Somalis, is trying to win the hearts and minds of young, jobless men who have never known much besides the rule of the AK-47. Faced with few options, they are joining al-Shabab or becoming pirates, embracing a daring but fashionable way of life that has made many Somalis millionaires almost overnight. The illegal business has brought tens of millions of dollars into northern coastal towns.

In the northern Somali town of Garad, where the three pirates are expected to be buried if their bodies are returned, Mohamed Yasin, a teacher, said that "the sniper shot is not the solution" to Somalia's troubles. He said most Somalis do not support the pirates, who have justified their attacks on ships by alleging that foreign countries are fishing illegally and dumping nuclear waste in Somali waters.

Still, Yasin and others said they viewed the U.S. operation, involving three warships, as a heavy-handed solution to four young men armed with pistols and AK-47 assault rifles. Pirates have so far not executed any hostages, instead demanding ransoms. "They were not going to kill that captain," said Yasin, who said the long-term solution to Somalia's troubles is for such young men to have career paths beyond piracy.

On Monday, Payne said as much after touring Mogadishu, which is filled with crumbling, mortar-blasted buildings. "The city in sections looked very bombed out, just rubble -- if they had a sort of public works program, I think the peace dividend would show greatly," he said. "It could put these young men, these pirates, to work."

More broadly, he said, dealing with piracy means engaging the messy problem of establishing a functioning government in Somalia, rather than sending more Navy ships to patrol the high seas.

"I hope the Obama administration will take a strong look at Somalia and put it in the category of Afghanistan and have strong support for nation-building," he said. "I think there is an opportunity now, and I hope the administration takes advantage."

news/notes2009.04.14e

[Today's Papers] from [Slate Magazine]

The Taliban Spreads Out

By Daniel Politi
Posted Tuesday, April 14, 2009, at 6:39 AM ET

The New York Times leads with a look at how members of the Taliban in Pakistan are forging alliances with militants in Punjab, the country's most populous province. This alliance has already led to some high-profile attacks, such as the assault against the Sri Lankan cricket team in March, and authorities warn that unless swift action is taken, areas of Punjab could soon be overrun by Taliban insurgents. USA Today leads with a report by the U.S. Agency for International Development's inspector general that reveals the United Nations spent millions of dollars on poorly built infrastructure projects in Afghanistan. The U.N. diverted some money from a $25 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development for a "quick impact" infrastructure program to other countries and then refused to answer questions from U.S. investigators.

The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal 's world-wide newsbox lead with the Obama administration announcing that it would lift restrictions on travel to Cuba by Americans with family on the island as well as limits on remittances. The White House also said U.S. telecommunications companies would be allowed to do business in Cuba. The broad trade embargo that was imposed ins 1962 will largely stay in place, but White House officials say the change in rules toward the island would allow Cubans to become less dependent on the communist government. The Los Angeles Times leads with news that Phil Spector was convicted of second-degree murder yesterday, six years after police found an actress shot to death in the legendary record producer's mansion. Spector is now "the first celebrity found guilty of murder on Hollywood's home turf in at least 40 years," declares the paper. The 69-year-old faces a minimum of 18 years in prison before he is eligible for parole.

Pakistani insurgents with ties to al-Qaida and the Taliban are moving deeper into Pakistan, and officials see their growing alliance with local militant groups in Punjab as a critical step toward expanding their base beyond the country's lawless tribal regions. Links between the Punjab militants and the Taliban have existed for years, but they have grown stronger. The NYT reports that "signs of creeping militancy abound" in a number of areas in Punjab, where sectarian attacks are growing. Government officials have chosen to largely ignore this development and have left it up to the police to deal with the growing presence of insurgents, but they're vastly understaffed, particularly in rural areas. The situation on the outskirts of Punjab hasn't quite reached the levels of the Swat Valley, where a controversial truce was declared in February, but "there are strong parallels," declares the paper.

So, how bad are things in Swat Valley? The WSJ traveled to the region and fronts a look at how the valley that was once a popular tourist destination has quickly become "one of the main bases for Taliban fighters." The fighters have quickly moved in, and officials estimate there are now somewhere between 6,000 to 8,000 militants in Swat, which is "nearly double the number at the end of last year." The insurgents have set up a network of training camps and are recruiting young men, many of whom agree to join in order to secure the safety of their families. The paper talks to a Taliban spokesman who openly admits the militants want to use Swat as a base to expand into neighboring areas. "This is a rest stop for the Taliban, it's nothing more," an American official said.

In the USAID report that USAT obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the agency's inspector general wrote that many questions relating to the U.N. infrastructure program in Afghanistan remain unanswered because the international organization refused to cooperate with the American investigation. The program was meant to demonstrate quick results in Afghan reconstruction efforts, but it seems that around 40 percent of USAID's grant money was diverted to other countries. Meanwhile, several of the infrastructure projects that were supposedly complete were actually so poorly built that they were unusable.

The White House's new policy on Cuba effectively allows Cuban-Americans to travel as often as they like and send as much money as they want to the communist country. That change was largely expected, but news that telecommunications firms would be allowed to do business in Cuba was a surprise. The move is meant to open Cubans up to a vast array of information from the outside world, but it "may be mostly symbolic in the short term," notes the WSJ. Telecommunications companies would need permission from the Cuban government to operate in the island, and there's no reason to believe this permission would be granted.

The NYT specifies that yesterday's announcement amounted to "the most significant shift in United States policy toward Cuba in decades," but were ultimately "modest" steps that reflect "the complicated domestic politics around Cuba and the unpredictability of the Cuban response." People on both sides of the debate criticized the moves, some saying the administration went too far while others contend it didn't go far enough. The LAT points out that the moves will also "blunt pressure" that Obama is likely to face when he meets with Latin American leaders this week at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago.

The NYT fronts word that the Obama administration is currently in discussions with European allies to change strategy toward Iran that would drop demands on the country to halt its nuclear programs before talks can take place. Nothing has been finalized, but the proposals currently under discussion would allow Iran to continue enriching uranium during at least the first phase of nuclear talks, and there would be a bigger focus on pressuring Tehran to open up its program to international inspections. The change would amount to a recognition that Iran would never accept to immediately shut down its nuclear facilities before talks can take place, which the Bush administration had demanded.

The WSJ hears word that the Obama will select Fannie Mae's chief executive, Herb Allison, to lead the $700 billion financial bailout known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Allison, a Wall Street veteran who was an executive at Merrill Lynch for years, would replace Neel Kashkari, who got the posting during the Bush administration and, at the request of the treasury secretary, has stayed on until a replacement was found. If confirmed, the move would mean the White House would have to find new leaders for both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

As we approach the 10-year anniversary of the Columbine massacre, USAT fronts a look at how many of the details that the public thinks it knows about the shooting rampage that killed 13 people are wrong. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold weren't part of the "Trenchcoat Mafia," and they hadn't been bullied. The massacre made schools watch out for so-called "enemies lists," but the truth is that the list that Harris and Klebold had written up was made up of students who had graduated a year earlier. And despite the reports at the time, the shooters weren't on antidepressants and didn't target any specific type of student. It is now widely accepted that the students wanted to kill everyone at the school, but their plot to carry out a huge bombing failed.

The NYT and WP report on the auction of items from Michael Jackson's Neverland Valley Ranch. The "yard sale of the century," as the Post puts it, is open for public viewing until April 21 and will be followed by a four-day live auction. There are so many items that the auction house conducting the sale set up all the products in a former Robinsons-May department store. Jackson is trying to stop the sale, saying he never got a chance to remove his personal effects, but the auction house that is running the event is confident it will go forward. Among the items up for sale are dozens of bronze garden statues of young children, a red velvet throne, platinum albums, a seven-foot Lego model of Darth Vader, and, of course, gloves. In fact, there are 13 gloves, each covered in "iridescent Swarovski loch rosen crystals," one of which is estimated at up to $15,000. "What he loved, he collected in mass quantity," the auctioneer explained. "What is unusual, more so than any other celebrity memorabilia sale, is what a pack rat he was."