news/notes20090425a

[Biography of the Day] from [Britannica]

Al Pacino
American actor Al Pacino, known for his intense, sometimes over-the-top acting style and for his gangster portrayals in The Godfather trilogy (1972–90) and Scarface (1983), was born in New York City this day in 1940.

[On This Day] from [Britannica]

1990: Hubble Space Telescope sent into orbit
The Hubble Space Telescope, a sophisticated optical observatory built in the United States under the supervision of NASA, was placed into operation this day in 1990 by the crew of the space shuttle Discovery.


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

[NATIONAL NEWS]

Saturday, April 25, 2009
Missing girl found dead; abuse probed
（不明女児：死体で発見；虐待判明）
Mom, two male friends held; fears ignored

OSAKA (Kyodo) Police have arrested the mother of a 9-year-old Osaka Prefecture girl who had not been seen since March and two male acquaintances after one of the two led them to the child's body buried in a Nara mountain graveyard.

Police suspect that Seika Matsumoto had been abused and that child welfare authorities were not alerted to her plight even though neighbors and her school suspected something was amiss.

Police planned Friday to perform an autopsy on Matsumoto, who was a fourth-grader at an elementary school in Nishiyodogawa Ward, Osaka.

She had been absent from school since March 11, and police started searching for her two weeks ago.

The police arrested Matsumoto's mother, Mina, 34, her live-in boyfriend, Yasuhiro Kobayashi, 38, and Mitsuhiro Sugimoto, 41, an acquaintance of the two. The three were turned over to prosecutors Friday.

Kobayashi's confession led investigators Thursday night to the graveyard in Nara Prefecture, where they found the body. The three suspects were later arrested that night.

Police said Sugimoto had been a regular visitor to Matsumoto and Kobayashi's apartment, and his car may have been used to take the girl's blanket-wrapped body to the cemetery. She was buried naked.

The mother has claimed she found the girl dead in her kitchen on April 5, but Kobayashi said he found her dead on the apartment's balcony on April 6, authorities said.

Police suspect Kobayashi had been abusing the girl for some time. Witnesses have told police they saw Kobayashi leave her on the apartment's balcony almost every day in late March, they said.

According to Tsukuda Nishi Elementary School, a school nurse in January asked the girl about a bruise on her cheek and was told that Kobayashi had hit her. The girl also said she was sometimes deprived of food and sleep. She said her mother did not intervene, they said.

The girl's homeroom teacher contacted the mother and asked to meet with her, but was refused. The mother made the excuse that she was visiting her grandparents in Wakayama Prefecture.

The Osaka Child Welfare Consultation Center said the school should have reported the suspected child abuse.

Until the end of last year, the girl had lived with her biological father and twin sister and attended a different school.

Tsukuda Nishi Elementary Principal Nobuyuki Horiichi said officials should have visited the home despite the mother's refusal to cooperate, saying, "It is regrettable that during her absence, we only made contact with the mother over the phone."


[NATIONAL NEWS]

Saturday, April 25, 2009
Kusanagi apologizes for naked escapade
（草：破廉恥な全裸行為に謝罪）

(Kyodo News) Pop star Tsuyoshi Kusanagi faced reporters Friday night and apologized to fans and fellow SMAP members over his arrest the previous day for stripping naked while drunk in a central Tokyo park — an episode he can't remember.

"I drank lots of alcohol and fell into a state where I couldn't figure out what I was doing," said Kusanagi, 34, in dark suit and tie. "I did something I'm ashamed of as an adult and I deeply regret it."

He is unlikely to appear on TV programs or commercials for the time being.

After visiting the Tokyo prosecutor's office earlier Friday, the member of popular music group SMAP was taken back to Harajuku Police Station, where he was freed.

Kusanagi was apprehended on a charge of public indecency at around 3 a.m. Thursday at a park next to the Tokyo Midtown complex in the Roppongi-Akasaka district, after a man living nearby called the police to report a disturbance.

The pop star will probably not be charged.

Kusanagi has been a regular performer on Fridays on Fuji Television Network Inc.'s daily lunchtime show "Waratte Iitomo!" ("You Can Laugh!"), but Fuji TV announcer Rio Hirai said in the latest feed that he "is absent today because of the situation as reported in the news."

Fuji TV also plans to remove images of Kusanagi from its Monday night program "SMAP X SMAP," which features all the band's five members, by recomposing it with footage from previous shows, while TV Asahi Corp. will cut footage in its Tuesday night program in which Kusanagi appears.

Kusanagi is believed to have drunk more than 10 glasses of beer and "shochu" distilled spirits over a period of about six hours before his arrest, police investigators said Friday.

After his arrest, he was taken to a hospital and put on a drip due to his weak physical condition, but recovered Friday morning, police said.

He drank alcohol at a bar in Akasaka, Minato Ward, from around 8 p.m. Wednesday through around 1 a.m. Thursday and then went to another bar nearby, leaving that premises at around 2 a.m. to walk to the park, the police said.

A lawyer quoted Kusanagi as saying, "I went to the first bar and ate and drank alone, and then drank with its owner and a female employee after the bar closed."

He said he regrets what he did but does not remember how he got to the park or why he stripped, the police said.

Kusanagi's arrest has had huge repercussions in not only the entertainment industry but also in quarters ranging from business to the government.

An angry Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Kunio Hatoyama called Kusanagi a "bastard" Thursday as the ministry had designated him to promote Japan's shift to digital terrestrial TV broadcasting. But in the face of protests from a sympathetic public, Hatoyama retracted the comment Friday, saying he used "too strong a word."


[BUSINESS NEWS]

Saturday, April 25, 2009
JAL, ANA may end fuel surcharges in July
（日航・全日空：燃油特別付加運賃；７月からゼロへ）
Compiled from Bloomberg, Kyodo

Japan Airlines Corp. and All Nippon Airways Co., the nation's two largest carriers, may eliminate fuel surcharges in July for the first time since 2005 to match a decline in jet kerosene prices, they said Friday.

The airlines, which slashed surcharges by up to 92 percent this month, will cut the fees if jet kerosene stays around the $50 per barrel level, JAL spokesman Satoru Tanaka said Friday. Nana Kon, an ANA spokeswoman, also said separately that fuel surcharges may be cut to zero in July.

The airlines, which introduced fuel surcharges for the first time four years ago, will remove them if jet kerosene averages below $60 a barrel over a three-month period, the threshold for adding the levies, they said in February.

While eliminating fuel surcharges would slash their income, the carriers hope to offset this loss by attracting budget-conscious travelers stung by the recession during the summer holidays.

"I expect tourists will increase," said Ryota Himeno, an analyst at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities Co. "It won't have a big impact on business travel though. That's dropping because companies are cutting back on business trips."

During the Golden Week holidays from late April to early May, the number of overseas travelers is expected to increase by 10 percent from the same period last year, according to the travel industry.

The average price of jet kerosene from February to Thursday has fallen 56 percent to $54.86 from a year ago, according to figures compiled by Bloomberg.

news/notes20090425b

[Today's News] from [The Guardian]

Police caught on tape trying to recruit Plane Stupid protester as spy
Climate change activist taped men who offered cash for information about group's members and activities

Paul Lewis
guardian.co.uk, Friday 24 April 2009 18.18 BST
Article history

Undercover police are running a network of hundreds of informants inside protest organisations who secretly feed them intelligence in return for cash, according to evidence handed to the Guardian.

They claim to have infiltrated a number of environmental groups and said they are receiving information about leaders, tactics and plans of future demonstrations.

The dramatic disclosures are revealed in almost three hours of secretly recorded discussions between covert officers claiming to be from Strathclyde police, and an activist from the protest group Plane Stupid, whom the officers attempted to recruit as a paid spy after she had been released on bail following a demonstration at Aberdeen airport last month.

Matilda Gifford, 24, said she recorded the meetings in an attempt to expose how police seek to disrupt the legitimate activities of climate change activists. She met the officers twice; they said they were a detective constable and his assistant. During the taped discussions, the officers:

• Indicate that she could receive tens of thousands of pounds to pay off her student loans in return for information about individuals within Plane Stupid.

• Say they will not pay money direct into her bank account because that would leave an audit trail that would leave her compromised. They said the money would be tax-free, and added: "UK plc can afford more than 20 quid."

• Accept that she is a legitimate protester, but warn her that her activity could mean she will struggle to find employment in the future and result in a criminal record.

• Claim they have hundreds of informants feeding them information from protest organisations and "big groupings" from across the political spectrum.

• Explain that spying could assist her if she was arrested. "People would sell their soul to the devil," an officer said.

• Warn her that she could be jailed alongside "hard, evil" people if she received a custodial sentence.

The meetings took place in a Glasgow police station last month and in a supermarket cafe on Tuesday. Gifford used a mobile phone and device sewn into her waistcoat to record what they described as a "business proposal" that she should think of as a job.

They intimated that in return for updates on Plane Stupid's plans she could receive large sums of money in cash.

When lawyers acting for Plane Stupid contacted Strathclyde police this week to establish the identities of the detective constable, they were initially told by the human resources department there was no record of his name.

But when the Guardian contacted the force, they acknowledged officers had had meetings with Plane Stupid activists.

In a statement last night, assistant chief constable George Hamilton said the force had "a responsibility to gather intelligence", and such operations were conducted according to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). The force would not comment on the identity of the officers.

"Officers from Strathclyde police have been in contact with a number of protesters who were involved with the Plane Stupid protests including Aberdeen airport," he said. "The purpose of this contact has been to ensure that any future protest activity is carried out within the law and in a manner which respects the rights of all concerned."

Gifford's lawyer, Patrick Campbell, said: "I have very considerable concerns about these events. There appears to be a covert operation that is running in some way with, or using, Strathclyde police's name. There appears to be a concerted effort to turn protesters to informants and possibly infiltrate peaceful protest movements.

He added: "The methods employed are disturbing, and more worrying yet is the lack of any clearly identifiable body responsible for this. These individuals seem to have some kind of police support or at the very least connections with the police – the access to police stations confirms that – but my concern is the lack of accountability and the threat to the individual and her right to protest."

Gifford intended to meet the officers for a third time on Thursday, taking a lawyer with her. But the officers did not appear at the rendezvous. However, she said she was later approached by the detective constable, who said he was disappointed in her. The man got into a car, leaving Gifford feeling shaken and intimidated.

She said last night that the initial approach from the officers was "an opportunity that fell out of the sky". She added: "Recording them seemed like the obvious thing to do. I was keen to find out what they had to offer, what they wanted to find out, and feed that back to the group in case other members of Plane Stupid were approached."

In a statement, Plane Stupid said: "Our civil liberties were invaded and our right to peaceful protest called into question simply to defend the interests of big business."

news/notes20090425c

[Today's Paper] from [Los Angeles Times]

Interrogation tactics got the OK early on
A Senate report says Bush administration officials signed off on CIA methods without the input of key agencies.

By Greg Miller and Julian E. Barnes
April 23, 2009

Reporting from Washington -- Senior Bush administration officials signed off on the CIA's use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation measures in July 2002 after a series of secret meetings that apparently excluded the State and Defense departments, according to information released Wednesday by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The Senate report indicated that then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice, then-Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft and other officials gave the CIA's interrogation plan political backing even before the methods had been approved by the Justice Department.

The document also revealed the existence of a series of Justice Department memos written in 2006 and 2007 that in some cases undermined congressional efforts to rein in the CIA's interrogation authorities -- memos that were excluded from the batch released by the Obama administration last week.

The Senate document represents the most complete chronology to date of the Bush administration's embrace of simulated drowning and other interrogation methods now widely denounced as torture.

In listing the senior Bush administration officials intimately involved in the early deliberations on CIA interrogations, the report underscored how any effort to hold architects of the program accountable was likely to extend beyond Justice Department legal advisors and into the highest reaches of the government.

It also raised questions about whether the Bush administration sought to keep details of the CIA program away from high-level officials -- particularly former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell -- who were perceived as potential opponents of the use of harsh interrogation techniques.

The Senate report is a summary of documents that the committee obtained from the CIA. Its declassification is likely to add momentum to calls for an independent inquiry and put pressure on President Obama to release even more previously classified records.

Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), the former chairman of the Intelligence Committee who had pushed for the panel's report to be declassified, said the document demonstrated how deeply involved the Bush White House was in designing the interrogation program.

"The records of the CIA demonstrate that the lawyers at the Office of Legal Counsel did not operate in a vacuum," Rockefeller said in a statement. That office is the Justice Department entity that issued many of the key opinions endorsing the CIA's techniques. "The then-vice president and the national security advisor are at the center of these discussions."

While the Senate report indicated then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was not involved in the earliest discussions, other records from the Bush administration suggest he was.

The Senate report traced those who participated in a series of high-level meetings beginning in mid-May 2002, the first time the CIA proposed the use of waterboarding to White House principals.

It identified Rice as the official "who advised that the CIA could proceed with its interrogation of Abu Zubaydah" -- the first suspected high-level Al Qaeda operative captured by the agency and the first to be subjected to waterboarding and other harsh methods. That message was sent on July 17, 2002, according to the document, pinpointing for the first time the date that the Bush administration formally backed the CIA's aggressive plan.

The report noted that Rice's endorsement, conveyed to then-CIA Director George J. Tenet, was "subject to a determination of legality by the OLC." That legal sign-off came one week later, when the CIA was verbally informed that Ashcroft and the Office of Legal Counsel had concluded the agency's proposed techniques -- including waterboarding -- were lawful.

One former Bush administration official familiar with the interrogation discussions said in an interview that the CIA program was presented as the only way to prevent further terrorist attacks on the United States. Both the intelligence director and top Justice Department officials recommended the White House approve the program, said the official, who spoke about the secret meetings on condition of anonymity.

"The program was developed by the CIA, and the director of central intelligence -- who was the president's primary foreign intelligence advisor -- recommended the program to the White House as necessary, effective and [one] for which there was no alternative," the official said.

The verbal assurances from members of President Bush's National Security Council were backed up the following month in a lengthy memo from the Office of Legal Counsel, one of the documents that Obama released last week.

It wasn't until September 2003 that the CIA briefed Powell and Rumsfeld on the interrogation program, the Senate report said. Legal experts said the delay might have been because neither the State nor Defense departments was involved in the program, which was among the most secret in CIA history.

But other experts and former U.S. intelligence officials said that those exclusions were unusual and that the Bush administration may have been particularly disinclined to disclose details to Powell -- even though as secretary of State he was in charge of U.S. diplomatic relations with countries including Thailand and Romania, identified in news reports as locations for secret CIA detention facilities.

"DOD and State seem to have been out of the loop until Sept. 16, 2003," said John Radsan, a law professor who worked in the CIA general counsel's office between 2002 and 2004. "That is a testament to the secrecy of the program. Did they not trust Rumsfeld and Powell?"

Other reports have said that at least the Pentagon was aware of the CIA program from the beginning.

In written testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Rice said that Rumsfeld had participated in a 2002 review of the CIA program. In addition, a report released this week by the Armed Services Committee detailed the help the military provided the CIA in developing the techniques.

The CIA used waterboarding on suspected terrorists in 2002 and 2003. According to the Senate Intelligence Committee's report, the CIA employed the interrogation technique on three presumed Al Qaeda members: Abu Zubaydah, Rahim Nashiri and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Memos released last week showed that Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times and Mohammed, the self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind, 183 times.

Despite high-level backing at the outset, the CIA repeatedly sought new assurances that the its activities were lawful and supported by senior officials in the Bush administration. In July 2003, Tenet took part in a meeting on the matter with then-Vice President Dick Cheney, Rice, Ashcroft and other top officials.

"According to CIA records, at the conclusion of that meeting, the principals reaffirmed that the CIA program was lawful and reflected administration policy," the Senate report said.

But it appears from the Senate report that the CIA may have began to have second thoughts.

In May 2004, the agency's inspector general conducted a review of the interrogation program, including the use of waterboarding.

The Senate report does not reveal the content of the review, but it sent the agency back to ask the Justice Department for an updated legal opinion that specifically addressed whether the interrogation techniques were allowable under the United Nations Convention Against Torture.

In May 2005, the Justice Department upheld the use of waterboarding as legal because it did not cause "severe physical pain." Despite that go-ahead, the CIA did not resume use of the technique.

In December 2005, Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act. Sponsored by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), it was supposed to ban torture, including waterboarding.

But Radsan said that the timeline released by the committee Wednesday made clear that the Justice Department did not believe the new law banned the CIA's harsh interrogation program.

"Even if John McCain thought he was cutting back on the CIA's program, this timeline again makes clear that . . . nothing really changed for the CIA," he said.

The Justice Department may have attempted an end-run around McCain's next move to restrict the CIA's program when Congress placed new limits on interrogations in the Military Commissions Act in 2006.

In a July 2007 opinion, the Justice Department concluded that the CIA's harsh interrogations remained lawful and that Congress, by passing the military commissions law, had endorsed the program, according to the Senate report.

news/notes20090425d

[Today's Paper] from [The New York Times]

Storm of Violence in Iraq Strains Its Security Forces

By STEVEN LEE MYERS and SAM DAGHER
Published: April 24, 2009

BAGHDAD — A deadly outburst of violence appears to be overwhelming Iraq’s police and military forces as American troops hand over greater control of cities across the country to them. On Friday, twin suicide bombings killed at least 60 people outside Baghdad’s most revered Shiite shrine, pushing the death toll in one 24-hour period to nearly 150.

Like many recent attacks, the bombings appeared intended to inflame sectarian tensions, to weaken Iraq’s security forces and to discredit its government.

The bombings on Friday ominously echoed attacks like the one at a Shiite shrine in Samarra in February 2006 that unleashed a wave of sectarian bloodshed and pushed the country toward civil war.

The latest bombings — there have been at least 18 major attacks so far this month — so far have not prompted retaliatory attacks, but they have strained what remains a fragile society deeply divided between Sunnis and Shiites.

Two suicide bombers struck within five minutes of each other on streets leading to the shrine of Imam Musa al-Kadhim and his grandson. One of the attacks, and perhaps both, were carried out by women, witnesses said.

Nearly half of those killed were Iranians making a pilgrimage to the shrine, a golden-domed landmark in the predominantly Shiite Kadhimiya neighborhood of Baghdad that is devoted to 2 of the 12 imams of Shiite Islam. At least 125 people were wounded, many of them also Iranians.

A loose coalition of Sunni militant forces, the Islamic State of Iraq, has claimed responsibility for carrying out many of the recent attacks.

Seemingly attentive to the public wrath, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki took the unusual step of ordering the creation of a special committee to investigate the attack on Friday and the lapses in security that apparently allowed it to happen. The state television network, Al Iraqiya, reported on Friday evening that Mr. Maliki also ordered the detention of two national police commanders responsible for security in the area.

The killing of so many Iranians prompted Iraq to close its border crossing to Iran at Muntheriya in Diyala Province, through which thousands of Iranians a week pass on pilgrimages to Iraq’s holy Shiite sites.

The deadliest of the three bombings on Thursday struck a restaurant filled with Iranian travelers in Muqdadiya, a town in Diyala not far from the border. The toll in that attack rose to 56, with Iranians making up the majority of the dead. Over all, at least 89 people were killed in the bombings on Thursday, and more than 100 were wounded.

After the attacks on Friday, angry Iraqis who gathered amid the bloody debris blamed lax security and corruption of the police and government officials for what had happened. Some of their anger had a strongly sectarian cast.

“They have been ruling us for 1,400 years,” said a Shiite army soldier who identified himself only as Abu Haidar, referring to the Sunni domination of Shiites in Iraq. “We took it over for four years, and they are slaughtering us.”

The Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella insurgent group that includes Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, says the recent attacks as part of a campaign called Harvest of the Good, which it announced in March.

In a statement distributed on extremist Web sites at the time, the group’s leader, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, ridiculed President Obama as “Washington’s black man” and called his plan to withdraw American forces by 2011 an “implied avowal of defeat.”

On Thursday, Iraq’s military claimed to have arrested Mr. Baghdadi, but what was touted as a major success appeared to be in question.

Extremist Web sites denied his arrest, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors claims and other statements by terrorist and extremist groups. The American military command also said in a statement that it could not confirm “the arrest or capture” of the leader, who the American military believes to be a fictitious Iraqi figurehead of a movement that includes many foreign fighters.

American and Iraqi officials have expressed growing concern that the Islamic State of Iraq, Al Qaeda and other extremists have been able to regroup and exploit gaps in security that are forming as American commanders have closed scores of combat outposts across the country, leaving day-to-day security in the hands of the Iraqis. “All the killing of Shiites is done by Al Qaeda,” a man who identified himself only as Abu Mohammed said after Friday’s bombings. “America was not able to finish them off. How can our forces do it?”

A senior national police official on Friday bluntly cited the limitations of Iraq’s security forces and their equipment for detecting explosives, typically hand-held wands used at checkpoints that the official described as fakes.

“We need to redeploy our security units to fill gaps because the American withdrawal gave the terrorists motives to reactivate their sleeper cells,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he said he would be punished for speaking frankly about such shortcomings. “We need more cars, modern equipment to detect explosives.”

Maj. Gen. Abdul-Aziz Mohammed Jasim, a senior commander at the Ministry of Defense, cited other factors behind the recent violence. They included what he called “reactions to political issues” that had divided Iraq since provincial elections in January and the release of thousands of detainees held by American forces into a feeble economy.

As part of a new security agreement with Iraq that took effect this year, the Americans are required to release all Iraqis in their custody or to transfer them to Iraqi jails. “They are releasing detainees randomly, and some of the detainees who have been released might still have contact with Al Qaeda,” General Jasim said in a telephone interview. “And when they return back to their normal life and do not find work, they return back to Al Qaeda.”

General Jasim also lamented the inability of Iraqi forces to stop attacks against what he described as soft targets, like markets and mosques. “The security procedures are continuing,” he said, “but the security forces cannot exist in every inch.”

It was not clear whether the attacks on Friday were specifically aimed at Iranians or the Shiite site they were visiting. The chief administrator at the shrine, Sheik Fadhil al-Anbari, blamed the police for failing to stop the bombings, which he said were intended to disrupt an economy that the visiting pilgrims had bolstered.

“The crowds of the Iranian visitors have brought a boom to the economy in Kadhimiya, and Al Qaeda does not want this,” he said in a telephone interview. “These attacks are clearly meant to sabotage the country.”

news/notes20090425e

[Today's Newspaper] fom [The Washington Post]

Secretary of State Makes Surprise Visit to Iraq
Stresses President Obama's Commitment to Its Sovereignty, Stability

Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 25, 2009

BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 25 - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton flew to Iraq on Saturday, stressing the Obama administration's commitment to the country as a series of horrific suicide bombings fanned fears about its precarious stability.

Clinton's visit -- including scheduled meetings with Iraqi leaders, citizens and the American military--was intended to show that the new U.S. government remains focused on Iraq even as it prepares to draw down its forces here.

"We want to display and reinforce our continuing commitment to the Iraqi people and to the stability, sovereignty and self-reliance of Iraq," Clinton told reporters on the eve of the trip, her first here as secretary of state.

Clinton flew into the Iraqi capital on an Air Force C-17 cargo jet for her unannounced visit. She arrived after two days of suicide bombings that left over 115 people dead in Baghdad and the northern province of Diyala.

While the attacks have alarmed Iraqis, Clinton said she saw "no sign" they could re-ignite the sectarian warfare that ravaged the country in recent years. She described the bombings as "a signal that the rejectionists fear Iraq is going in the right direction."

Violence in Iraq has dropped dramatically since the worst days of the war, with about 27 attacks per day occurring in January, down from 180 in June 2007, according to the Government Accountability Office. That decline is attributed to the U.S. counter-insurgency campaign of the past two years, a cease-fire by many Shiite militants and the decision by many Sunni fighters to switch to the U.S. side.

But the death toll has spiked lately because of the unusually lethal bombings, which have shown insurgents still have the power to obtain explosives and outwit security forces.

Many attacks are believed to be carried out by Sunni insurgents, who recently announced a campaign of violence code-named "The Good Harvest." They appear to be trying to destroy the credibility of the Shiite-led government.

Clinton's visit comes at a critical time in the Iraqi conflict, which has claimed the lives of nearly 4,300 U.S. troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis.

The Obama administration is preparing to begin phrased withdrawals of its approximately 140,000 troops this summer, with all but about 50,000 scheduled to leave by mid-2010.

They will leave a country whose police and army forces doubled in size from January 2007 to October 2008, to over 600,000 members, according to GAO. But the army is still relatively weak, and Iraq is still riven with sectarian tensions and unresolved disputes over oil revenues and land.

news/notes20090425f

[Today's Papers] from [Slate Magazine]

Iraq Attacks Recall Dark Days

By David Sessions
Posted Saturday, April 25, 2009, at 3:59 AM ET

The New York Times leads with, and the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times」 front, two deadly bombings in Iraq yesterday that put the country's two-day death toll over 150. Sunni insurgent groups took responsibility for the attacks, which fueled worry that the country might explode into sectarian violence as the U.S. withdraws. The Washington Post leads with a 2002 document from the military agency that advised on harsh interrogation techniques. The memo, which the paper obtained, refers to "extreme duress" techniques as "torture" and warns that such methods will produce "unreliable information." The Wall Street Journal leads with federal officials pressuring banks to bolster capital reserves after being subjected to "stress tests." The Los Angeles Times leads with (and the WP fronts) an outbreak of deadly swine flu in Mexico that has infected at least 1,000 people, including a few in California and Texas.

Double attacks in Iraq yesterday appear to have effectively spread alarm that sectarian violence might again destabilize the country. The twin suicide bombings hit outside Baghdad's most revered Shiite shrine; a loose Sunni coalition called the Islamic State of Iraq, according to the NYT, claimed responsibility. Iraq's prime minister ordered an unusual investigatory committee to identify the perpetrators and lapses in security that allowed the attacks to happen. The WP adds that many Iraqis see the attacks as a sign that insurgent groups have been lying low until the U.S. withdraws. The LAT doubts the violence will interfere with President Obama's plans to remove U.S. troops from the city by the end of June.

It is unclear whether or not high-ranking Bush administration officials ever saw an unsigned, two-page attachment to a 2002 memo prepared by the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency, which advised the military on harsh interrogation methods. The WP reports that the memo, originally sent to the Pentagon's top lawyer, warned that "the unintended consequence of a U.S. policy that provides for the torture of prisoners is that it could be used by our adversaries as justification for the torture of captured U.S. personnel." A related WP story reveals that 9th Circuit appellate judge John S. Bybee, a former Bush administration lawyer, says he regrets signing the now-infamous "torture memos."

The federal government is pressuring "at least three banks," the identities of which couldn't be determined, to bolster their capital reserves, reports the WSJ 's top story. The paper's anonymous sources "believe [the banks in question] likely include regional banks with large exposures to commercial real estate in the Midwest and Southeast." 19 banking institutions underwent "stress tests"—examinations by 150 federal regulators to determine potential losses from "complex security products."

A deadly swine flu, which lands on several front pages, has killed several—the WSJ says 20; the LAT, 60; the WP, 68—and may have infected as many as 1,000 in Mexico during the past several weeks. Most of the documented cases and all of the confirmed deaths have happened near Mexico City, where all schools, universities, and libraries were closed and residents warned to stay in their homes. The U.S. State Department has not issued a travel advisory, but some airlines say they will waive penalties for travelers who wish to cancel their trips.

The WSJ reports that Chrysler has softened its stance toward a debt restructuring plan that it previously opposed. Lenders agreed to trim their secured debt by three-quarters of $1 billion, but they're still far from an agreement with the government (lenders are demanding, for example, 40 percent of the revamped company, while the government only wants them to keep about 5 percent). The lenders complain that their concessions are helping out the ailing Italian automaker Fiat, which will be getting a 20 percent stake in Chrysler "without putting a dollar of its own capital at risk."

Movie critics hand all-around pans to Obsessed, which the NYT calls a cheap imitation of Fatal Attraction with lead actors that look creepily like O.J. and Nicole Brown Simpson. Not that the jury was still out, but the WP's verdict is that Beyonce "cannot act. … Neither can Sasha Fierce."

A front-page WSJ profile interviews various members of Bill Gates' family to dig up details about his childhood and relationship with his parents. Bill, Jr. became a strong-willed, independent child around age 11, devouring books voraciously and frequently getting into bitter verbal disputes with his mother. His father, Bill Gates, Sr., took the role of peacemaker, only once losing his cool enough to douse Gates with a glass of cold water during an intense argument. Gates' parents have been active in his professional pursuits since day one—his father became Microsoft's lawyer in its early years, and his mother urged him to put his wealth toward philanthropy. Gates Sr., who says he never imagined his sarcastic, rebellious son becoming his employer, now heads the $30 billion Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The WP editorial page admits that it found last week's Twitter race between Ashton Kutcher and CNN frivolous until the showdown resulted in 10,000 mosquito nets being sent to Africa to help fight malaria. "On this World Malaria Day, such efforts by private citizens and businesses … are to be applauded."