news/notes20090428a

[Biography of the Day] from [Britannica]

Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein, who as president of Iraq (1979–2003) angered and outraged the international community with invasions of neighbouring Iran and Kuwait and who was unseated by the United States, was born this day in 1937.


[On This Day] from [Britannica]

1945: Mussolini executed
Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, “Il Duce,” who, after a series of military misadventures, became unpopular even among his fellow Fascists, was captured while trying to flee Italy and was executed on this day in 1945.


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

[NATIONAL NEWS]

Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Mexico flights to Narita face flu scrutiny
（メキシコ飛行便：成田で豚インフル検疫強化措置）

By MINORU MATSUTANI
Staff writer

The government issued orders Monday for doctors and nurses to board aircraft from Mexico at Narita airport starting Wednesday to check passengers and crew for infection of a deadly new virus that combines swine, avian and human influenza.

All arrivals will be required to fill out health questionnaires, and doctors will check people who complain of flulike symptoms while they are still on board, Akimori Mizoguchi of the health ministry said. Those without symptoms will not be tested as a check would be unlikely to detect the flu in an early stage of infection, he added.

Contact information and test results for those without symptoms or who test negative will be sent to local health centers, which will keep in touch with the recent arrivals, he said. If no symptoms occur within 10 days of leaving Mexico, there is little risk of infection, he added.

Although the ministry sometimes takes similar steps when passengers complain of nausea and other ailments, it is rare to dispatch doctors to perform onboard checks on airliners before any complaints are reported, he said.

The decision emerged from a crisis meeting of Cabinet members convened Monday to study the seriousness of the disease, which has killed more than 100 in Mexico and infected people in the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Spain. There are also suspected cases in other parts of Europe, South America and Israel.

"It is necessary to take steps to limit damage to public health and maintain social and economic functions," Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura said. "The government will take all possible measures by closely cooperating with other countries, based on the recognition that countermeasures are important for crisis management."

No cases of the new swine flu strain have been reported in Japan, he said.

Doctors will meet direct flights from Mexico operated twice a week by Mexican airline Aeromexico, and Japan Airlines' twice-a-week flights from Mexico via Vancouver, British Columbia, Mizoguchi said. Kansai and Chubu international airports do not handle Mexico flights.

Passengers arriving from Mexico will receive announcements in Japanese and English asking them to report to quarantine officers if they are experiencing flulike symptoms, Mizoguchi said, adding that announcements in Spanish and other languages will be arranged as soon as possible.

On Saturday, quarantine offices at Narita and two other international airports began using more temperature-measuring devices to detect passengers with a fever. So far no passengers at the three airports have been intercepted by quarantine officers.

Japan's international airports began using the devices in 2003 after the SARS outbreak in China the previous year.

After the Cabinet meeting, Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Yoichi Masuzoe told reporters he will place priority on pursuing a vaccine to counter swine flu instead of producing vaccines against seasonal influenza.

Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano suggested at a press conference that he is ready to take budgetary steps, if necessary, to counter swine flu. "It is important to freely use money and manpower in order to address an issue affecting public health," he said.

Meanwhile, farm minister Shigeru Ishiba said Japan has no plans to ban imports of pork from Mexico or the United States, emphasizing the strict sanitary steps maintained by those countries for their foreign-bound pork products.

At the crisis meeting, the government said it will gather information on swine flu in Mexico and other countries and monitor the reaction of the World Health Organization.

It will also boost support for Japanese living overseas, including Mexico, while providing medical care to those who enter Japan from affected countries and are infected or feared to be infected with swine flu.

"We want people to be cautious, check announcements by the government and act calmly," Kawamura said.

On Saturday, the WHO advised all nations to be alert for unusual flu outbreaks following reports of swine flu infections in humans in Mexico, the U.S. and Canada.

Japan had 24,104 Mexican visitors in 2008, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization, while 69,946 Japanese went to Mexico in the same year, the Japan Association of Travel Agents said.


[BUSINESS NEWS]

Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Economy to shrink; Yosano warns of more jolts
（景気の悪化：与謝野長官；先行き不安感強まり上伸）

(Kyodo News) The government on Monday cut its economic forecast for fiscal 2009 to a postwar-worst contraction of 3.3 percent from the earlier predicted zero growth as the deepening global slump continues to undermine the economy, and Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano warned that a further downgrade is possible.

The Cabinet Office said it downgraded the estimate for the current fiscal year, which began earlier this month, as the economy "has been deteriorating at an unprecedented speed," particularly since the latter half of fiscal 2008.

It's rare for the government to revise its forecast at such an early stage of the fiscal year. Usually, the Cabinet Office gives the economic forecast in terms of gross domestic product in December for the upcoming fiscal year so it can be used as the base for the year's state budget, with revisions often coming in the summer or fall to reflect the latest economic situations.

"In addition to sharp declines in exports and production, private consumption has been weakening," the office said in its latest economic estimation. The fiscal 2009 economy "will have to get started at a low in negative territory that has never been seen before."

The Bank of Japan is also widely expected to revise downward its real GDP forecast for fiscal 2009 in its economic outlook report to be adopted at a policy meeting Thursday.

For fiscal 2008, which ended March 31, the Cabinet Office said the economy is likely to have shrunk 3.1 percent, a bigger contraction than the 0.8 percent fall it projected in December.

Yosano, noting the risk of further downgrading the economic projection due to worries over overseas situations such as U.S. and European financial institutions' unresolved bad-loan issues, told reporters: "Several giant U.S. companies are in critical situations, and depending on how they are treated, not only Japan but also the global economy could be affected."

For fiscal 2009 through next March, the government expects exports to plunge a record 27.6 percent from the previous year, instead of the 3.2 percent drop it projected in December.

It also revised downward its forecast for business investment to a largest-ever 14.1 percent decline from an earlier forecast 4.2 percent drop.

Despite the second consecutive year of expected economic contraction through fiscal 2009, the office said the government's economic stimulus package, including a cash-handout program and tax breaks on eco-friendly cars, will help prevent the nation from falling into a negative spiral.

Private consumption is projected to recover to 0.3 percent growth in fiscal 2009 after falling 0.3 percent in fiscal 2008, it said.

On prices, the office lowered its outlook for the consumer price index for fiscal 2009 from the previously projected 0.4 percent drop to a record 1.3 percent fall, due to slides in oil prices and weakening demand amid the recession. The index is projected to have risen 1.1 percent in fiscal 2008.

The office also expects the wholesale price index to drop 5.5 percent in fiscal 2009 after rising 3.3 percent in fiscal 2008, raising the deflation alarm.

The government's economic stimulus measures are likely to generate about 200,000 more jobs in fiscal 2009, it said, but added that the jobless rate would rise to 5.2 percent in the period, up from 4.1 percent in fiscal 2008.

The office also lowered its global GDP forecast, excluding Japan, from the earlier projected 1.2 percent growth to a 1.4 percent shrinkage.

news/notes20090428b

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

[NATIONAL NEWS]

Tuesday, April 28, 2009
ANALYSIS
Nagoya win limited lift for DPJ until Ozawa comes clean
（名古屋市長選の勝利も小沢代表の潔白性次第）

By KAZUAKI NAGATA
Staff writer

Takashi Kawamura's landslide win Sunday in the Nagoya mayoral poll was a much-needed boost for the Democratic Party of Japan, whose image and reputation were badly damaged by the arrest in March of President Ichiro Ozawa's chief secretary over shady political donations.

Kawamura, 60, a former DPJ Lower House member, ran as an independent with DPJ support.

He garnered 514,514 votes, nearly double the number cast for the runnerup, Masahiko Hosokawa, 54, a former trade ministry bureaucrat backed by the Liberal Democratic Party-New Komeito ruling bloc.

Although he was considered the front-runner, Kawamura's win was all the more welcome given that two DPJ-backed candidates recently lost the Akita and Chiba gubernatorial elections.

Those setbacks were at least partly attributed to Ozawa's dubious ties with Nishimatsu Construction Co., the company at the center of alleged illegal donations.

DPJ Secretary General Yukio Hatoyama said before the Nagoya election that a Kuwamura win was crucial to boost the ratings of both the party and Ozawa.


CONTINUED FROM news/notes20090428a

But it is questionable to what extent the DPJ's fortunes have actually improved on the back of Kawamura's win. Some party members and political observers said the DPJ will continue to struggle to regain momentum unless Ozawa offers a clear explanation of his role in the Nishimatsu scandal.

"(The victory) was because of Kawamura's personal popularity and his character, as well as his policies that criticized civil servants and made a clear distinction between his friends and enemies," said Satomi Tani, political science professor at Okayama University.

Tani said Kawamura's "populist strategy" was in line with tactics opposition candidates have employed in many recent elections, in which they confront and reject the status quo.

Kawamura is a well-known figure in Nagoya, which was his power base as a Lower House lawmaker. In explaining his win, he said voters welcomed his pledge to reduce the local residence tax.

"I think (Kawamura's win) had nothing to do with Ozawa," Tani said, adding his victory will not be a significant boost to the DPJ.

Many DPJ members are aware the party may have trouble in the next general election, which must be held by fall, until Ozawa convinces voters of his innocence in the Nishimatsu affair. Most media polls show that 60 percent to 70 percent of respondents are dissatisfied with the DPJ chief's explanation of the scandal.

"When 60 percent to 70 percent of the people are not satisfied with his explanation, it is impossible to bring about a change in government," said Katsuya Okada, a DPJ vice president, in a speech last week in Tokyo.

"Ozawa needs to explain more," Okada concluded.

It has been about a month since Ozawa's top aide, Takanori Okubo, was charged with violating the Political Funds Control Law, and DPJ executive members have urged Ozawa to provide a fuller explanation of his role.

Ozawa has said he has never met Nishimatsu executives and claimed Okubo followed the law in dealing with the group's political funds report.

Although Hatoyama suggested Ozawa could have a town hall-style meeting to directly communicate with the people, the DPJ head does not seem receptive to the idea, nor has he offered a more detailed explanation.

Ozawa said the media rarely mentions that he thoroughly reports his political funds, so "in that sense, I understand there are people who want me to explain more. And as for the explanation, I am sure they will understand it as I meet with the people and communicate with them," Ozawa said in an April 21 news conference.

Last week, Ozawa resumed visiting electoral districts around the nation but did not touch on the scandal.

Political observers have criticized him and the DPJ for not taking stronger action on this issue.

"A person without communication skills is not eligible to become prime minister," Gerald Curtis, political science professor at Columbia University, said during a meeting of a DPJ-appointed panel that is discussing how Ozawa should respond to the public.

news/notes20090428c

[Today's News] from [The Guardian]

Swine flu: WHO raises pandemic threat level
• Mexican death toll passes 150
• Infected British couple named

Chris McGreal in Washington, Severin Carrell and Patrick Wintour and Rachel Williams
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 28 April 2009 09.34 BST
Article history

The World Health Organisation's emergency committee raised the pandemic threat level for swine flu last night after the death toll in Mexico rose above 150, the number of cases in the US doubled and the first infections were confirmed in Britain.

Flights to Mexico were being cancelled this morning, and arrangements were being put in place to bring British holidaymakers home after the Foreign Office advised against all but essential travel to the country. All Thomson and First Choice flights out of Manchester this week were grounded until restrictions are lifted.

Passengers due to fly to Mexico with Thomson this morning said they had been offered their money back or an alternative holiday. The company said it was now making arrangements to get customers home from Mexico, and repatriation flights were expected to start today.

THe Foreign Office advised British citizens living in Mexico to "consider whether they should remain".

The WHO committee said the increased threat level, from phase three to phase four (out of a possible six), recognised that the crisis had taken a significant step toward pandemic, but that did not mean one was inevitable. Nonetheless, it said, the virus had spread so far that containment was "not a feasible operation", and the international response should be to try to limit its transmission and treat those affected.

The health secretary, Alan Johnson, will chair a meeting of the government's Cobra emergencies committee this morning.

The Scottish couple suffering from swine flu were named today as Iain and Dawn Askham, from Polmont, near Falkirk. They had been in Mexico on honeymoon in Cancún.

About 22 friends, family and colleagues who had close contact with them were being observed and had been given antiviral drugs. Seven of these were showing "mild symptoms" of the illness. The group being monitored reportedly includes a five-year-old child.

Last night the Scottish health secretary, Nicola Sturgeon, said the couple were recovering well at Monklands hospital in Airdrie, Lanarkshire.

Medics at Manchester airport treated a passenger arriving from Mexico this morning who had complained of feeling unwell on the flight, the Health Protection Agency said. Tests were being done to find out if the young woman had swine flu. She had been sent home.

The first confirmed case in Europe came yesterday in Spain, where 26 other cases are suspected. There are four suspected cases in the Irish Republic.

The suspected number of deaths rose to 152 in Mexico, with nearly 2,000 people believed to be infected. Today, a South Korean woman tested positive for swine flu, making her a "probable" case, the country's authorities said.

In an indication of the seriousness with which the threat is being taken in the UK, the Guardian has learned that if the situation deteriorates Johnson is considering warning the entire population to set up a support network of friends and relatives, so they can be quickly quarantined at home if they are thought to have symptoms. The friends would then collect medicine on their behalf. He abandoned plans to give this advice as one of his four key messages yesterday in a Commons statement.

He told MPs it was too early to say if there was a pandemic, but the UK had been preparing for one for five years and had a stock of 33m anti-flu drugs. He said it was important to note that outside Mexico all those who had shown symptoms of swine flu had recovered.

Yesterday the WHO said it was "very concerned" about the spread, after bringing forward a meeting of its emergency committee to raise the pandemic level to phase four, which recognises that there is now sustained transmission of the infection from human to human. It is two phases short of a pandemic.

Mexico's health secretary, José Ángel Córdova, said he expected more people to die. In response, the government closed schools across the country. Nearly 2,000 people had been treated in hospital for suspected infection, he said. Half of them had been released.

Córdova admitted that the health authorities lacked the staff to check on all suspected cases. Some foreign health officials fear such difficulties may be contributing to the disease's spread.

In New York, the number of confirmed cases among students at a school rose to 28, with more than 100 suspected. That brought the number of confirmed cases in the US to 42 in five states, twice as many as reported at the weekend.

Peru and Guatemala reported the first suspected infections in other parts of Latin America, where health officials fear swine flu has already spread but so far gone undetected.

The EU health commissioner, Androulla Vassiliou, caused a political stir by urging Europeans to avoid non-essential travel to Mexico and the US, but backtracked slightly after criticism from the US and WHO. But that was too late to stop travel agencies and tour operators cancelling flights to Mexico and the share prices of airline companies were hit because of the pandemic fears.

Gauging the spread: WHO viral infection phases

Phase 1: No animal viruses circulating are causing infections in humans.

Phase 2: An animal flu virus is known to have caused human infection and is considered a potential pandemic threat.

Phase 3: Limited human-to-human transmission may occur. This does not indicate the virus has gained transmissibility that would cause a pandemic.

Phase 4: Human-to-human transmission able to cause "community-level outbreaks". Significant increase in pandemic risk but it is not a foregone conclusion.

Phase 5: Human-to-human spread of the virus into at least two countries in one WHO region. A strong signal that pandemic is imminent.

Phase 6: Pandemic phase, characterised by community level outbreaks in at least one other country in a different WHO region along with phase 5.

news/notes20090428d

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

Mexico tries to focus on source of infection

Swine flu is suspected in at least 149 deaths and 1,995 cases, with nearly all states reporting infections. Officials look at what is thought to be the first case, near a pig farm in Veracruz.

By Tracy Wilkinson and Cecilia Sánchez
April 28, 2009

Reporting from Mexico City -- With the death toll climbing, Mexican authorities at the center of an international swine flu epidemic struggled Monday to piece together its lethal march, with attention focusing on a 4-year-old boy and a pig farm.

The boy, who survived the illness, has emerged as Mexico's earliest known case of the never-before-seen virus, Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova said Monday. It provides an important clue to the unique strain's path.

The boy lived near a pig farm run by a U.S.-Mexican company, Granjas Carroll, in the municipality of Perote, in Veracruz state on the Gulf of Mexico. He contracted the disease on April 2, Cordova said, one of a group of residents who came down with what was at the time labeled a particularly bad case of the flu.

Only one sample from the group, that belonging to the boy, was preserved. It was retested after other cases of the new strain were confirmed elsewhere in the country, Cordova said. The boy had the same disease. It is unknown how many more of the hundreds of people who fell sick in Perote also were infected by the strain.

In an ominous disclosure, officials said the first confirmed fatality of the disease, a 39-year-old woman from an impoverished state neighboring Veracruz, worked as a door-to-door census-taker and may have had contact with scores of people.

In Perote, residents of the hamlet known as La Gloria have complained since mid-March that contamination from the pig farm was tainting their water and causing respiratory infections. In one demonstration in early April, they carried signs with pictures of pigs crossed out with an X and the word "peligro" -- danger. Residents told reporters at the time that more than half the town's 3,000 inhabitants were sick and that three children under the age of 2 had died.

Local health officials mobilized when the outbreak was first reported, but they gave a different account: The infection may have started with a migrant farmer who returned from work in the U.S. and gave the disease to his wife, who in turn passed it on to other women in the community.

Granjas Carroll, which claims to be Mexico's leading pig farm at a million head a year, issued a statement Monday saying none of its employees had shown any signs of illness and noting that the sick are people who had no contact with its pigs. It is but one of numerous farms in the region.

The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization announced Monday that it was sending a team of experts to inspect pig farms in Mexico. The agency's chief veterinary officer, Joseph Domenech, said the teams would attempt to determine whether the new strain was circulating among pigs and then trace linkage to human populations.

The first officially confirmed fatality from the disease occurred April 13. Maria Adela Gutierrez died in the southern city of Oaxaca, capital of the state of the same name.

Gutierrez was a door-to-door census-taker for the tax board, meaning she could have had contact with scores of people at her most contagious point, before being hospitalized. But Martin Vazquez Villanueva, the regional health secretary in Oaxaca, denied local news reports that said she had infected 20 people, as well as her husband and children.

The Mexican government has given out information on the outbreak and its victims only in bits and pieces, refusing to provide details on who the dead are and where and when they died. For the second consecutive day, the government was on the defensive against criticism that it acted too slowly to contain the virus and to alert the public to the dangers.

"We never had this type of epidemic, this type of virus in the world," an increasingly exasperated Cordova said at a news conference Monday. "We don't know how many days this will go on, because it's the first time in the world this virus has appeared."

The government took the extraordinary step of ordering all schools in the nation closed until May 6. Separately, the World Health Organization raised its pandemic alert level and the U.S. and Europe advised against travel to Mexico.

Every state in Mexico is now reporting suspected cases of the virus, Cordova said, a major expansion of the spread of the disease. Just Thursday, the government reported the disease in Mexico City, the adjacent state of Mexico and nearby San Luis Potosi.

Cordova said the new form of swine flu is now suspected in the deaths of 149 people and that 1,995 possible cases have been reported at hospitals, all patients suffering serious pneumonia; of those, 172 have been confirmed as infected with the new strain, he said.

"We are at the most critical moment of the epidemic," he said, adding that the number of cases would continue to rise.

Cordova said deaths "probably" from swine flu had been reported in 10 states. But he would not give a breakdown of the demographics or more specific locations, other than to repeat that most victims were in their 20s, 30s and 40s.

At the news conference, numerous journalists and camera operators wore masks as protection against the disease. The meeting grew hostile at points, with journalists shouting more questions than the officials seemed willing to take. And briefly, the conference was halted by an earthquake that shook the city.

In many places, authorities have closed venues such as clubs, bars, museums and theaters.

And they have handed out millions of surgical masks, which Mexicans, from commuters to presidential guards, are wearing.

But Dr. Gil Chavez, deputy director of California's Center for Infectious Diseases, said Monday that the masks do little to prevent the spread of the virus.

news/notes20090428e

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

G.M.’s Latest Plan Envisions a Much Smaller Automaker

By BILL VLASIC and NICK BUNKLEY
Published: April 27, 2009

DETROIT — For all the uncertainty swirling around General Motors, the troubled automaker said Monday that one thing was clear: it must become drastically smaller if it hopes to remain a viable company, regardless of whether it has to file for bankruptcy.

G.M. said it would eliminate another 21,000 factory jobs, close 13 plants, cut its vast network of 6,500 dealers almost in half and shutter its Pontiac division.

By the time it is finished, G.M. expects to have only 38,000 union workers and 34 factories left in the United States, compared with 395,000 workers in more than 150 plants at its peak employment in 1970.

One goal of this latest plan was to convince the Obama administration, which has been skeptical of G.M.’s previous restructuring goals, that the company is willing to take harsh measures and cut its bloated infrastructure to match its steadily declining share in the United States.

Absent such steps, the government has said it is reluctant to lend the company more money. But for the first time since it toppled into financial crisis last year, G.M. appears to be earning government support.

That might mean billions more in loans if the company’s stakeholders can come to an agreement before a deadline at the end of May. G.M. said on Monday that it needed to borrow $11.6 billion more, for a total of $27 billion.

President Obama’s auto task force said Monday it had “made no final decision” on future investments in G.M., which is subsisting on $15.4 billion in federal loans. The task force, however, called the new plan an “important step in G.M.’s efforts to restructure its company.”

This plan is a far cry from G.M.’s strategy of just a year ago, when it was waging a spirited battle with Toyota for the title of world’s largest automaker.

Where once G.M. had a 50 percent share of the market for new vehicles in the United States, the company hopes to at least hang on to its current 18 percent share.

Analysts warned that even those projections could be optimistic. “There is still a huge risk for market share losses beyond what the company is forecasting,” said John Casesa, an industry consultant.

G.M., however, still faces difficult odds of restructuring outside of bankruptcy court.

The company is still negotiating with the United Automobile Workers union. The government wants the union to accept company stock to finance half of G.M.’s $20 billion obligation for retiree health care.

The U.A.W. this weekend agreed to a similar health care deal with Chrysler, which has borrowed $4 billion from the government and hopes to get $6 billion more. The union’s new retiree health care trust would own a majority stake in Chrysler in exchange for helping the carmaker save $4.5 billion.

A summary given to union leaders said Fiat would ultimately own 35 percent and that 10 percent would be held by the government and Chrysler’s lenders, two people with direct knowledge of the deal said.

Chrysler would give the union a 55 percent stake to cut its obligations to the health care trust in half, said these people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the agreement have not been released publicly.

The deal suspends cost-of-living pay increases, limits overtime pay and reduces paid time off. It also eliminates dental and vision benefits for retirees. It also provides for Fiat to begin building cars in at least one Chrysler plant.

G.M., however, will have more trouble winning over its bondholders.

The company, after consulting with Treasury officials, offered on Monday to give the holders of $27 billion in unsecured debt 225 shares in G.M. stock for every $1,000 in debt.

G.M. said it would have to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection unless 90 percent of the vast bondholder group accepted the terms by June 1.

“I can’t imagine that this is going to go through,” Shelly Lombard, a bond analyst with the firm Gimme Credit, said. “This is not an olive branch to come back to the table. This is basically a sledgehammer. Having said that, I’m not sure that bondholders have a lot of other options.”

Fritz Henderson, G.M.’s chief executive, also expressed doubts that enough bondholders would take the offer. Even if they do not, which would push the company into bankruptcy, he said he expected the company to pursue its restructuring.

“If it can’t be done outside a bankruptcy, we’ll do it in a bankruptcy,” he said.

If bondholders approve the debt-for-equity exchange, they would own about 10 percent of G.M., making them a minority shareholder in a company controlled by the Treasury and the U.A.W.’s retiree trust.

According to the offer, the Treasury would own at least 50 percent of G.M. in exchange for forgiving about $10 billion in federal loans. The union trust, in turn, would receive a stake of about 39 percent.

A committee of big G.M. bondholders on Monday called the offer a “a blatant disregard for fairness for the bondholders” and an example of “political favoritism” toward the U.A.W. “The current offer is neither reasonable nor adequate,” the committee said.

Representative Thaddeus McCotter, a Michigan Republican, is concerned that some bondholders want the company to go bankrupt because they also hold credit-default swaps insuring them against losses.

He is urging the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, to disclose which G.M. bondholders have default swaps from the American International Group, the insurance company that was bailed out by the government.

“It would be unconscionable to use taxpayer money to help people benefit from the bankruptcy of General Motors,” Mr. McCotter said.

Several industry analysts said the bondholder offer appeared destined to fail.

“Unless the offer is revised before May 8, G.M. could potentially file for Chapter 11 protection by the end of next month,” Brian Johnson, of Barclays Capital, wrote in a note to clients.

Many dealers said they were stunned by how quickly G.M. wanted to eliminate more than 2,600 showrooms.

“This is just too rapid, and I think it’s going to create a disorderly shutdown of a lot of stores,” said John McEleney, chairman of the National Automobile Dealers Association. “In the short term, they’re likely to lose sales, which is counterproductive to G.M.’s recovery.”

Senator Carl Levin, a Democrat from Michigan, said he received assurances from the task force late Monday that protecting jobs would be a high priority as it evaluated G.M.’s new plan.

“The depth of the pain inflicted on our workers, families and communities by these decisions should not be minimized,” Mr. Levin said. “It appears G.M. was left no choice, and I now believe bondholders have no choice, either, but to accept significant losses as a better alternative to bankruptcy.”

news/notes20090428f

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

WHO Raises Global Threat Level As Reports of Swine Flu
Increase
Confirmed Cases Double in U.S.

By Rob Stein and Debbi Wilgoren
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, April 28, 2009; 8:48 AM

Cases of swine flu were confirmed early today in Israel and New Zealand, the first definitive proof that the dangerous new virus has spread to the Middle East and Asia-Pacific regions.

The World Health Organization, which yesterday raised its pandemic threat level from 3 to 4, two levels below a full-scale pandemic, will not meet today to consider another increase, a spokesman said at a news conference.

While the agency said people should think carefully before traveling to or from areas known to be affected by the flu virus, spokesman Gregory Hartl said it considers formal travel restrictions and border closures ineffective because people who would be screened could be infected but not yet showing symptoms.

"Border controls don't work. Screening doesn't work," Hartl said, according to Reuters news service, describing the economically-damaging travel bans as basically pointless in public health terms.

He said "we are still at phase 4" in terms of threat level because officials do not yet "have incontrovertible evidence" that the virus spreads easily from human to human. Yesterday was the first time the international body had elevated its official estimation of the threat of an influenza pandemic up from level 3, using a system that was revised in the wake of the 2003 SARS outbreak.

"A pandemic is not considered inevitable at this time," said Keiji Fukuda, the WHO's assistant director general for health security and environment. "The situation is fluid, and the situation continues to evolve."

What is clear, officials say, is that the virus is causing sustained community-wide outbreaks, with a rise in the suspected death toll in Mexico to 149 as of yesterday, along with the confirmation of the first case in Europe and a doubling of the number of confirmed cases in the United States. In the first signs that the outbreak could be taking a toll on the staggering global economy, oil prices, the Mexican peso and airline stocks all plunged.

The level 4 alert could in some circumstances prompt health authorities to launch massive efforts to contain an outbreak, but Fukuda said the virus had spread too widely to make that realistic.

"This virus has already spread quite far," Fukuda said.

Instead, the move was designed to prompt countries to intensify efforts to minimize the spread of the virus by identifying new cases and clusters quickly and taking other measures.

"Given the current situation, the current focus of efforts should be on mitigation efforts," he said.

Fukuda urged people who are sick not to travel and said travelers who become ill should seek medical attention.

The agency also said it would work to develop a swine flu vaccine as quickly as possible, but it rejected proposals to try to deploy a swine flu vaccine instead of the vaccine already in development for the next regular flu season.

At the epicenter of the outbreak, in Mexico, the situation continued to deteriorate. Although the number of confirmed deaths remained at 20, the suspected death toll rose to 149, and at least 1,995 people had been hospitalized with pneumonia. The news prompted officials to shut down schools nationwide. The capital, Mexico City, where most of the cases have been reported, had already been brought to a virtual standstill by measures intended to contain the outbreak.

New Zealand's health ministry said today that three people who tested positive for the virus had been part of a school group that recently visited Mexico,. Reuters reported. Officials told the news service that they were awaiting test results for the other eight people in the group but expected them to test positive as well.

The 26-year-old man found to be suffering from the virus in Israel also had just returned from Mexico, officials said. Matilda Schwartz, spokeswoman for Laniado Hospital in Netanya, said the patient remained in isolation. She said he was in good condition and improving. A second person remains under observation in a hospital in the town of Kfar Saba, north of Tel Aviv, officials said. U.S. and state health officials, meanwhile, said yesterday that the number of confirmed cases had more than doubled to 45 and recommended that Americans put off unnecessary travel to Mexico. "This is out of an abundance of caution," said Richard E. Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

"We want to be aggressive and take bold action to minimize the impact on people's health from this infection," Besser said during a briefing with reporters.

Most of the new U.S. cases were tied to an outbreak at a Catholic high school in New York, where more than 100 students got sick last week after several returned from a spring break trip to Mexico. Eight students were confirmed to have swine flu on Sunday, and at least 20 more were determined Monday to have the virus as well, New York officials said. The new cases are the result of additional testing and not a sign that the infection is still spreading there, Besser said. He added that all the cases were mild, except for one that required hospitalization, and that all the students had recovered.

New Jersey officials reportedly identified five new suspected cases. Eleven have been confirmed in California, including two that required hospitalization, along with three in Texas, two in Kansas and one in Ohio. Confirmed or suspected cases have prompted officials in New York, Texas, California, South Carolina and Ohio to close schools.

President Obama said his administration was monitoring the situation closely. "This is obviously a cause for concern and requires a heightened state of alert," he said at an appearance at the National Academy of Sciences. "But it is not a cause for alarm."

U.S. border officials began screening people entering the country for signs of the disease and handing out cards to everyone arriving from affected areas, advising them to be on the lookout for signs of the illness.

Officials also started shipping millions of doses of antiviral drugs from the federal government's strategic stockpile to California, New York, Texas and other states in case they are needed -- action made possible Sunday when the federal government declared an official "public health emergency."

The Department of Health and Human Services also announced that the Food and Drug Administration is working with the CDC to distribute diagnostic tests to state and local public health laboratories by midweek. And Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the government will allow the FDA to permit the distribution of drugs such as Tamiflu to populations, such as very young children, that normally are not encouraged to take them.

In addition to the government measures, Besser urged businesses to begin making contingency plans for workers calling in sick and said individuals should help reduce the chances that the virus will spread by taking common-sense steps, such as staying home from work or school if they are sick, washing hands frequently and covering mouths if they sneeze or cough.

"Hopefully this outbreak would not progress, but leaning forward and thinking about what you would do is one of the most important things individuals and communities can undertake right now," he said.

In Maryland, Virginia and the District, health officials activated plans developed in the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist and anthrax attacks. They are monitoring reports from hospitals and clinics and readying hundreds of thousands of doses of medication. Maryland officials said it was inevitable that the flu would hit the Washington region given how infectious it is and the large number of travelers who pass through the area.

The day started with a warning by the European Union's health commissioner against unnecessary travel from Europe to parts of the United States and Mexico where the disease is circulating.

The warning followed Spain's confirmation of its first case, fueling fears that the virus was spreading to Europe. Cases were later confirmed in Scotland as well. An additional 20 cases were being investigated in Spain, along with 17 potential cases in Britain, and at least one each in France, Sweden, Germany and Switzerland.

"Personally, I would try to avoid nonessential travel to the areas that are reported to be in the center of the cluster in order to minimize the personal risk and to reduce the potential risk to spread the infection," said Androulla Vassiliou, the E.U. official.

Vassiliou later said she was simply advising Europeans to avoid "unnecessary travel" to affected areas in North America. Canada also has confirmed six cases of swine flu.

CONTINUED ON news/notes20090428g

news/notes20090428g

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

WHO Raises Global Threat Level As Reports of Swine Flu
Increase
Confirmed Cases Double in U.S.

By Rob Stein and Debbi Wilgoren
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, April 28, 2009; 8:48 AM

CONTINUED FROM news/notes20090428f

The White House, meanwhile, said Mexican authorities did not notify U.S. officials about the swine flu issue in advance of the president's April 16-17 visit, "but we have no reason to believe they withheld any information they had at the time," and U.S. officials praised the Mexican response. "To date Mexican authorities have been exceptionally cooperative and forthcoming," White House homeland security adviser John Brennan said. "There's been very strong cooperation."

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters that he is confident that the administration is ready to handle the crisis even though dozens of key public health and emergency response jobs in the administration remain vacant.

"Our response is in no way hindered or hampered by not having a permanent secretary at HHS right now," Gibbs said. "Dr. Besser and thousands of people both at CDC and throughout HHS are responding to this. . . . We feel confident with the team that is there now."

news/notes20090428h

[Today's Papers] from [Slate Magazine]
To Panic or Not To Panic

By Daniel Politi
Posted Tuesday, April 28, 2009, at 6:42 AM ET

The Los Angeles Times and New York Times lead with the new restructuring plan outlined by General Motors yesterday that would make the U.S. government the majority shareholder of what was once the world's largest company. The old adage that what's good for GM is good for America could become a reality. But first the automaker would have to get pretty much all of its bondholders to agree to receive next to nothing in return for the billions of dollars they lent the company. That seems unlikely, so the automaker might very well have to settle all this in bankruptcy court. Under the plan outlined yesterday, GM would accelerate its plans to become a smaller company by cutting 21,000 factory jobs and closing 13 plants and 2,600 dealers, while focusing on only four brands.

The Washington Post, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal 's world-wide newsbox lead with, and everyone else fronts, the World Health Organization moving one step closer to declaring a pandemic as the number of confirmed swine flu cases continues to rise. The WHO raised its pandemic alert system to phase 4 from phase 3, indicating that the disease is being spread person-to-person and governments should be prepared for community outbreaks. Phase 6 is a pandemic. There are now at least 48 confirmed cases in the United States, and Spain and Scotland also confirmed their first cases of the new flu strain, raising fears that the disease has already spread throughout Europe. Mexico continues to be the epicenter, where officials say 149 people have died of influenza and at least 1,995 cases have been reported, although only 26 of the deaths and 172 of the cases have been confirmed to be swine flu. U.S. officials warned against unnecessary travel to Mexico, and the European Union has called on travelers to avoid the United States and Mexico.

Under the restructuring plan outlined yesterday by GM, the automaker asks the Treasury Department for an additional $11.6 billion in loans, in addition to the $15.4 billion it has already received. In return, the government would get a promise to be paid back half of the money and at least a 50 percent ownership of the company. For its part, the United Auto Workers would receive up to a 39 percent stake in the company as payment for half of the $20 billion that GM owes the retiree health care fund. Bondholders, on the other hand, would get the shortest end of the stick—so short, in fact, we might call it a twig. Investors holding $27.2 billion of GM bonds would get a 10 percent equity stake in the company, and, to no one's surprise, current shareholders would be effectively wiped out and receive 1 percent.

Bondholders were none too happy with what GM proposed. The deal "must look to bondholders like something Tony Soprano dreamed up," an analyst tells USAT. Bondholders are particularly upset at what they see as favorable treatment to the union, even though both parties would have similar claims in bankruptcy court. GM said it must get the support of 90 percent of bondholders in order to move forward, something that seems very unlikely. Bondholders have until May 8 to try to negotiate better terms, but if the offer is ultimately rejected, then it seems highly likely that GM will be declaring bankruptcy.

In a separate Detroit development, Chrysler announced that it had reached a deal with the UAW that would give the union a 55 percent stake in the automaker, while Fiat would eventually get 35 percent. The government and Chrysler's lenders would get 10 percent. In other Chrysler news, the WP hears word that the Treasury Department is once again trying to play matchmaker. This time around, it wants GMAC, the nation's largest auto-financing company, to buy Chrylser Financial, the automaker's financing arm. GMAC wouldn't be able to complete the purchase without further government financing, and the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. are resisting. In order to carry out the deal, the Fed would have to make an exception to its rule separating banking and commerce, which it has done before, but using FDIC resources for this purpose "would be without precedent," declares the Post. Even if the sides manage to come to a deal, it's not entirely clear that Chrysler would be able to avoid bankruptcy. If Chrysler can't reach a deal with lenders, the automaker could file for bankruptcy by Thursday.

The WHO's move to raise the pandemic alert system to phase 4 marks the first time that the organization has raised the threat of an influenza pandemic under a system that was revised after the SARS outbreak in 2003. "A pandemic is not considered inevitable at this time," a WHO official said. U.S. officials urged caution, noting that the increase in cases doesn't mean swine flu is spreading and could just mean that more testing is being done. In a front-page piece, the NYT notes that in responding to "its first domestic emergency," the Obama administration is benefiting from measures instituted during his predecessor's tenure. At the same time, White House officials are taking lessons learned from the Bush administration's bungled response to Hurricane Katrina in trying to avoid sounding too alarmist while also making it clear that they have a handle on the situation. "It can be very dangerous to overreact. And it can be very dangerous to underreact," one expert tells the paper. The Obama administration is now in the unenviable position of having to react to this crisis without some key officials, including a secretary of health and human services, who still hasn't received confirmation from the Senate.

Mexican authorities say that while they're doing everything they can to contain the spread of the disease, they don't have sufficient resources to keep up with the fast-spreading virus. All schools nationwide have been closed for more than a week, and public gatherings have been limited. The country has received aid from around the world, including teams of specialized workers to help the country get a handle on the situation. The swine flu outbreak is obviously hitting the Mexican economy, but it's hardly alone. In a piece inside, the WP notes that the outbreak comes at a time when economic data suggested the global financial crisis could be close to hitting bottom. But economists now say that if there is a full-blown pandemic, the recession "could become two or three times as painful." Of course, airlines and the tourism industry could be the hardest hit. During the 2003 SARS outbreak, airline traffic to Asia fell by as much as 60 percent.

In an interesting op-ed piece, John Barry, author of The Great Influenza, writes that it's impossible to know what will happen next since that "is chiefly up to the virus." There is a "strong possibility" that if the cases begin to diminish soon, that could just be a sign that the virus has gone underground and could re-emerge in a few months, stronger than ever. Barry notes that in all of the four well-known pandemics—in 1889, 1918, 1957, and 1968—"the gap between the time the virus was first recognized and a second, more dangerous wave swelled was about six months." That is why it's important to start working on a vaccine as soon as possible.

In the WSJ 's op-ed page, Henry Miller does an admirable job of explaining how a virus like swine flu can originate and why it's so difficult to contain. "The epidemiology of such disease outbreaks is rather like a jigsaw puzzle," writes Miller, "and we are now at the stage where the picture is intriguing even if we're not sure what we're seeing." Pigs are essentially a great incubator for diseases, particularly since they can be infected by a virus that then can adapt and become more efficient at targeting other mammals. People who live close to the animals are particularly susceptible—indeed, Mexican authorities said the earliest known case involved a 4-year-old boy who lived near a pig farm in Veracruz. Mexico now looks like what "we might expect for an outbreak of a major human-to-human pandemic in its earliest stages." But experience has also shown that attempts to prevent an outbreak from spreading can actually make matters worse.

CONTINUED ON news/notes20090428i

news/notes20090428i

[Today's Papers] from [Slate Magazine]
To Panic or Not To Panic

By Daniel Politi
Posted Tuesday, April 28, 2009, at 6:42 AM ET

CONTINUED FROM 20090428h

The NYT fronts a look at how amid all the talk about how the United States is stepping up efforts to defend the nation's computer systems from spies and attacks, little is being said about the ongoing debate over the billions of dollars the military and intelligence agencies are spending on offensive cyberwarfare capabilities. The paper makes clear that "there are no broad authorizations for American forces to engage in cyberwar," although there have been a few isolated instances where such capabilities were used. Many think that building up defensive capabilities simply isn't enough, but it's difficult to come up with a policy to strike back against attacks when it's often impossible to know who the attacker might be. Some say a policy of pre-emption should be instituted that would allow U.S. officials to go into foreign computers and destroy any threats before they become a problem. But, that, of course, would raise problems of its own if other countries, or individual hackers, decide to take revenge for such actions.

The WP 's Richard Cohen writes that while he's "glad we're no longer torturing anyone … ceasing this foul practice will not in any way make Americans safer." It may seem ridiculous, but the debate over torture "has been infected with silly arguments" about whether it works. It's impossible to say that torture, or at least the threat of it, doesn't ever work, but that's hardly the point. "America should repudiate torture not because it is always ineffective—nothing is always anything—or because others loathe it but because it degrades us and runs counter to our national values."