news/notes20090507a

[Biography of the Day] from [Britannica]

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky—the most popular Russian composer in history, whose impressive harmonies, openhearted melodies, and colourful orchestration provoke profound emotional responses—was born this day in 1840.

[On This Day] from [Britannica]

1663: Theatre Royal opened
The Theatre Royal, built by the dramatist Thomas Killigrew for his company of actors and now known as the Drury Lane Theatre, opened in London this day in 1663 and is the oldest English theatre still in use.


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

[NATIONAL NEWS]

Thursday, May 7, 2009
Health ministry prepares for possible flu alert upgrade

(Kyodo News) Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura on Wednesday ordered the health ministry to make preparations for a possible upgrade of the World Health Organization's pandemic alert for a new strain of influenza to the highest level of 6.

Meeting with Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Yoichi Masuzoe at the ministry, Kawamura said, "If the phase is upgraded to 6, Japan has to do everything it can. Japan's crisis management will be put to the test."

He also called on the ministry to continue making all-out efforts to block the entry of the virus into Japan, such as conducting health checks on passengers at airports, and to be fully prepared in the event that a person infected with the new influenza is found in the country.

Japan has yet to be hit by the H1N1 virus. The number of people infected with the flu has exceeded 1,500 in a total of 22 countries and territories around the globe, according to government announcements and media reports.

At Narita airport, many passengers returning to Japan from trips abroad could be seen wearing masks as a precaution against the flu as Wednesday marks the last day of this year's Golden Week holiday period in the country. An estimated 46,000 people arrived at the airport from overseas on Wednesday alone.

"I was worried about the flu when I left Japan (for South Korea), but the only people wearing masks I saw there were Japanese," said Kana Ishii, a 21-year-old college student who had been on a family trip to the neighboring country.

Setsuko Ouchi, 25, said she had reluctantly returned to Japan from Mexico, where she had been studying, at the request of her family who were worried about the large number of people infected in the Latin American country. "There are not many people wearing masks in Mexico," she added.

Namie Sawada, a 38-year-old doctor from Tokyo who returned to Japan from New York, also had something to say about differing perceptions of masks.

"When I was wearing a mask in New York, people looked at me as though they had seen something bizarre," she said. Sawada also said it is important to conduct follow-up studies on people suspected of being infected with the flu, in addition to medical checks on passengers at airports, because the flu has an incubation period.

At a separate meeting the same day, Masuzoe criticized some hospitals for refusing to see patients suffering from fever, even though their risk of being infected with the new influenza is low because they have not been to any of the countries affected by the flu.

"It's against the Medical Practitioners Law. I would like doctors to treat such people as part of their social responsibility," he told a health ministry meeting to deal with the influenza issue.

The number of cases in which Tokyo hospitals had refused to see people with fever totaled 92 from Saturday morning to noon Tuesday, a Tokyo metropolitan government survey showed Tuesday.

If the WHO pandemic alert level is upgraded from 5 at present, the government is expected to hold a meeting of its flu task force headed by Prime Minister Taro Aso, according to Kawamura.


[NATIONAL NEWS]

Thursday, May 7, 2009
Nagoya man latest in series of new flu scares

(Kyodo News) A man in his 40s from Nagoya emerged Wednesday as having been possibly infected with a new strain of influenza that is feared to be developing into a global pandemic, while six others previously suspected have been confirmed as not infected with the new flu.

The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said the man tested positive for influenza A in a preliminary test after having a fever while staying in Tokyo. A second test is being conducted by a Tokyo health institution to determine if he has been infected with the H1N1 subtype of influenza A.

Tokushima Prefecture said the results of a second test on a woman who arrived Monday at Kansai airport after a trip to the United States showed that she was not infected with any influenza virus.

Meanwhile, the health ministry said five other people suspected of being infected with influenza A (H1N1) upon arrival in Japan from the United States or Mexico have been confirmed as not infected with the new flu.

The five are a 14-year-old girl from Aichi Prefecture, an elementary schoolgirl from Kyoto City, a woman in her 30s and her child who live in Chicago and are currently staying in Gunma Prefecture, and a girl from Kyoto Prefecture.

They were either found to be infected with type-A Hong Kong flu, group A hemolytic streptococcus or not infected with any influenza virus, according to the ministry.

No cases of the new flu have been confirmed in Japan, although there have been several cases in which patients tested positive for the influenza A virus but the strain was not the same as the new flu.


[NATIONAL NEWS]

Thursday, May 7, 2009
Over 80% of lawmakers support revising organ transplant law

(Kyodo News) More than 80 percent of lawmakers polled support revising the organ transplant law during the current parliamentary session through June 3 to pave the way for allowing children to receive organ donations domestically, according to a Kyodo News survey released Wednesday.

Kyodo sent questionnaires to all of the 720 upper and lower house members at a time when bills to revise the law are being deliberated at the Diet, of whom 150, or 20 percent, provided valid responses.

Of the supporters of amending the law, accounting for 83 percent of the overall respondents, 72 percent said the minimum age of 15 for brain-dead donors in organ transplants should be eliminated.

As the current law bans children under 15 from becoming donors, many Japanese children who need organ transplants have to travel overseas in search of donors.

The survey also showed less than 50 percent of the lawmakers agree with recognizing brain death as legal death by revising the current law, which accepts brain death only in cases where a person is ready to become a donor. More than 30 percent want to keep the existing rule, indicating rooted resistance to recognizing brain death as legal death without exception.

Several proposals for revising the organ transplant law have been submitted to the Diet, among which a bill to legalize brain death as a rule and to eliminate the minimum age for becoming an organ donor drew 61 percent support among the respondents, according to the Kyodo survey.

The response rate to the survey was only around 20 percent, indicating many lawmakers are still grappling with the issue, which is closely related to religious and other views about life.

During the last 12 years since the current law became effective in 1997, around 100,000 patients have died as they could not receive organ transplants, according to the Japan Society for Transplantation.


[BUSINESS NEWS]

Sunday, May 3, 2009
Panasonic pumps up plasma panel capacity

OSAKA (Kyodo) Panasonic Corp. has jacked up production capacity for plasma TV panels to a record high as domestic demand for flat TVs recovers, sources familiar with the matter said Saturday.

Panasonic increased monthly output capacity at its two factories in Amagasaki, Hyogo Prefecture, to the equivalent of 940,000 42-inch panels, up from 785,000 panels, by streamlining and improving productivity at its lines, they said.

Earlier, Panasonic postponed the launch, originally set for May, of a third plasma TV panel factory it was building in Amagasaki by six months as demand for plasma TVs fell sharply amid the global economic slump.

But the drop in demand also led producers to cut prices, which subsequently stimulated demand, the sources said.

Panasonic raised output after sales of its Viera line started picking up, they said.

The government's "eco-point" benefit system for buying environment-friendly appliances is set to begin May 15 and will likely have a positive effect on flat TV sales, the sources added.

The system is part of the Green New Deal policy aimed at expanding Japan's environment-linked market and creating replacement demand.

Consumers will be able to receive a refund equivalent to 5 percent of the price of energy-saving appliances in the form of points from public funds. The points cannot be cashed in and can only be used to purchase other products.

When the third factory in Amagasaki is launched next January, Panasonic will further increase plasma panel output capacity by 120,000 42-inch panels a month, the sources said.

news/notes20090507b

[Today's News] from [The Guardian]

Child poverty reduction halted by recession
• Labour pledge to halve child poverty will be 'very difficult' to meet
• Number below the breadline remains at 2.9 million

Larry Elliott
Economics editor
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 7 May 2009 13.55 BST
Article history

The number of children living below the breadline remained stuck at 2.9 million last year as the government's attempt to reduce poverty stalled, according to official figures released today.

Amid criticism from campaigners for the lack of progress, ministers admitted that it would now be "very difficult" for Labour to meet its objective of halving by 2010 the number of youngsters living in households where the income was less than 60% of the national median.

Tony Blair pledged in 1999 that Britain would eradicate child poverty within a generation and set an interim target of halving the total – then 3.4 million – by 2010.

Figures released by the Department of Work and Pensions today show that after dropping by 700,000 over the next five years to 2004-05 the number of children living in poverty has since risen by 200,000.

The DWP said that while the number of children living in poverty in the year to 2007-08 had remained the same, the number of adults slipping below the poverty line had increased by 200,000. Income inequality has widened, the DWP added.

Children's minister Beverley Hughes said that in the current economic climate, "meeting the 2010 target is very difficult. It is very difficult to model the impact of the recession on child poverty."

The government nevertheless remained, "absolutely committed" to the 2020 target.

"We knew from the disappointing figures in 2006/7 that we were unlikely to see reductions in the child poverty figures for 07/08 but I'm pleased the child poverty rates have remained broadly stable."

The shadow work and pensions secretary, Theresa May, said: "Gordon Brown's pledge to halve child poverty by 2010 is just one of countless Labour promises that lies in tatters.

"It is a tragedy that the number of children falling into the poverty cycle is continuing to rise.

Colette Marshall, UK Director of Save the Children, said: "The government has clearly broken its promise to lift up to 3 million children out of poverty in the UK. It is outrageous that so many children continue to miss out on the basic necessities most children take for granted. Today's figures show that the government will fall well short of its 2010 target to halve the numbers of children living in poverty.

"In 2001 Gordon Brown referred to child poverty as a 'scar on Britain's soul'. This scar is taking a very long time to heal."

Head of Policy for Child Poverty Action Group, Dr Paul Dornan, said the government's "failure to make progress" was, deplorable.

"You don't eradicate child poverty by doing nothing, but we've just had a 'do nothing' budget for the poorest children. It was right to give urgent support to jobseekers, but there was little in the budget to build a fairer Britain. The disgraceful decision to give the poorest families less than the cost of a pint of milk for each child to help them survive the recession was a kick in the teeth."

news/notes20090507c

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

In rural Washington state, law allows assisted suicide, but most doctors don't
Terminally ill patients who want to utilize a new law to end their agony often find that physicians, citing moral objections, refuse to take part.

By Kim Murphy
May 7, 2009

Reporting from Kennewick, Wash. -- Stephen Wallace had watched his wife die of cancer 22 years ago, using up the morphine as fast as they could put it into her and begging for more. NoNo, he said then. I won't let this happen to me.

So when he was diagnosed with an advanced case of pancreatic cancer March 8, and given a few days to a few weeks to live, Wallace hoped to go quickly. He told his doctor and family that he wanted to take advantage of Washington state's new law allowing physicians to prescribe a fatal dose of barbiturates to terminal patients. His five children agreed, but his doctor balked, citing moral reservations.

The family appealed to the hospital, got nowhere, and called two other hospitals in towns nearby. None of the doctors in the area was willing to give Wallace, 76, the pills for his deadly sleep.

Cancer of the pancreas has a cruel reputation, delivering what some say is the most intense pain humans can imagine. It killed Wallace on April 8.

"It was very hard to watch my father die that way," said Tricia Crnkovich, who took turns with her brothers and sisters in Wallace's small bedroom as he shrank from 250 pounds to 60, losing most of the weight in the two months before he died. "I'll tell you, if I ever get cancer," she said, "I don't want to put my kids through that."

On March 5, Washington became the second state in the nation to allow physicians to help hasten the death of terminal patients. Oregon legalized a nearly identical "death with dignity" statute in 1997, and the courts in Montana have ruled that the right to privacy extends to patients seeking a doctor's help in ending their lives.

But outside the larger population centers around Seattle, Tacoma and Olympia, many physicians are unwilling. That leaves residents east of the Cascades who choose to utilize the statute with the same problem women seeking abortions in conservative rural communities have faced: It's legal, but health providers' moral qualms mean it's essentially unavailable.

"We knew that it would be harder to find attending and consulting physicians in more rural areas," said Robb Miller, executive director of the advocacy group Compassion & Choices of Washington. "It's going to take time to get people educated about the law . . . and build up trust and confidence among the physicians -- many of whom support the law and want to use it, but who might not be ready yet to make the leap."

Wallace raised his family here amid the arid farmland that spreads out from the confluence of the Columbia, Snake and Yakima rivers. The growing popularity of Washington's wines have lent a certain cachet to an otherwise bland expanse of fast-food restaurants, budget hotels and modest neighborhoods.

The area also is home to the Hanford nuclear reservation, where plutonium for the atomic bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945, was manufactured. Hanford has since become a nightmare of leaky, poisonous tanks and a testament to the difficulty of cleaning up nuclear waste.

For most of his life, Wallace worked at Hanford. His job was one of the more dangerous ones, transferring the facility's perilous brews from tank to tank. His work there, Crnkovich and her siblings believe, led to his cancer.

From the moment he was diagnosed, the family said, Wallace refused even to go into hospice care. "When he retired in '94, he said, 'I bought this bed, and I will die in this bed,' " said his daughter-in-law, Ginny Wallace.

But Wallace's physician could not bring himself to assist, the family said. Dr. Idar Rommen, a family practitioner in Snohomish County -- another largely rural Washington area where most hospitals have refused to participate in the new law -- understands why.

"To me, personally, giving a patient a suicide pill is like abdicating my role," Rommen said. "I'm here to heal and to make better. And the other just doesn't seem like that's what I went into medicine to do."

The extent of the hurdles patients face in the Kennewick area became clear during a recent physicians' briefing that the Benton Franklin County Medical Society held here. The presentation on the new law, which allows a physician to prescribe a fatal dose of medication after a second qualified doctor also has certified that the patient is terminal, was met with silence.

"There was no feedback," said executive director Nicole Austin. "We're trying to walk a very neutral line. It's their decision as physicians if they choose to participate. I sense that it will be a challenge in this community."

Only about a third of Washington state hospitals have opted to allow their doctors to assist terminal patients under the law. Austin said many doctors are especially uncomfortable with the requirement under the law that physicians list the cause of death as the terminal illness, not suicide.

Similar reservations have made it difficult to get assisted-suicide statutes on the books in other states. California lawmakers have failed several times to pass such legislation, although late last year they adopted a measure requiring terminal patients be counseled on various end-of-life options, including the right to be heavily sedated and withdrawn from food and water.

Through 2008, 401 people in Oregon had opted for what Compassion & Choices prefers to call "death with dignity." So far, three Washington residents have obtained lethal prescriptions under the law.

Proponents characterize the laws as a means of allowing the terminally ill to have some say over how and when they will die.

Critics, including the American Medical Assn., contend that the better response is to offer patients adequate pain medication and reassurance.

"They want to force doctors to act against their conscience and to become essentially vending machines for individuals who requisition overdoses to kill themselves," said William L. Toffler, a professor of family medicine and executive director of Physicians for Compassionate Care Education Foundation, which has opposed assisted-suicide statutes.

"The solution to suffering," he said, "never is to eliminate the sufferer."

But for Wallace, alleviating the pain did not appear to be an option.

Crnkovich said her father had been given strong medications when he went home from the hospital, but that his nurses had resisted increasing the dosage as his pain grew more intense.

Soon Wallace's mental state began to deteriorate. Because the assisted-suicide law requires a 15-day waiting period between the first oral and the first written requests for lethal medication, and an additional 48 hours before the prescription can be written, he no longer qualified.

"He couldn't talk for the last eight days," son Steve Wallace said. "He was not in contact with reality. I'd come in there, and he'd call me somebody else."

Near the end, Steve and Ginny could hardly stand to be in the house because his father was in so much pain. By the time the doctor said his medication should be increased despite the nurses' concerns, it was too late.

"He was just moaning and screaming, and it got really bad on Friday," Ginny said. "By Monday when we left, he was just screaming at the top of his lungs."

Wallace was dead two days later. An autopsy revealed that the cancer had consumed his pancreas, liver and parts of both kidneys and lungs.

Crnkovich said her father had asked family members to speak out about his failure to find a doctor to help him. They have met with state and federal legislators, telephoned hospitals and spoken with the media.

"Since I started talking, I've had people come up to me in the supermarket parking lot and say, 'Murder's murder.' And other people have come up to me and said, 'Thank you. Now I know what to do if the time comes,' " she said.

"People don't know what it's really about," her brother added. "It's not about killing people. It's about people that are going to die, but don't want to go through hell to do it."

news/notes20090507d

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

Civilian Deaths Imperil Support for Afghan War

By CARLOTTA GALL and TAIMOOR SHAH
Published: May 6, 2009

KABUL, Afghanistan — American airstrikes that Afghan officials and villagers said Wednesday had killed dozens and perhaps more than 100 civilians in western Afghanistan threaten to stiffen Afghan opposition to the war just as the Obama administration is sending 20,000 more troops to the country.

The reports offered a grim backdrop to talks on Wednesday afternoon in Washington between President Obama and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, whose office called the civilian deaths “unjustifiable and unacceptable.”

If the higher toll proves true, the bombardment, which took place late Monday, will almost certainly be the worst in terms of civilian deaths since the American intervention began in 2001. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said there would be a joint investigation and she expressed regret at the loss of civilian lives, although she cautioned that the full circumstances were not known. Defense Department officials said investigators were looking into the possibility that Taliban militants were responsible for the civilian deaths.

One villager reached by telephone, Sayed Ghusuldin Agha, described body parts littered around the landscape. “It would scare a man if he saw it in a dream,” he said.

Civilian deaths — more than 2,000 Afghans were killed last year alone, the United Nations says — have been a decisive factor in souring many Afghans on the war. The International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed dozens dead so far in this bombing, in the western province of Farah.

The American military confirmed that it had conducted airstrikes aimed at the Taliban, but not the number of deaths or their cause.

“We have some other information that leads us to distinctly different conclusions about the cause of the civilian casualties,” said the senior American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David D. McKiernan. He would not elaborate but said American and Afghan investigators were already on the ground trying to sort out what had happened.

In a phone call played on a loudspeaker on Wednesday to outraged members of the Afghan Parliament, the governor of Farah Province, Rohul Amin, said that as many as 130 civilians had been killed, according to a legislator, Mohammad Naim Farahi. Afghan lawmakers immediately called for an agreement regulating foreign military operations in the country.

“The governor said that the villagers have brought two tractor trailers full of pieces of human bodies to his office to prove the casualties that had occurred,” Mr. Farahi said. “Everyone at the governor’s office was crying, watching that shocking scene.”

Mr. Farahi said he had talked to someone he knew personally who had counted 113 bodies being buried, including those of many women and children. Later, more bodies were pulled from the rubble and some victims who had been taken to the hospital died, he said.

Early reports from American military forensic investigators at the scene raised questions about the Afghan account, according to a United States military official briefed on the inquiry.

Defense Department officials said late Wednesday that investigators were looking into witnesses’ reports that the Afghan civilians were killed by grenades hurled by Taliban militants, and that the militants then drove the bodies around the village claiming the dead were victims of an American airstrike.

The initial examination of the site and of some of the bodies suggested the use of armaments more like grenades than the much larger bombs used by attack planes, said the military official, who requested anonymity because the investigation was continuing.

“We cannot confirm the report that the Taliban executed these people,” said Capt. John Kirby, the spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon. “We don’t know if it’s true, and we also don’t know how many civilians were killed as a result of this operation.”

Col. Greg Julian, a spokesman for the United States military in Kabul, confirmed that United States Special Operations forces had called in close air support in the area on Monday night, including bombs and strafing with heavy machine guns. “There is a heavy insurgent presence there,” he said.

Villagers reached by telephone said many were killed by aerial bombing. Muhammad Jan, a farmer, said fighting had broken out in his village, Shiwan, and another, Granai, in the Bala Baluk district. An hour after it stopped, the planes came, he said.

In Granai, he said, women and children had sought shelter in orchards and houses. “Six houses were bombed and destroyed completely, and people in the houses still remain under the rubble,” he said, “and now I am working with other villagers trying to excavate the dead bodies.”

He said that villagers, crazed with grief, were collecting mangled bodies in blankets and shawls and piling them on three tractors. People were still missing, he said.

Mr. Agha, who lives in Granai, said the bombing started at 5 p.m. on Monday and lasted until late into the night. “People were rushing to go to their relatives’ houses, where they believed they would be safe, but they were hit on the way,” he said.

Jessica Barry, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said the organization had sent a team to the scene on Tuesday. It saw houses destroyed and dozens of bodies.

“It’s not the first time,” Ms. Barry said, but “really this is one of the very serious and biggest incidents for a very long time.” The dead included a volunteer for the Afghan Red Crescent and 13 of his relatives, she said.

She and Afghan officials worry that with the increase of American troops this year, the conflict is likely to intensify. “With more troops coming in, there is a risk that civilians will be more and more vulnerable,” she said.

United States and NATO forces have sought to reduce civilian casualties. After a prominent episode last year in Azizabad, General McKiernan issued a directive in December saying “all responses must be proportionate.”

The United Nations has said that figures in the first three months of this year have declined from the same period last year. Yet the concern remains.

One Western diplomat said that United States Special Operations forces should stop missions until after presidential elections here in August.

The forces have often been blamed for nighttime raids on villages, detentions and airstrikes that have brought the population in southern Afghanistan to the point of revolt.

The chairman of Parliament, Yunus Qanooni, called on the government to present a draft of a new agreement for the foreign forces in Afghanistan within a week, in order to “legalize their presence.”

Mr. Farahi, the Afghan lawmaker, blamed local officials for calling in the American forces without giving them more guidance. But he saved his most stinging criticism for President Karzai’s government. “People are ready to rise against the government,” he said.

news/notes20090507e

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

In Pakistan, 'Great Rage, Great Fear'
Refugees Fleeing Swat Valley Tell of Taliban Crimes, Abuses

By Pamela Constable and Haq Nawaz Khan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, May 7, 2009

GOLRA, Pakistan, May 6 -- Hajji Karim and his extended family of 70 were camped in a dirt-floor stable 10 miles outside Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. It was as far as they could get from the Swat Valley, where thousands of people are fleeing from the ravages of the Taliban and the imminent prospect of war with government forces.

When Taliban fighters first entered Karim's village last month, he recounted, they said they had come to bring peace and Islamic law, or sharia, to Swat. But the next day, two of the fighters dragged a policeman out of his truck and tried to slit his throat. Horrified, a crowd rushed over, shouting and trying to shield the officer. The fighters let him go, but the incident confirmed the villagers' worst suspicions.

"We all said to each other, what sort of people have come here? And what kind of sharia is this? Cutting off people's heads has nothing to do with Islam," recounted Karim, 55, a bus driver. "The people were filled with great rage, and great fear."

Authorities in North-West Frontier Province said that with the conflict intensifying, they expect half a million people to flee the once-bucolic Swat region near the Afghan border, much of which is now occupied by heavily armed militants. Officials announced Tuesday that they plan to open six refugee camps in the safer nearby districts of Swabi and Mardan, but until then, many who leave home to escape the violence are facing the arduous task of finding their own shelter.

As the refugees begin streaming out of Swat and the neighboring Buner district in northwest Pakistan, they carry with them memories of the indignities and horrors inflicted by occupying Taliban forces -- locking women inside their homes, setting donkeys on fire -- as they tried to force residents to accept a radical version of Islam.

The government has not helped, refugees said, with its erratic, seesawing efforts to appease and fight the militants. Some said they felt confused and trapped, unsure whether to trust the peace deal forged by the government and Taliban leaders last month, or to flee in anticipation of the fighting that has begun as the peace accord collapses.

Sher Mohammed, a property dealer from Mingora, the main town in Swat, was one of the first people to reach a new refugee camp in the Mardan district with his wife and children Tuesday night. On Wednesday, he kicked the dirt outside their tent despondently, saying that after enduring two years of fighting and Taliban abuses, he had had enough.

"I feel like I have lost my mind," he said. "I work hard to make a respectable life and educate my children. Now we are living in a camp, and my sons are talking of guns."

Mohammed said he did not understand why the country's powerful army had not been able to defeat the militants before they took over the valley. Even now, after a week of sporadic fighting, military officials have not announced an offensive against the militants who occupy much of Swat and Buner. The Taliban has repeatedly rejected government overtures to salvage the peace deal, in which the militants agreed to disarm if sharia courts were made the exclusive form of justice in Swat.

Army officials said 35 militants and three soldiers were killed Wednesday in Swat in sporadic fighting, including a shootout near several emerald mines that Taliban forces are using as hideouts. They said militants looted three banks and occupied police and civil administration buildings in Mingora. The military reported that an additional 50 militants had been killed in Buner.

The United Nations humanitarian office in Islamabad said it has already registered more than 2,200 families in new camps, "many of them arriving with little more than the clothes they are wearing." In a statement, the office said it would also increase assistance to help about 6,000 additional families in existing camps for Afghan refugees.

One private relief agency based in Swat said that it has been relocating hundreds of families at scattered sites in the cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi but that no local government or international agency had offered to help. Its officials said they were concerned that Taliban fighters would try to recruit displaced people relocated in large camps.

"People in Swat are angry and confused, because the government is reaching out to the Taliban and fighting them at the same time," said Mohammed Riatullah, a relief agency official. "There are huge numbers of people with nowhere to go. We are trying to provide them with decent shelter and support, but we need more help so they won't fall into Taliban hands."

Pakistan has hosted millions of refugees from conflicts in Afghanistan during the past two decades, with networks of camps in the northwest and in the southwestern province of Baluchistan. There have been frequent accusations that militant groups infiltrate the camps to use them as sanctuaries and recruiting pools. Military analysts say they suspect that the Taliban leadership of Afghanistan uses refugee camps in Baluchistan for these purposes.

Since militants began staging attacks and occupying territory inside Pakistan several years ago, thousands of inhabitants of the northwest tribal region have been displaced by fighting and have relocated to camps around Peshawar.

In Buner, army forces have been battling Taliban fighters for the past week, and the army said Wednesday that the operations were going smoothly. But several people who have fled from Buner to the provincial capital of Peshawar, or who were reached in Buner by cellphone, said that the situation was dire and that Taliban forces were still occupying many homes,

They said Buneris were especially vulnerable to Taliban attacks for several reasons. The district is famous for its Sufi shrines, where people practice a mystical form of Islam that is anathema to the fundamentalist Sunni Taliban. In addition, residents formed militias to resist the Taliban last year, and one village paid dearly for its defiance when voting stations were bombed in December, killing 42 people.

"When the militants entered our area, the people held a jirga to discuss what to do. They said they would never accept them and vowed to fight to the death," said Sirmir Khan, director of an educational charity in Buner who fled to Peshawar last week after Taliban forces occupied his offices. "They are not Muslims, they are criminals who are defaming our religion, and the people of Buner are not their friends."

Afsar Khan, the mayor of a town in Buner who had also fled to Peshawar recently, said that the militants had burned many houses and fields in his area and that last year he had joined an armed posse that attempted to drive them out. "We only had about 100 men, and the militants were coming down from the mountains," Khan recounted. "They fired on us from 5 p.m. to midnight and we were running out of ammunition. We called for help, and the officials kept telling us helicopter gunships were coming, but they never did. Finally we told all the farmworkers to run away, because we could not protect them, and we had to give up."

In a relief agency office in Islamabad on Wednesday, two teenage sisters from Buner huddled on a flour sack next to a few cooking pots, covering their faces with veils. They said they had fled their village four days ago after their father, a farm laborer, was warned by his landlord that the Taliban was coming.

"I don't know what the Taliban are, but everyone was very afraid," said one of the girls, who gave her name as Abzanan. "I am very worried because my father went back to get my brothers, and we don't know what happened to him."

news/notes20090507f

[Today's Papers] from [Slate Magazine]

Stress Test Results Not That Stressful

By Daniel Politi
Posted Thursday, May 7, 2009, at 6:43 AM ET

The Washington Post leads with, while the Wall Street Journal banners, more leaked results from the so-called stress tests on the country's 19 largest financial institutions. When the results are officially unveiled today at 5 p.m., it will mark the first time that the government explicitly divides the nation's banks into those that are stronger and those that are weaker. The WSJ has a bit more detail on the numbers and states that at least seven institutions will be required to increase their capital levels by $65 billion. The New York Times leads with claims by Afghan officials and villagers that American airstrikes earlier this week may have killed more than 100 civilians in western Afghanistan. The claims overshadowed President Obama's first meeting with the presidents of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and also could end up increasing Afghan opposition to U.S. forces just as the White House is getting ready to deploy more than 20,000 additional American troops into the country.

USA Today leads with word that 26 police agencies in 16 states can't receive any of the federal stimulus money to boost their forces because they have previously misused government aid. All of the police agencies had previously agreed to the bans on new grants instead of paying back the money to the government. The Los Angeles Times leads with the wildfire that overwhelmed Santa Barbara last night after winds stoked a brush fire. The out-of-control blaze has managed to burn through 500 acres and destroyed at least 20 homes.

The WP accentuates the good news from the stress test results, declaring that, as many have been suggesting, the results are "more positive than many investors had expected" and emphasizes that while the tests concluded the banks "have enough capital in reserve," they "may need to strengthen the ability of those holdings to absorb losses." The NYT is somewhat more direct, noting in its lead sentence that "some of the nation's largest banks still need more money" despite the billions spent on bailouts. The WSJ says that at least six (the NYT lists seven) of the financial institutions will be told they don't need to raise more money while at least seven will be told they must increase capital levels. Leading the pack is Bank of America, which will need to raise $34 billion. Also on the list are Wells Fargo ($13 billion to $15 billion), GMAC ($11.5 billion), Citigroup ($5 billion), and Morgan Stanley ($1.5 billion).

Although their numbers may be huge, the big household names may not be the ones that have the most to worry about from the stress tests. The WP notes that auto-financing giant GMAC may be one of the few companies that actually will need more taxpayer cash because it has only $5 billion that it can turn into common equity and, not surprisingly, hasn't had much luck attracting private investors lately. The WSJ details that the problem may also be more pronounced in the smaller, regional banks that won't be able to come up with capital as easily. Regions Financial Corp., for example, doesn't even have any preferred shares it could convert into common stock. Indeed, the LAT declares that the results of the tests "could increase pressures on some large regional banks to merge with others."

Despite the continuing concerns—critics still insist the government projections were too rosy—investors reacted positively to the early leaked results. Shares of banks that will need to raise more capital soared yesterday, and the Dow Jones industrial average rose 1.2 percent. Government officials continue to believe that most banks will be able to raise the necessary capital without having to turn to the government for help. And while it has been said over and over again that those that can't raise money on their own could get the capital by converting the government's preferred shares into common stock, the WSJ makes clear there's also another option available. In what's known as "mandatory convertible preferred" shares, the banks would sell preferred shares to the Treasury that would only convert into common equity if the bank posts losses in the future. This would help the government avoid controlling the banks, at least for a little while.

In its own front-page piece about the stress tests, the NYT notes that while the government may be simply moving "public money from one pot to another," it still represents a "riskier deal for taxpayers."

In an op-ed piece in the NYT, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner writes that the stress test results mark "an important step forward in President Obama's program to help repair the financial system, restore the flow of credit and put our nation on the path to economic recovery." Banks have already taken positive steps in response to the stress test, but "[o]ur work is far from over." Credit is still too scarce and expensive, while the recession and financial crisis continue, but, at the very least, the stress tests "should advance the process of repairing our financial system and provide a better foundation for recovery."

Afghan officials say as many as 130 civilians were killed by Monday's airstrikes in western Afghanistan. If that number is close to accurate, it "will almost certainly be the worst in terms of civilian deaths since the American intervention began in 2001," notes the NYT. The paper gets in touch with a few villagers, who describe a horrific scene full of dead bodies and loose limbs that was the result of a seemingly endless aerial campaign. "It would scare a man if he saw it in a dream," one said. A joint U.S.-Afghan team will investigate the casualty claims, but military officials cautioned against jumping to conclusions. The NYT hears word that investigators are looking into whether the Taliban may have used grenades to kill civilians and then claim they were victims of airstrikes. One military official even says that an examination of the site and some victims suggests that much of the damage appears to have been caused by grenadelike weapons rather than the larger bombs that would be dropped by a plane.

The WP fronts a look at the results of the White House's much-touted efforts to examine the federal budget "line by line" to find savings. Today, the administration will say it wants to cut back on 121 programs to save a grand total of $17 billion. And, yes, that is a tiny fraction—0.5 percent to be exact—of the $3.4 trillion budget. Even assuming he manages to get approval for all the cuts, which is highly unlikely, Obama's goal is about half of what his predecessor said he wanted to cut back on last year when he targeted 151 programs to save $34 billion. Administration officials insist the number shouldn't be looked at as the last word on savings and is just the beginning of a broader effort.

The NYT, LAT, and WP front dispatches out of Pakistan, where thousands of people have fled the Swat Valley and many have nowhere to go. "This is a massive, massive displacement," a Red Cross official tells the LAT. "This is a serious humanitarian crisis developing." Officials say they will soon open up several refugee camps, but so far those who are rushing to escape the violence have to largely fend for themselves.

Making fun of Sen. Arlen Specter's predicament after he switched from Republican to Democrat seems to be the new Washington sport, but no one seems to have as much fun with it as the WP's Dan Balz. Although Specter was praised by Democrats for his switch, they don't quite trust him enough yet and Republicans, can't stop speaking ill of him. "There is a certain justice in all of this," Balz writes before explicitly noting that Specter is decidedly not a team player.

In an interesting front-page piece, the LAT takes a look at how it may now be legal for doctors in Washington state to help terminal patients end their lives, but that doesn't mean it's easy to find a physician willing to go through with the procedure, particularly in rural areas. Outside urban centers, Washington residents are left "with the same problem women seeking abortions in conservative rural communities have faced: It's legal, but health providers' moral qualms mean it's essentially unavailable."

The WP's George Will has apparently decided he wants to cause more outrage among environmentalists, who were already clamoring for his head after a Feb. 15 column about global warming. Today, Will writes that the only way an American car company can be successful in designing a popular hybrid is if it "can do what Toyota does with the Prius: Sell its hybrid without significant, if any, profit and sustain this practice, as Toyota does, by selling about twice as many of the gas-thirsty pickup trucks that the president thinks are destroying the planet." Will made a similar point over the weekend and several have been quick to debunk the claims, noting that Toyota and Honda make about $3,100 on each hybrid, which is similar to what they make on other cars. In fact, it seems that this business that doesn't give Toyota much money has actually earned the company around $1 billion last year.

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[Today's Papers] from [Slate Magazine]

Stress Test Results Not That Stressful

By Daniel Politi
Posted Thursday, May 7, 2009, at 6:43 AM ET

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Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said there should be a large-scale study to examine the possible impact of legalizing and taxing marijuana for recreational use in California. The proposal to use marijuana to help the state with its budget woes isn't new, and no one thinks it has much of a chance of becoming a reality anytime soon, but legalization advocates say the simple fact that Schwarzenegger seems willing to discuss the issue is important. "What stands out about Gov. Schwarzenegger's comment is not that he thought it, but that he said it," the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance said. "There has been enormous fear at a political level about saying out loud and on the record that we should think about this."