news.notes20090524a

[Biography of the Day] from [Britannica]

Sunday, May 24, 2009
Queen Victoria
Born this day in 1819, Victoria, queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1837–1901) and empress of India (1876–1901), gave her name to an era that was marked by British expansion and economic prosperity.

[On This Day] from [Britannica]

Sunday, May 24, 2009
1883: Opening of the Brooklyn Bridge
A brilliant feat of 19th-century engineering, the Brooklyn Bridge—spanning the East River from Brooklyn to Manhattan Island in New York City—opened this day in 1883, designed by civil engineer John Augustus Roebling.


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

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Second batch of MOX delivered to Saga reactor
（ＭＯＸ燃料：浜岡原発に次いで玄海原発に陸揚げ）
Controversial nuclear fuel stirs safety concerns in Kyushu

By ERIC JOHNSTON
Staff writer

GENKAI, Saga Pref. — The second of three deliveries of mixed uranium-plutonium oxide (MOX) fuel manufactured in France arrived at Kyushu Electric Power Co.'s Genkai No. 3 reactor in northern Saga Prefecture early Saturday morning.

If plans proceed on schedule, this plant on the Sea of Japan coast will see the country's first commercial use of the controversial fuel later this year.

Security was tight as a small flotilla of Japan Coast Guard ships escorted the Pacific Heron into the dock beside the plant. Heavy security checks were in place for all vehicles entering the main gate.

About 75 antinuclear protesters from around Japan were gathered in front of the main entrance, calling for a halt to the MOX program over safety and environmental concerns, especially the issue of nuclear waste.

"The entire MOX plan needs to be rethought, especially since there is no way to dispose of the radioactive waste that results from using the uranium-plutonium fuel," said Yasutaka Yoshimori, a local antinuclear activist.

Kyushu Electric officials, citing security reasons, refused to divulge how much MOX would be given to Genkai. The Tokyo-based Citizens' Nuclear Information Center says both the Pacific Heron and its sister ship, the Pacific Pintail, are likely carrying about 1.7 tons of plutonium in 69 fuel assemblies, of which 20 would be unloaded at Genkai.

CNIC also believes 28 units were unloaded at Chubu Electric's Hamaoka No. 4 reactor in Shizuoka Prefecture last week, and that the Ikata No. 3 reactor in Ehime Prefecture will get the final 28 in a few days.

The government and nuclear power officials have repeatedly said MOX is safe, and, together with French maker Areva insist shipping it halfway around the world does not increase nuclear proliferation risks.

But Greenpeace warns that the largest shipment of MOX fuel to Japan presents a great proliferation risk.

"There is enough plutonium (in all of the MOX shipments) to make 225 nuclear weapons," Greenpeace said in a statement back in March.

Kyushu Electric will be conducting tests on the Genkai No. 3 reactor, which burns conventional uranium fuel, until August, after which it will and make preparations to load it with MOX. If all goes according to schedule, the plant will use MOX to generate electricity for Saga Prefecture and the Fukuoka area by November.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Robbery suspect linked to cabby case

OSAKA (Kyodo) A fresh arrest warrant was served to a 37-year-old man Saturday on suspicion he attacked a taxi driver in Matsubara, Osaka Prefecture, in January during a murder-robbery attempt, police officials said.

The man, Shotetsu An, allegedly slashed the neck of driver Toshiki Nozawa, 61, in the early hours of Jan. 5 and stole 25,000 from the taxi. Nozawa was seriously injured.

An was initially arrested over a March 27 convenience-store robbery and is standing trial. The new arrest warrant was issued after recent DNA tests revealed that Nozawa's blood was on An's sneakers during the convenience store robbery, the police said.

An has denied involvement in the Nozawa case.

"I was sleeping all day on that day. I've never been to Matsubara, either," he was quoted as telling investigators.

The police also suspect An was involved the murder-robbery of another taxi driver in December in Higashiosaka, Osaka Prefecture, in which driver Toshiharu Goto, 67, was killed, sources said.

An was 2.8 million in debt to several consumer lenders and may have attacked the drivers to steal money, the sources said.

About eight years ago, An worked for a building-cleaning company in Matsubara, the sources said, adding that this experience probably expanded his geographical knowledge of the area.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Sunday, May 24, 2009
GPS studied as tool to track ex-convicts

(Kyodo News) The Justice Ministry will begin research on how other countries employ satellite-based global positioning systems to locate people released from prison and to see if the systems work at discouraging repeat offenders.

Officials said they will not set the development of a similar system for Japan as the goal of the research, but said the move is likely to spark criticism among those who believe such surveillance violates human rights.

Countries including the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Canada already use GPS-based monitoring systems to track some former prisoners, and the ministry is planning to learn by the end of fiscal 2010, or March 31, 2011, why they did so, the purpose of their use, who is being targeted, what devices are used, and how the systems operate.

Some countries use GPS to prevent sex offenders visiting specific locations, while others use the technology to ease overcrowding in prisons by releasing offenders tagged with the devices.

The use of GPS was included as an item for study in an action plan finalized at a meeting of Cabinet ministers concerning crime prevention in December.


[BUSINESS]
Sunday, May 24, 2009
G8 energy chiefs to discuss oil, futures oversight
（G8 環境相会合で石油先物取引に言及）

(Kyodo News) Japan will press for regulating speculative money in oil futures when energy ministers from the Group of Eight major nations gather in Rome for a two-day meeting Sunday, government officials said.

The Rome energy conference is set to discuss issues ranging from stability in oil markets to cooperation in promoting energy-efficient technologies, but Japan's focus is on ensuring price stability in oil futures.

Tokyo's proposal is expected to face opposition from countries that want to avoid excessive control of the markets, the officials said.

The ministers from the G8, also including Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and the United States, will be joined by counterparts from some emerging economies, including China and India, as well as oil-producing countries such as Saudi Arabia in most of their sessions.

Ministers and officials from a total of 22 countries will try to reach a consensus on energy strategies in response to global climate change, as well as on investment to maintain oil production capacity even amid the worldwide financial turmoil and economic downturn.

They will also discuss establishing a working group within the G8 framework to fight "energy poverty" in Africa, the Japanese government said.

Oil price volatility will be a dominant issue during the meeting.

Crude oil prices are hovering around $60 dollars per barrel, after surging to a record high of $147 last summer and falling to around $30 amid the financial turmoil.

Japan and some other Asian countries have agreed on the need to regulate speculative money in the oil futures market and limit positions held by short-term investors like hedge funds.

In April, 20 oil producing and importing countries from Asia and the Middle East gathered in Tokyo, stressing the importance of taking further harmonized actions.

Japan, which hosted the energy ministers' meeting last year when it held the G8 presidency, briefed its G8 colleagues on the results of the April meeting at working-level talks ahead of the Rome conference.

"Last year, we failed to deliver a strong message on financial regulation due to opposition especially from the United States and Britain," a Japanese official said. "This time is our second attempt. But we don't know whether we could get something included in a document to be issued after the meeting."

Italy, the host of the upcoming meeting, is planning to issue a joint statement.

The G8 ministers are likely to express concern that oil producers have cut investment to maintain output capacity.

news.notes20090524b

[Top News on Today's Paper] from [Los Angeles Times]

Al Qaeda recruits back in Europe, but why?
Four men say their training experience in Pakistan wasn't what they hoped for. Anti-terrorism officials wonder if they're just biding their time, ready to strike in Europe.

By Sebastian Rotella
May 24, 2009

Reporting from Brussels -- Determined to die as martyrs, the French and Belgian militants bought hiking boots and thermal underwear and journeyed to the wilds of Waziristan.

After getting ripped off in Turkey and staggering through waist-deep snow in Iran, the little band arrived in Al Qaeda's lair in Pakistan last year, ready for a triumphant reception.

"We were expecting at least a welcome for 'our brothers from Europe' and a warm atmosphere of hospitality," Walid Othmani, a 25-year-old Frenchman from Lyon, recalled during an overnight interrogation in January.

Instead, the Europeans -- and at least one American -- learned that life in the shadow of the Predator is nasty, brutish and short.

Wary of spies, suspicious Al Qaeda chiefs grilled the half-dozen Belgians and French. They charged them $1,200 each for AK-47 rifles, ammunition and grenades. They made them fill out forms listing next of kin and their preference: guerrilla fighting, or suicide attacks?

Then the trainees dodged missile strikes for months. They endured disease, quarrels and boredom, huddling in cramped compounds that defied heroic images of camps full of fraternal warriors.

"What you see in videos on the Net, we realized that was a lie," Othmani told police. "[Our chief] told us the videos . . . served to impress the enemy and incite people to come fight, and he knew this was a scam and propaganda."

Disenchantment aside, the accounts of four of the returning militants arrested in Europe combine with intercepts to paint a detailed picture of Al Qaeda's secret compounds. They also reinforce intelligence that a campaign of U.S. Predator drone airstrikes has sown suspicion and disarray and stoked tension with tribes in northwestern Pakistan, anti-terrorism officials say.

At the same time, the case shows that wily militant leaders still wage war in South Asia and train a flow of foreign recruits. The few trainees from the West remain an urgent concern. Anti-terrorism forces have detected at least one American, a convert to Islam, who trained with Al Qaeda in Pakistan during the last year, Western officials say.

Militant paths from the U.S. and Europe may cross: Prosecutors in Brussels have made a request to interrogate a witness now in the United States who was in Pakistan with the European suspects, a Belgian anti-terrorism official said.

Police in Europe tracked the group's radicalization and travel with the help of real-time U.S. intercepts that corroborate the confessions, and they exploited the men's reliance on the Internet. Fear of an imminent attack spurred their arrests here in December after Hicham Beyayo, 25, a Belgian just back from Pakistan, sent a troubling e-mail to his girlfriend.

"I am leaving for an O [operation] and I don't think I will return," Beyayo wrote Dec. 6, according to investigative documents. "My request has been accepted. You will get a video from me to you from the [organization]."

Beyayo told police that he was boasting to impress his girlfriend. But investigators believe the group may have been groomed for missions at home.

"They were much more valuable for operations in Europe," said the Belgian anti-terrorism official, who, like others interviewed, requested anonymity because the investigation is continuing. "Al Qaeda does not need Belgians and French to fight in Afghanistan."

Islamic resistance doesn't come cheap

Beyayo is about 5-foot-5, chubby and bespectacled. Like the others, he is of North African descent. He grew up in the tough Anderlecht neighborhood of Brussels, and his brothers have done time for robbery and arms trafficking. But he does not have a criminal record. He interspersed college courses with fundamentalist Islam.

"He is the intellectual of the family," said his lawyer, Christophe Marchand. "He bears no ill will against Belgium. He went to Afghanistan to join an Islamic resistance movement."

Islamic resistance is expensive. The unemployed Beyayo scrounged together about $5,000 for the trip.

The Frenchman Othmani, a father of two, had to borrow about $1,000 from his mother, and he spent hundreds on hiking boots, a sleeping bag, thermal underwear and a "big Columbia-brand jacket for the cold."

The leader was Moez Garsalloui, 42, a Tunisian married to the Belgian widow of a militant who killed Ahmed Shah Massoud, an anti-Taliban warlord, in a suicide bombing two days before the Sept. 11 attacks.

The balding, bearded Garsalloui sought recruits among visitors to a radical website run by his wife, who is revered in militant circles.

It was Garsalloui's first trip to South Asia, but he took advantage of his wife's strong Al Qaeda ties, investigators say. He organized smuggling contacts and met four Belgians and two French in Istanbul in December 2007. He carried a bag full of cash -- about $40,000, according to the confessions.

Garsalloui went ahead alone, leaving the others to a harsh monthlong trek. Turkish smugglers frightened them by waving a pistol around, charged extra because they were "Arabs," and stole their gear and clothes, claiming it was for charity.

"They cleaned us out," Othmani recalled. "What they took was for the so-called poor, but evidently it was nothing of the kind."

Later, the recruits tried to burn their passports "because we all intended to die as martyrs in Afghanistan," Othmani said. But the smugglers confiscated the documents.

Next came a nocturnal mountain crossing into Iran. The recruits struggled through deep snow. A Belgian's foot turned blue. Beyayo fell repeatedly, dragged along by comrades as he moaned that this was the place where they would die.

After several men called their mothers from Iran, the group entered Pakistan via Zahedan, an Iranian border town that is a hub for militants and smugglers, the Belgian anti-terrorism official said. As they approached the tribal zone dominated by the Taliban, military patrols looked the other way and diners at a roadside restaurant seemed to know exactly where they were headed.

Their destination was a village in the Waziristan region about two hours past Bannu. But the reception was nothing like the heyday of the Afghan camps when Westerners, especially converts, got a chance to meet Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden himself.

Saudi Arabians armed with AK-47s emerged from a mosque looking hostile. They thought the French in particular could be spies, a senior French anti-terrorism official said. Increasing infiltration has contributed to recent captures and killings of militants, investigators say.

"They thought they would get a hero's welcome because they were Europeans," the Belgian official said. "That was not the case."

Tensions eased when Garsalloui showed up. But the recruits were kept in a kind of limbo. They had the misfortune of arriving just as U.S. forces unleashed a drone-fired missile barrage that would kill half a dozen veteran Al Qaeda chieftains in 2008. In an e-mail to his wife, Garsalloui said he narrowly escaped a strike that had killed a top Libyan. "I came close to dying," he wrote.

Fearful of the drones as well as informants spotting them and targeting hide-outs for missile strikes, the trainees hunkered inside during the day. They moved frequently among crowded, squalid houses shared with local families in mountain hamlets.

Hoping to fight

the Americans

The suspects say they wanted desperately to fight American troops in Afghanistan. To their dismay, the chiefs made them cough up more cash for weapons. They were assigned to train with an Arab group numbering 300 to 500, but spread out in small units for security. Religious and military instruction took place indoors, with firearms and explosives sessions confined to courtyards for secrecy.

A Saudi chief named Mortez assured the Europeans that they would go to the Afghan front. But idle weeks followed.

"We were quite angry for different reasons," Beyayo recalled. "We waited and Mortez's promises didn't come true. Life as seven together plus the host family was not always easy. And . . . [Garsalloui] played the little boss and gave us orders."

Only Garsalloui and a strapping Belgian, who both spoke fluent Arabic, went to Afghanistan as part of a Saudi unit.

Garsalloui later e-mailed a photo of himself wielding a grenade launcher to his wife. He bragged to comrades that he had killed American soldiers with a bazooka. Investigators are trying to verify the claim.

Meanwhile, Beyayo and Othmani say they chafed in safe houses, cooking foul meals, cringing during bombardments, getting sick. Beyayo suffered a bout of malaria.

A slippery character named Amar appeared, worsening the mood.

"We realized with time that this individual was there to test us, to spy on us," Beyayo recalled.

"He also gave us a speech according to which we should not dream because we were not ready to fight. . . . The idea of going back to Belgium and France began to form among us. Morale-wise, we were crushed."

One Belgian stormed out, intent on reaching the nearest city on his own and making his way back to Europe, the Belgian anti-terrorism official said. After hours of hiking through a desolate valley, he realized that it was hopeless and turned back.

CONTINUED ON news.notes20090524c

news.notes20090524c

[Top News on Today's Paper] from [Los Angeles Times]

Al Qaeda recruits back in Europe, but why?
Four men say their training experience in Pakistan wasn't what they hoped for. Anti-terrorism officials wonder if they're just biding their time, ready to strike in Europe.

By Sebastian Rotella
May 24, 2009

CONTINUED FROM news.notes20090524b

Late last year, Beyayo, Othmani and two others finally came home and into the clutches of police, who had monitored them closely. A central question: the extent of their involvement in terrorist activity.

Their defense lawyers insist that they are failed holy warriors.

"They just weren't tough enough," Marchand said.

Investigators have doubts. French police point out that the explosives instruction described by Othmani is far more extensive than that received by many previous trainees.

Police think the Europeans may have exaggerated their haplessness to conceal a dark purpose.

"We must therefore ask ourselves for what motive someone in [Pakistan] would take such a risk to shelter people who had no goal or usefulness as declared in some interrogations," a French police report concludes.

Assessing the threat is difficult: Sinister aspects mix with the mundane. The complaints about malaria, money and disrespect sum up the story. But so does the image of Garsalloui posing with his rocket launcher, eager to kill Americans.


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

U.S. Relies More on Aid of Allies in Terror Cases

By ERIC SCHMITT and MARK MAZZETTI
Published: May 23, 2009

WASHINGTON — The United States is now relying heavily on foreign intelligence services to capture, interrogate and detain all but the highest-level terrorist suspects seized outside the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, according to current and former American government officials.

The change represents a significant loosening of the reins for the United States, which has worked closely with allies to combat violent extremism since the 9/11 attacks but is now pushing that cooperation to new limits.

In the past 10 months, for example, about a half-dozen midlevel financiers and logistics experts working with Al Qaeda have been captured and are being held by intelligence services in four Middle Eastern countries after the United States provided information that led to their arrests by local security services, a former American counterterrorism official said.

In addition, Pakistan’s intelligence and security services captured a Saudi suspect and a Yemeni suspect this year with the help of American intelligence and logistical support, Pakistani officials said. The two are the highest-ranking Qaeda operatives captured since President Obama took office, but they are still being held by Pakistan, which has shared information from their interrogations with the United States, the official said.

The current approach, which began in the last two years of the Bush administration and has gained momentum under Mr. Obama, is driven in part by court rulings and policy changes that have closed the secret prisons run by the Central Intelligence Agency, and all but ended the transfer of prisoners from outside Iraq and Afghanistan to American military prisons.

Human rights advocates say that relying on foreign governments to hold and question terrorist suspects could carry significant risks. It could increase the potential for abuse at the hands of foreign interrogators and could also yield bad intelligence, they say.

The fate of many terrorist suspects whom the Bush administration sent to foreign countries remains uncertain. One suspect, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, who was captured by the C.I.A. in late 2001 and sent to Libya, was recently reported to have died there in Libyan custody.

“As a practical matter you have to rely on partner governments, so the focus should be on pressing and assisting those governments to handle those cases professionally,” said Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch.

The United States itself has not detained any high-level terrorist suspects outside Iraq and Afghanistan since Mr. Obama took office, and the question of where to detain the most senior terrorist suspects on a long-term basis is being debated within the new administration. Even deciding where the two Qaeda suspects in Pakistani custody will be kept over the long term is “extremely, extremely sensitive right now,” a senior American military official said, adding, “They’re both bad dudes. The issue is: where do they get parked so they stay parked?”

How the United States is dealing with terrorism suspects beyond those already in the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, was a question Mr. Obama did not address in the speech he gave Thursday about his antiterrorism policies. While he said he might seek to create a new system that would allow preventive detention inside the United States, the government currently has no obvious long-term detention center for imprisoning terrorism suspects without court oversight.

Mr. Obama has said he still intends to close the Guantánamo prison by January, despite misgivings in Congress, and the Supreme Court has ruled that inmates there may challenge their detention before federal judges. Some suspects are being imprisoned without charges at a United States air base in Afghanistan, but a federal court has ruled that at least some of them may also file habeas corpus lawsuits to challenge their detentions.

American officials say that in the last years of the Bush administration and now on Mr. Obama’s watch, the balance has shifted toward leaving all but the most high-level terrorist suspects in foreign rather than American custody. The United States has repatriated hundreds of detainees held at prisons in Cuba, Iraq and Afghanistan, but the current approach is different because it seeks to keep the prisoners out of American custody altogether.

How the United States deals with terrorism suspects remains a contentious issue in Congress.

Leon E. Panetta, the director of the C.I.A., said in February that the agency might continue its program of extraordinary rendition, in which captured terrorism suspects are transferred to other countries without extradition proceedings.

He said the C.I.A. would be likely to continue to transfer detainees from their place of capture to other countries, either their home countries or nations that intended to bring charges against them.

As a safeguard against torture, Mr. Panetta said, the United States would rely on diplomatic assurances of good treatment. The Bush administration sought the same assurances, which critics say are ineffective.

A half-dozen current and former American intelligence and counterterrorism officials and allied officials were interviewed for this article, but all spoke on the condition of anonymity because the detention and interrogation programs are classified.

Officials say the United States has learned so much about Al Qaeda and other militant groups since the 9/11 attacks that it can safely rely on foreign partners to detain and question more suspects. “It’s the preferred method now,” one former counterterrorism official said.

The Obama administration’s policies will probably become clearer after two task forces the president created in January report to him in July on detainee policy, interrogation techniques and extraordinary rendition.

In many instances now, allies are using information provided by the United States to pick up terrorism suspects on their own territory — including the two suspects seized in Pakistan this year.

The Saudi militant, Zabi al-Taifi, was picked up by Pakistani commandos in a dawn raid at a safe house outside Peshawar on Jan. 22, an operation conducted with the help of the C.I.A.

A Pakistani official said the Yemeni suspect, Abu Sufyan al-Yemeni, was a Qaeda paramilitary commander who was on C.I.A. and Pakistani lists of the top 20 Qaeda operatives. He was believed to be a conduit for communications between Qaeda leaders in Pakistan and cells in East Africa, Iran, Yemen and elsewhere. American and Pakistani intelligence officials say they believe that Mr. Yemeni, who was arrested Feb. 24 by Pakistani authorities in Quetta, helped arrange travel and training for Qaeda operatives from various parts of the Muslim world to the Pakistani tribal areas.

He is now in the custody of Pakistan’s main spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, but his fate is unclear. The Pakistani official said that he would remain in Pakistani hands, but that it would be difficult to try him because the evidence against him came from informers.

American officials said the United States would still take custody of the most senior Qaeda operatives captured in the future. As a model, they cited the case of Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, an Iraqi Kurd who is said to have joined Al Qaeda in the late 1990s and risen to become a top aide to Osama bin Laden, and who was captured by a foreign security service in 2006. He was handed over to the C.I.A., which transferred him to Guantánamo Bay in April 2007. He was one of the last detainees shipped there.

news.notes20090524d

[Business on Today's Paper] fom [The Washington Post]

Pelosi Mum On Rights Before Trip To China
Speaker, as Clinton Has, Plays Down Topic; Focus Will Be Climate Talks

By Ariana Eunjung Cha and Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, May 24, 2009

BEIJING, May 24 -- For the second time this year, a top U.S. official visiting China has declined in advance to publicly discuss Beijing's human rights record, a shift in practice that comes almost exactly two decades after the Tiananmen Square massacre.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who collided with Chinese authorities in 1991 when she unfurled a banner memorializing those who died in the square, arrived here Sunday saying only that she planned to discuss climate change with Chinese officials.

At a briefing in Washington before leaving for her week-long trip, Pelosi declined to say whether she planned to discuss human rights with her hosts. Instead, she said only that she would focus on securing support for a global pact on reducing carbon emissions, in advance of a major international gathering on climate change scheduled for December in Copenhagen.

"We have to . . . learn from each other as we go forward. So that is the subject," she told reporters, ignoring several requests to address human rights issues.

In February, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, on her maiden voyage as the top U.S. diplomat, also pointedly played down human rights issues when she traveled to Beijing. Clinton drew criticism from human rights activists by saying that pressing China on that issue "can't interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crisis." On matters such as greater freedom for Tibetans, she said, "We pretty much know what [Beijing is] going to say."

Clinton generated headlines in 1995 for a speech on human rights in Beijing as first lady, and Pelosi's advance aversion to the topic is equally striking. Although Pelosi is the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Beijing since President Obama took office, she has been a frequent public critic of China, especially after Beijing sent the People's Liberation Army to quell huge pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. Hundreds of people were killed, many were arrested or jailed for years, and China's relations with the West were left badly frayed.

The anniversary of the protests is 10 days away, and Beijing is highly sensitive to any commemoration of the event, for which it has never accounted.

Throughout her 22 years in Congress, Pelosi -- whose home district of San Francisco includes a large number of Chinese immigrants and their families -- has championed the cause of human rights in China. Before she became a congressional leader, she cited the Tiananmen massacre as cause for the Clinton administration to link human rights issues to normalizing trade relations with China. But in 1994, President Bill Clinton rejected that argument and delinked from the human rights issue what was then known as the most-favored-nation status. Pelosi protested the decision, to no avail.

In March 2008, Pelosi condemned China's rule of Tibet when violent riots erupted in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa and the Chinese government responded by taking into custody monks and others it suspected of having a role. She said "freedom-loving people" should "speak out against China's oppression in Tibet." Pelosi also said the International Olympic Committee made a mistake in awarding the Summer Games to Beijing, because of its human rights record.

During this trip, by contrast, Pelosi and members of the Select Committee on Climate Change and Energy Independence will meet with government officials, business leaders and students. On Tuesday, she is scheduled to give a speech at an event hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce in China about how China and the United States together account for nearly half the global energy demand and how clean technology can help solve the problem. She will also visit Shanghai.

Pragmatism now seems to be driving the U.S. agenda. The Obama administration has high hopes of winning China's cooperation on reducing harmful greenhouse gases, while close coordination between the two countries on economic issues has become critical amid the ongoing global financial crisis.

China is the biggest foreign holder of U.S. debt, which helped finance the spending binge the United States went on before the economic crisis. Some experts have expressed concern that China's substantial holdings of U.S. debt give it increased leverage in dealings with Washington because any halt in Chinese purchases of U.S. bonds would make it more difficult to finance the government bailout and stimulus packages.

Reflecting Washington's concern, Clinton even publicly urged China during her visit to keep investing its substantial foreign-exchange reserves in U.S. Treasury securities, saying, "We are truly going to rise or fall together."

news.notes20090524e

[Today's News] from [The Guardian]

Cameron hints at clearout of Tory old guard
Conservative leader says he wants people with no background in Tory politics to consider standing as candidates for parliament

Gaby Hinsliff and Andrew Sparrow
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 24 May 2009 12.55 BST
Article history

David Cameron today hinted at a desire to clear out the Conservative old guard when he said he wanted people with no background in Tory politics to consider standing for parliament as Conservative MPs.

In a move that suggests he feels the modernisation of the Conservative party has not gone far enough, Cameron said he would change party procedures to allow new people to put their names forward.

His comments are significant because the Tories will have to find candidates to stand in safe seats where MPs are standing down as a result of the expenses scandal.

Four backbenchers have already said they will not seek re-election as a result of the revelations, and more are expected to follow.

In an interview on BBC1's Andrew Marr programme today, Cameron said he did not want parliament to be full of "robots".

"What I'm going to do today is I'm going to reopen the Conservative candidate list to anybody who wants to apply," he said.

"They may not have had anything to do with the party before.

"But I'm saying, if you believe in public service, if you share our values, if you want to help us clean up politics, come and be a Conservative candidate."

The development suggests he would like to use the expenses controversy as an opportunity for a clearout of some of his party's MPs.

He has been concerned that recent stories about the lifestyles of Tory MPs have reinforced perceptions that his party is out of touch with ordinary voters, and he knows some of his older MPs have little enthusiasm for his modernising policies.

Cameron also said he wanted his party to use more "open primaries" – selection contests open to people who are not party members – to select Tory candidates and that, if he were prime minister, he would allow more free votes in parliament if bills were not part of his party's manifesto.

He added that the decision of his former aide, Andrew Mackay, to announce that he would stand down from parliament was the correct one.

The Tory leader said he had had a "straightforward conversation" with Mackay about it yesterday before the announcement was made.

"It was absolutely the right thing for him to retire," he said.

"It was one of the most serious cases. It was a misjudgement and he is paying the price for that."

Mackay's departure, marking Cameron's first loss from his inner circle, came after two weeks in which Labour had appeared more damaged than the Conservatives by the stream of revelations in the Telegraph.

His expenses claims came to light as a result of checks by Tory officials ahead of publication in the Telegraph.

Paperwork showed that while he claimed the London home for which both he and his wife, Julie Kirkbride, the Tory MP for Bromsgrove, were named on the mortgage, as his second home, he did not appear to have a main home of his own since he did not have a house in his Bracknell constituency.

MPs with only one home are not entitled to a second home allowance.

The spotlight will now inevitably turn on Kirkbride, who came under further pressure today after the News of the World reported that her brother, Ian, had lived at the couple's Worcestershire home since 2004.

She rushed out a statement saying her brother spent time at both of their homes, but insisted she had nothing to apologise for.

"My brother Ian stays in my Bromsgrove apartment and in my London home from time to time to help look after my son," she said.

"I claim no expenses for my brother and neither do I pay him or claim for his help. He also acts as a volunteer in helping me with office work and administration."

Claims that he had been living there "rent-free" at taxpayers' expense were a "total distortion," she said.

Yesterday, shoppers queued in Bromsgrove town centre to sign a petition calling for her to resign, but the Tory leader said: "She genuinely lives in London, her children go to school in London. We have to look at that case separately."

Cameron said the party had already used open primaries to select candidates in some constituencies, and they had been very successful.

"It worked fantastically well and I want to see more of it," he added.

He suggested that the use of primaries could lead to celebrities such as such as Joanna Lumley becoming MPs.

The three main parties fear they could be severely punished as voters desert to smaller parties untainted by the expenses scandal.




With dozens of MPs across all parties now said to be considering stepping down, the former cabinet minister Ian McCartney announced he would quit at the next election.

Colleagues said although he was not regarded as having been a particularly excessive claimant, he had suffered a furious backlash from constituents in Makerfield over his published expenses.

He had already offered to pay back around £15,000 after purchasing items including champagne flutes. McCartney was for many years regarded as an invaluable and trusted bridge between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

The Sunday Telegraph has placed senior Liberal Democrat MP Malcolm Bruce in the spotlight, saying he claimed for thousands of pounds towards the running of both his London flat and his constituency home, where his wife worked for him.

Normally MPs can only claim expenses for their second homes.

The newspaper said he was one of 200 MPs who had been able to claim money for a main home, in addition to their second home, because their spouses worked there on parliamentary business.

It said Derek Conway, the MP expelled last year from the Tory party over payments to his two sons, was able to claim for office expenses at a family home in Morpeth, Northumberland, as well as mortgage interest on his designated second home in London, although the Morpeth house is more than 300 miles from his Old Bexley and Sidcup constituency.

The Labour minister Quentin Davies is said to have claimed more than £10,000 to repair window frames at an 18th-century mansion in Lincolnshire designated as his second home.

news.notes20090524f

[Today's Paper] from [Slate Magazine]

With a Little Help from My Friends

By Roger McShane
Posted Sunday, May 24, 2009, at 6:14 AM ET

The New York Times leads with the U.S. depending on foreign intelligence services to do its dirty work in the war on terror. The current approach, which began under George Bush and continues under Barack Obama, relies on foreign governments "to capture, interrogate and detain all but the highest-level terrorist suspects seized outside the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan." The Los Angeles Times leads with the story of four French and Belgian al-Qaida recruits who were picked up by police in Europe after they traveled to Pakistan. The seemingly failed recruits "just weren't tough enough," says one of their lawyers. But anti-terrorism officials wonder if they were meant to attack inside Europe. The Washington Post leads with Nancy Pelosi's trip to China, where she will focus on the country's carbon emissions. The Post notes that Pelosi, a staunch critic of Beijing's human rights record, declined to say whether that topic would come up in her talks. Hillary Clinton played down human rights when she visited China earlier in the year, and the paper sees a trend.

In it's lead, the NYT notes America is continuing to provide intelligence and logistical support to foreign governments, but it's letting them pick up and detain terror suspects. This has put Barack Obama in a tough spot. He is likely to take heat from the left for continuing a Bush-era approach that has the U.S. relying on regimes that are known to torture prisoners. Yet Obama's own policies—such as closing the prisons at Guantánamo Bay and the CIA's black sites—have left him with few options. For example, one official says the administration is having an "extremely, extremely sensitive" debate over what to do with two al-Qaida suspects in Pakistani custody. "They're both bad dudes," says the official. "The issue is: where do they get parked so they stay parked?" That is something that the president did not address in his speech on Thursday.

The Belgian and French governments are trying to figure out if four returning al-Qaida recruits are bad dudes or really bad dudes. The LAT weaves an interesting, if confusing, tale of how the four men were determined to fight in Afghanistan, but came home after getting ripped off by guides, dodging missile strikes, and enduring "disease, quarrels and boredom" in a Pakistani training camp. It makes for a good story, but there are aspects that are begging for more details. For example, the Times says the recruits trained with an American, but that's all the information we get. In another section, investigators claim that the "increasing infiltration" of al-Qaida "has contributed to recent captures and killings of militants." But no one explains who's infiltrating the group or how they are doing it.