news20090603brt

[Biography of the Day] from [Britannica]

Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Josephine Baker
Entertainer Josephine Baker, born in Missouri this day in 1906, became one of France's most popular performers, took French citizenship, worked with the Resistance in World War II, and received the Legion of Honour.

[On This Day] from [Britannica]

Wednesday, June 3, 2009
1989: Prodemocracy protest in Tiananmen Square crushed by Chinese military
On this day in 1989, the Chinese government called in the military to put down a prodemocracy demonstration staged by more than 100,000 people in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, resulting in hundreds of deaths.

news20090603jt1

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

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Wednesday, June 3, 2009

LDP puts off ban on hereditary candidates
自民、世襲制限見送り

(Kyodo News) With only a few months remaining until the next Lower House election must be called, the Liberal Democratic Party has postponed a plan to restrict so-called hereditary candidates until after the campaign, party sources said Tuesday.

The postponement comes amid speculation that Prime Minister Taro Aso may dissolve the Lower House in late June or early July and call a snap election in early or late August. The current term of Lower House members expires in September.

The LDP apparently failed to forge a consensus among its members, many of whom are from well-established political families. Such a rule would prevent their kin from inheriting not only their electoral districts but also their support groups and fundraising machines.

Because of their easy wins in elections, such hereditary politicians are often criticized for an inability to grasp voter sentiment or develop policies that connect with the public.

The LDP has judged that excluding hereditary candidates, some of whom have already obtained informal endorsements as the party's official candidates in the upcoming election, "would harm the LDP's trustworthiness," the sources said.

Last month, an LDP task force on internal party reform drafted a proposal that would have banned endorsing hereditary candidates in future elections. But Yoshihide Suga, a key member of the reform drive, recently changed his stance and the plan was watered down, the sources said.

With the postponement, Shinjiro Koizumi, the second son of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, is expected to run as an LDP candidate in his father's district in Kanagawa Prefecture.

Shoichi Usui, the eldest son of former Justice Minister Hideo Usui, will also run as an LDP candidate and hope to inherit his father's district in Chiba Prefecture.

The postponement means the LDP is lagging behind the Democratic Party of Japan to present a clean public image in the runup to the campaign.

The DPJ decided in April not to endorse hereditary politicians in the next election and is likely to bring up the issue to differentiate itself from the LDP.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Letter to Obama likens North's gulags to Nazis
オバマ宛書簡、北朝鮮の強制収容所ナチスに類似

By ALEX MARTIN
Staff writer

U.S. President Barack Obama, who will pay his respects Friday at the infamous Buchenwald Nazi concentration camp in Germany, has been sent an open letter from a Japanese citizens' group calling for the international community to denounce North Korea's notorious gulag system and not just focus on Pyongyang's nuclear threat.

No Fence, a Tokyo-based association seeking the release of political prisoners in North Korea, where as many as 300,000 people are believed to be subjected to torture, hard labor and execution, said in the letter dated Monday that if the world does not recognize the horror taking place in the dictatorship, "we will be questioned by future generations on why we failed to apply the lesson of past crimes against humanity."

The letter was endorsed by representatives of various international human rights organizations, including U.S.-based Human Rights Watch, South Korea's Committee for the Democratization of North Korea and Japan's Association of the Families of Victims Kidnapped by North Korea.

The letter will also be sent to 3,000 lawmakers of leading industrial nations to spread awareness of the issue.

Song Yoon Bok, secretary general of No Fence, expressed concern that while Americans and Europeans are well aware of the brutalities inflicted by Nazi Germany, particularly against the Jews, they have little knowledge of the atrocities being committed today in North Korean prison camps.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il "is using his nukes and missiles to attract the attention of the international community in order to hide the most ugly aspect of his dictatorship — the concentration camps," Song said. "We hope attention will be paid (to the camps), and adequate pressure be added by the international community."

Obama will attend a memorial ceremony at the Buchenwald camp along with German Chancellor Angela Merkel before he heads to Normandy in France to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings.

Obama's great uncle, Charles Payne, 84, was among the U.S. infantrymen who liberated Ohrdruf, a subcamp of Buchenwald, in April 1945.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Foreigners stage a sit-in outside Diet to protest immigration bills
在留外国人、入管法改正に国会前で座り込み

(Kyodo News) About 20 foreign workers and their supporters staged a sit-in Tuesday in front of the Diet to demand that bills to revise the immigration law be scrapped.

The bills, now before the Lower House Judicial Affairs Committee, would put a greater burden on foreign workers and violate their rights, participants at the sit-in argued.

"The government says the immigration law revision would make administrative procedures more convenient for foreigners living in Japan legally, but the realities would be vice versa," Catherine Campbell said in Japanese.

Campbell, a 43-year-old English teacher from Canada who has been living in Japan for 15 years, said the revision would require non-Japanese workers to report to an immigration office every time they renew their job contracts or change their address, putting an extra burden on them.

Foreign workers currently report those changes to their local municipal government offices. But that practice would end because all administrative work concerning foreigners would be undertaken by the central government.

The revision would impose a fine of up to 200,000 on people who fail to notify the government of a change in address within 14 days, and their residency status could be revoked if they fail to report the change within 90 days.

Kunio Ozwaldo Hiramoto, 46, a second-generation Japanese-Brazilian from Odawara, Kanagawa Prefecture, said the purpose of the revision is to increase control over foreign workers. "I want the Japanese government to stop xenophobia and treat foreigners warmly," he said.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Carmakers hope for quick GM recovery
車両業界、GMの迅速な回復に期待

(Kyodo News) Automakers and business leaders here hope General Motors Corp.'s bankruptcy and subsequent U.S. government measures will help get the ailing auto giant quickly back on its feet to stem the ill effects on the economy.

"It is important that GM works toward an early rehabilitation, which will lead to the development of the auto industry as a whole," Toyota Motor Corp. President Katsuaki Watanabe said.

"We hope for a solid market recovery."

Watanabe also said Japan's top automaker and GM plan to continue their car manufacturing joint venture in California, which dates back to 1984.

New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. produces the Toyota Corolla and Tacoma pickup truck as well as GM's Pontiac Vibe.

Toyota said in an official comment it hopes the bankruptcy proceedings and the U.S. government aid "will stabilize GM's business and lead to the competitive health of the entire industry."

Japan's top business leader, Fujio Mitarai, said the effective nationalization of GM will be "a short-term and exceptional measure" and was "an inevitable choice" to minimize the huge adverse impact on the U.S. economy.

"I hope this will allow GM to make a fresh start so it can be reborn as an even more powerful company," said Mitarai, chairman of the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren).

But Mitarai, who is also chairman of Canon Inc., added that while General Motor's problems were triggered by the global recession, they were also the result of a gradual social transition to energy efficiency and environmental friendliness.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Ethylene plant integration mulled
エチレンプラント業界、統合を検討

Kyodo NewsMitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corp. and Asahi Kasei Corp. said Tuesday they are studying a plan to integrate the operations of their ethylene plants in Okayama Prefecture because of poor overall demand for plastics and other materials made of ethylene.

The companies are thinking of suspending one of the facilities within three years. The integrated facilities will likely be operated by joint ventures to be formed around next April, according to a joint statement.

The two plants operated by their group companies — Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. and Asahi Kasei Chemicals Corp. — are capable of producing 890,000 tons of ethylene per year.

The plants are in the Mizushima district of Kurashiki. Okayama Prefecture is home to one of the largest concentrations of industrial plants in western Japan.

news20090603jt2

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

[BUSINESS NEWS]
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Hitachi still beset by inventory
日立建機、在庫に苦悩

(Bloomberg) Hitachi Construction Machinery Co. needs three more months to shed excess inventory after demand fell more than anticipated.

"We have said we aimed to complete inventory adjustments in June with adjustments in some regions possibly dragging out until September," Chief Executive Officer Michijiro Kikawa said. "Now, it's more likely that it will take until September for adjustments in all our markets."

Stockpiles of excavators totaled 8,200 units as of the end of April, exceeding the company's target of 7,800, Kikawa said. The company's largest factory in Tsuchiura, Ibaraki Prefecture, has reduced operations of its assembly line to five days a month from the usual 20 days.

Hitachi Construction is the world's largest maker of giant excavators.

Demand in Europe, Japan and the United States plummeted after the financial crisis, and the expected benefits from China's 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) stimulus plan aren't coming as quickly as the company expected, Kikawa said.

About 1,000 workers at Hitachi Construction's Tsuchiura factory will stay home for two extra days a week until the end of September to allow the company to restore production to normal levels.

"Demand from the entire market is severe," Kikawa, 61, said. "Even demand in China is not as strong as I expected."

Hitachi Construction, which competes with Komatsu Ltd. and U.S.-based Caterpillar Inc., will need to cut production further to meet a target set in April to reduce inventory of excavators to 4,800 units by the end of September, the CEO said. In some cases, the company is disassembling unsold machines and remodeling them with new parts to reduce inventory, Kikawa said.

Inventory cutbacks by Hitachi Construction and rival Komatsu "are being delayed as global demand for construction machinery is weaker than forecast by the market and the companies," said Shinji Kuroda, a Tokyo-based analyst at Credit Suisse Group. "There is a risk that earnings will fall short of their estimates."

Japan's shipments of construction machinery including excavators, tractors and cranes tumbled by a record 65 percent in April, led by declines in Europe and North America, the Japan Construction Equipment Manufacturers Association said.

Industry demand for excavators will probably fall 20 percent to 133,700 units for the next year, according to an April 27 estimate by Hitachi Construction. The excavator market will contract 36 percent in the first half before beginning a recovery with a 6 percent gain in the second half, Kikawa said.

Hitachi Construction expects to break even on an operating basis in the first half, Kikawa said."It won't be easy, but somehow we'll be able to meet it," he said.

The company's earnings prospects have been helped by the weakening yen, which boosts the value of overseas earnings when profit is repatriated. The company is also forecasting it will swing to a net loss of 12 billion for the six-month period.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Nomura's top execs watch pay drop 55%
野村ホールディングス重役の報酬、５５％に下落

(Bloomberg) Nomura Holdings Inc. said Tuesday its top executives' pay fell 55 percent in the year that ended March 31 as Japan's largest brokerage posted a record loss.

Chief Executive Officer Kenichi Watanabe, Deputy President Takumi Shibata and 18 other officials received an average of 41.5 million in compensation, compared with an average of 92.2 million for 13 executives a year earlier, according to a document Nomura sent to shareholders and posted on its Web site.

The document didn't list individual pay.

The compensation includes base salary and cash and stock bonuses, and the figure for the most recent fiscal year includes eight executives who retired during the year.

Nomura spokesman Tohru Namikawa confirmed the details of the document and said Nomura's executives may receive less compensation this fiscal year because the brokerage will skip cash bonuses.

Nomura posted a record 708.2 billion loss for the 12 months through March as tumbling stock markets slashed revenue and it spent more than $2 billion to integrate businesses acquired from Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

Nomura, which had 25,626 employees as of March 31, eliminated more than 2,000 positions between October and May.

The company will hold its general shareholders' meeting June 25.

"The environment surrounding the financial markets is expected to remain difficult," Watanabe said in the document.

Nomura, which didn't pay a fourth quarter dividend, hasn't provided an earnings forecast for the current fiscal year.

Daiwa Securities Group Inc., Japan's second-largest brokerage, said in a document to shareholders that Chief Executive Officer Shigeharu Suzuki and other 13 executives received an average of 40.5 million for the year, compared with an average of 56.4 million for 15 executives in the previous 12 months.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
GM Japan unit to keep running, may cut models
GM日本法人、一連の事業継続、車種は削減

(Kyodo News) General Motors Asia Pacific (Japan) Ltd. said Tuesday that it will continue operating but might halve the number of brands it handles to two now that the U.S. auto giant has filed for bankruptcy protection.

Rick Brown, president of the Japan unit of General Motors Corp., also said GM will continue its Canadian joint venture with Suzuki Motor Corp., saying CAMI Automotive Inc. will become "part of the new GM."

"This is not liquidation or bankruptcy," Brown told reporters in Tokyo. "Profit- and managementwise, it will become an even stronger company than before."

Brown emphasized that the Japanese unit, which sells four GM brands, faces no problems paying suppliers and dealers and will launch the new Chevrolet Camaro and Cadillac CTS Sport Wagon as planned later this year.

"With the new GM as our parent company, we will continue our operations like before," he said.

Brown said whether the Japanese unit can continue importing and selling the Hummer brand, which GM is expected to sell off, depends on the buyers. But he also said that GMAPJ will no longer be able to handle the Saab brand once GM completes the sale.

He said the Japanese unit, which sold about 1,600 cars in 2008, aims to boost annual sales to about 2,000 to 2,500 by 2011 and wants to roll out a hybrid car in Japan between 2012 and 2013.

He is not currently planning any job cuts at the Japanese unit, he said.

GM filed for bankruptcy protection Monday with liabilities totaling $172.81 billion in the largest nonfinancial bankruptcy in United States history. The filing came after the U.S. government said Sunday it will effectively nationalize the automaker to steer it to an early rehabilitation.

Good job: Yosano
Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano on Tuesday praised U.S. President Barack Obama's decision to reconstruct General Motors Corp. under temporary government control.

"This is a very tough way to resolve the outstanding issue," Yosano said. "But for the economy, I believe he made a very good decision."

Yosano, however, said the decision to revamp the major automaker under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection laws will likely lead to a slowdown in U.S. consumer spending as a result of job cuts and factory shutdowns associated with the turnaround process.

"I hope that GM will recover as early as possible," Yosano said.

Asked about the influence of GM's Chapter 11 filing on the Japanese economy and auto sector, he said: "There is an impact. But it is limited."

Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Toshihiro Nikai said the GM failure and the U.S. government's involvement in its restructuring efforts are "within expectations," again denying any immediate, serious impact on Japanese industries.

"I understand there is so far no confusion," Nikai said. "We will keep watching the situation."

Nikai earlier said the government is ready to rescue Japanese auto parts suppliers.

news20090603lat

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

[World News]
In Air France crash, deep seas stand between experts and answers
The Air France jet's wreckage is believed to be 2 miles beneath the Atlantic, perhaps beyond recovery.

By Ralph Vartabedian
June 3, 2009

If there is ever to be an answer to what caused Air France Flight 447 to fall from the sky, the best clues probably lie on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean amid rugged volcanic ridges and steep trenches, some plunging deeper than the Grand Canyon.

Search planes scouring the area Tuesday spotted a seat, an orange buoy, a tank and a fuel slick about 400 miles off the Brazilian coast. Brazilian authorities identified them as pieces from the Airbus A330 that disappeared late Sunday, and French officials reiterated that there was virtually no chance that any of the 228 people aboard survived.

Most of the wreckage is probably resting now 9,000 feet to 14,000 feet below the surface, where it is pitch black, the water temperature is 40 degrees and the pressure as high as 7,000 pounds per square inch, scientists said.

Investigators will have to send robotic submarines into this hostile environment to look for crucial pieces of evidence in the disappearance of the Paris-bound flight.

A battery-operated sonar "pinger," 4 inches long and about an inch in diameter, should already have started sending out acoustic signals from the ocean bottom about once every second. The pinger is attached to the flight data recorder, which is embedded in the rear section of the jetliner's fuselage. Another pinger is attached to the cockpit voice recorder.


Even with the help of those homing signals, the task of finding the debris amid the rugged seascape will not be easy, experts said. And if searchers find them, they will face challenges reaching the wreckage and determining what happened.

"You want to treat it like a crime scene, taking detailed photographs," said Dave Gallo, director of special operations at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. "In the past, the urge was to remove evidence as quickly as possible, but before you disturb anything you want a detailed survey."

The floating debris was spotted north of the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha off the Brazilian coast, suggesting that the plane disappeared not long after it last radioed its position.

But wind and ocean currents may have pushed the floating debris miles from the impact point in the intervening day, and it will be difficult for investigators to pinpoint the location of the most important pieces of evidence, the two so-called black boxes that record flight data and the voices of the pilots.

Brazilian air force Col. Jorge Amaral offered another explanation for why debris might be found slightly off the scheduled flight path. The pilots might have been attempting to make a turn, he said, acknowledging that his theory was only speculation.

The search crews have about 30 days before the batteries on the homing devices run out, said Thomas A. Greenacre, president of Dukane Corp.'s Seacom Division, the largest supplier of acoustic homing devices.

"It is at an extreme depth," Greenacre said. "The location and recovery will be very difficult." He said the beacons aboard the Airbus A330 were probably made by Dukane, but he could not be certain.

Plane crash investigations have recovered data from deep waters, but seldom at the depths that will be encountered in the case of Flight 447.

Most of the wreckage, as well as many human remains, were recovered from TWA Flight 800, a Boeing 747 that crashed off Long Island in 1996. But that plane sank in water only 120 feet deep, and at that depth divers were able to help.

Wreckage of the space shuttle Challenger and the remains of the astronauts were recovered off the Florida coast at a depth of less than 1,000 feet in 1986.

Debris from the crash of the small plane that took the life of John F. Kennedy Jr. nearly a decade ago was recovered from the Atlantic, but again from relatively shallow waters.

In 1987, a South African Airways 747 crashed into the Indian Ocean off the island nation of Mauritius, sinking to a depth of about 16,000 feet. After an unsuccessful two-month search by the South African military, the U.S. Navy was able to locate the wreckage and the cockpit voice recorder. The accident was eventually blamed on cargo that caught fire.

The wreckage of the Air France jetliner probably will contain much of the information that will be crucial to determining the cause of the crash, which occurred in a violent thunderstorm.

Search planes and ships converged on the area Tuesday, but clouds and more storms complicated their efforts.

Reaching any conclusion will require a wealth of data about the flight parameters, engine condition and discussions in the cockpit. Investigators will need to determine whether the wreckage shows any sign of an explosion and whether the aircraft broke apart before hitting the water.

The first step in getting that information will involve sending crews to the most likely impact point, where they will lower hydrophones into the water and attempt to pick up the homing signals. They will try to pinpoint the spot in the ocean directly over the wreckage, said Laurence Madin, director of research at Woods Hole.

The area of the crash is on the western flank of a mostly undersea mountain range called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which runs roughly north and south down the middle of the Atlantic. It was formed by plate movements and volcanoes, creating a geology of hard dense rock. It will make sonar operations particularly difficult, creating "shadows" in the signals that could mask the wreckage, Gallo said.

Once the wreckage is located, investigators probably will want detailed photographs of the debris field on the ocean floor before any recovery operations begin.

Only a few nations have the deep submersible vessels that can go to 14,000 feet. Woods Hole just sent one of its new robotic craft to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific, the deepest place in any ocean on Earth -- more than 35,000 feet.

The Alvin, owned by the U.S. Navy and operated by Woods Hole, can send a crew of three down to about 17,000 feet, but, at least initially, investigators probably will opt for a robotic craft for safety.

The robotic craft are connected to a mother ship by a fiber-optic umbilical cord, feeding video of the undersea scene. The craft has manipulator arms that can use tools to cut into the fuselage and extract the flight recorders.

The bigger question is whether French investigators will attempt to salvage the entire aircraft wreckage, as was done in the case of the TWA accident, and the remains of the passengers.

news20090603nyt

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

[Asia Pacific]
U.S. Report Finds Airstrike Errors in Afghan Deaths

By ERIC SCHMITT and THOM SHANKER
Published: June 2, 2009

WASHINGTON — A military investigation has concluded that American personnel made significant errors in carrying out some of the airstrikes in western Afghanistan on May 4 that killed dozens of Afghan civilians, according to a senior American military official.

The official said the civilian death toll would probably have been reduced if American air crews and forces on the ground had followed strict rules devised to prevent civilian casualties. Had the rules been followed, at least some of the strikes by American warplanes against half a dozen targets over seven hours would have been aborted.

The report represents the clearest American acknowledgment of fault in connection with the attacks. It will give new ammunition to critics, including many Afghans, who complain that American forces too often act indiscriminately in calling in airstrikes, jeopardizing the United States mission by turning the civilian population against American forces and their ally, the Afghan government.

Since the raid, American military commanders have promised to address the problem. On Tuesday, Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, nominated to be the American commander in Afghanistan, vowed that reducing civilian casualties was “essential to our credibility.”

Any American victory would be “hollow and unsustainable” if it led to popular resentment among Afghanistan’s citizens, General McChrystal told the Senate Armed Services Committee during a confirmation hearing.

According to the senior military official, the report on the May 4 raids found that one plane was cleared to attack Taliban fighters, but then had to circle back and did not reconfirm the target before dropping bombs, leaving open the possibility that the militants had fled the site or that civilians had entered the target area in the intervening few minutes.

In another case, a compound of buildings where militants were massing for a possible counterattack against American and Afghan troops was struck in violation of rules that required a more imminent threat to justify putting high-density village dwellings at risk, the official said.

“In several instances where there was a legitimate threat, the choice of how to deal with that threat did not comply with the standing rules of engagement,” said the military official, who provided a broad summary of the report’s initial findings on the condition of anonymity because the inquiry was not yet complete.

Before being chosen as the new commander in Afghanistan, General McChrystal spent five years as commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, overseeing commandos in Iraq and Afghanistan. Special Operations forces have been sharply criticized by Afghans for aggressive tactics that have contributed to civilian casualties.

During his testimony, General McChrystal said that strikes by warplanes and Special Operations ground units would remain an essential part of combat in Afghanistan. But he promised to make sure that these attacks were based on solid intelligence and that they were as precise as possible. American success in Afghanistan should be measured by “the number of Afghans shielded from violence,” not the number of enemy fighters killed, he said.

The inquiry into the May 4 strikes in the western province of Farah illustrated the difficult, split-second decisions facing young officers in the heat of combat as they balance using lethal force to protect their troops under fire with detailed rules restricting the use of firepower to prevent civilian deaths.

In the report, the investigating officer, Brig. Gen. Raymond A. Thomas III, analyzed each of the airstrikes carried out by three aircraft-carrier-based Navy F/A-18 strike aircraft and an Air Force B-1 bomber against targets in the village of Granai, in a battle that lasted more than seven hours.

In each case, the senior military official said, General Thomas determined that the targets that had been struck posed legitimate threats to Afghan or American forces, which included one group of Marines assigned to train the Afghans and another assigned to a Special Operations task force.

But in “several cases,” the official said, General Thomas determined either that the airstrikes had not been the appropriate response to the threat because of the potential risk to civilians, or that American forces had failed to follow their own tactical rules in conducting the bombing runs.

The Afghan government concluded that about 140 civilians had been killed in the attacks. An earlier American military inquiry said last month that 20 to 30 civilians had been killed. That inquiry also concluded that 60 to 65 Taliban militants had been killed in the fight. American military officials say their two investigations show that Taliban fighters had deliberately fired on American forces and aircraft from compounds and other places where they knew Afghan civilians had sought shelter, in order to draw an American response that would kill civilians, including women and children.

The firefight began, the military said, when Afghan soldiers and police officers went to several villages in response to reports that three Afghan government officials had been killed by the Taliban. The police were quickly overwhelmed and asked for backup from American forces.

American officials have said that a review of videos from aircraft weapon sights and exchanges between air crew members and a ground commander established that Taliban fighters had taken refuge in “buildings which were then targeted in the final strikes of the fight,” which went well into the night.

American troop levels in Afghanistan are expected to double, to about 68,000, under President Obama’s new Afghan strategy.

In his previous job as commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, General McChrystal oversaw units assigned to capture or kill senior militants. In his appearance before Congress on Tuesday, he was questioned on reports of abuses of detainees held by his commandos.

Under questioning by Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is the committee chairman, General McChrystal said he was uncomfortable with some of the harsh techniques that were officially approved for interrogation. At the time, such approved techniques included stress positions, sleep deprivation and the use of attack dogs for intimidation.

He said that all reports of abuse during his command were investigated, and that all substantiated cases of abuse resulted in disciplinary action. And he pledged to “strictly enforce” American and international standards for the treatment of battlefield detainees if confirmed to the post in Afghanistan.

Under questioning, General McChrystal also acknowledged that the Army had “failed the family” in its mishandling of the friendly-fire death of Cpl. Pat Tillman, the professional football star who enlisted in the Army after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

A final review by a four-star Army general cleared General McChrystal of any wrongdoing, but punished a number of senior officers who were responsible for administrative mistakes in the days after Corporal Tillman’s death. Initially, Army officials said the corporal had been killed by an insurgent ambush, when in fact he had been shot by members of his own Ranger team.

news20090603wp1

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

[World]
Wreckage Confirmed as Air France Plane

By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, June 3, 2009

PARIS, June 2 -- Brazilian search planes located a three-mile path of wreckage in the Atlantic Ocean that officials said came from an Air France jetliner, dashing any lingering hopes for the survival of the 228 people aboard.

Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim told reporters in Rio de Janeiro that Brazilian military planes found the wreckage in an area where ocean depths range from one mile to more than three miles. "There isn't the slightest doubt that the debris is from the Air France plane," Jobim said. He said the strip of wreckage included metallic and nonmetallic pieces but did not describe them in detail, the Associated Press reported.

Earlier, the Brazilian air force, announcing the discovery of some debris, said its pilots saw no signs of life. Despite continued stormy weather, Brazilian naval vessels were dispatched to the site, about 400 miles northeast of the Fernando de Noronha Archipelago, to pick up the debris.

Air France flight 447 was on an overnight flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. The twin-engine Airbus A330-200, four years old and recently inspected, was last heard from Monday when, according to Air France and French officials, a burst of automatic emergency signals beginning at 4:14 a.m. Paris time indicated that all its systems had failed. There was no mayday signal and no communication from the pilot, the airline said, indicating that there was probably a sudden catastrophe.

Since then, speculation has raged about what caused the disaster -- a terrorist bomb, a lightning bolt, hail, severe turbulence or heavy frost. But French officials said they still had no real idea and were eliminating no possibility for the time being.

"Our only certainty is that there was no emergency call sent out by the plane," Prime Minister François Fillon said. "But there were regular automatic alerts over three minutes, indicating that all systems were out of service."

Jean-Louis Borloo, the ecology minister supervising the French end of search operations, said finding the plane's "black box" data recorders is a top priority. But he warned it may be difficult because the Atlantic is several thousand feet deep along the scheduled flight path, stretching from northeastern Brazil toward Cape Verde off western Africa.

Air France announced, meanwhile, that a memorial service will be held Wednesday at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris for the families of those killed in the worst disaster in the history of the French national airline. In addition, President Nicolas Sarkozy's office said he will meet with family members at his Elysee Palace to keep them informed of search efforts and to express the country's condolences. Sarkozy told the families Monday that those who wished would be flown over the debris field.

French crash investigators visited on Tuesday with some family members, secluded in a hotel near Paris-Charles de Gaulle International Airport, to take DNA samples for identifying bodies if any are found. In addition, they discussed issuing death certificates for victims whose remains may never be recovered. News reports said French security services also were reviewing the passenger list to see whether any names aroused suspicion.

Two Americans were among the victims. They were identified as Michael Harris and his wife, Anne, who had recently moved from Houston to Brazil. Those aboard also included 61 French citizens, 58 Brazilians and nationals from 29 other countries, according to a list compiled by Air France.

A spokesman for the Brazilian air force, Col. Jorge Amaral, told reporters in Brazil that the debris was first sensed during predawn hours by a Brazilian-manufactured Embraer R-99 radar platform, similar to the U.S. AWACS plane. Another aircraft was dispatched at first light to take a look, he said, and airmen reported seeing an orange flotation device, a seat cushion, oil slicks, and small white spots that could be pieces of the white-painted fuselage.

The objects were floating over a 40-square-mile area, Amaral said. Since the Brazilian navy vessels sent to pick them up are unlikely to arrive before Wednesday, the navy recruited several commercial ships in the area to try to recover the debris Tuesday evening.

Investigators planned to focus their efforts on finding serial numbers on some of the objects, Amaral said, to ensure that they came from the Air France plane.

Amaral said the area where the debris was found lay slightly to the right of the normal flight path for Flight 447, according to accounts relayed by news agencies. That could mean that the pilot was banking right in an attempt to turn around and return to Brazil, he suggested. But only by recovering the plane's flight recorders and debris could any firm conclusions be drawn, he said.

France's defense minister, Hervé Morin, said two French navy ships were headed to the area: a landing vessel that sailed from Portugal and a frigate that was deviated from anti-drug patrols in the Caribbean.

In addition, the French air force assigned two Breguet-Atlantique maritime reconnaissance planes and a Falcon 50 reconnaissance craft to the search. Morin said they and the warships will remain in the area as long as it takes to find the wreckage.

news20090603wp2

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

[Supreme Court]
A Senator Who's Seen the Other Side
GOP's Lead on Judiciary Panel Was Once Rejected for Bench

By Philip Rucker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 3, 2009

For Jeff Sessions, this moment has been 23 years in the making.

If things had gone as planned in 1986, the conservative Alabama prosecutor would have been confirmed to a lifetime appointment to a federal judgeship. But allegations of racism cast Sessions as a throwback to the Jim Crow South, and the Senate Judiciary Committee voted down his nomination. Stunned and embarrassed, Sessions returned home to Mobile as a man undone.

Soon he turned to politics, was elected to the Senate and joined the very committee that denied him a seat on the federal bench. He ascended from behind the scenes to the panel's top Republican spot, and it now falls to him to weigh the GOP's competing interests and political calculations while guiding the fractured party through the upcoming confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. Yesterday, the judge went to the Capitol for private meetings with Sessions and other key senators.

With her nomination, race (and ethnicity) once again looms as a major subplot. This time, though, Sessions is on the other side of the rostrum, and there are some who wonder how he will handle it. Will Sessions go after Sotomayor the way Senate Democrats vilified him long ago? Or has the experience made him more empathetic to nominees who face tough questioning?

"I've felt sorry for the poor person in the pit getting grilled," Sessions said in a recent interview. "I don't think you'll find that I've abused any witness. And I don't like vindication."

Sotomayor, facing pressure from lawmakers to explain her comments from 2001 that her Latina identity matters in how she reaches conclusions, told Democratic and Republican senators yesterday that she would follow the law.

But it was a Democrat, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, who pressed her most directly to clarify her remarks. Leahy said that she told him, "Of course one's life experience shapes who you are," but that she added: "Ultimately and completely, a judge has to follow the law, no matter what their upbringing has been."

Sessions said Sotomayor -- who will resume her visits with lawmakers today -- used similar language with him, but he conceded, "I don't know that we got into that significantly." Rather the two spent more time discussing "the moral authority of laws and judges." He said he "enjoyed the conversation."

Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, 62, is an unlikely choice to be the face of the GOP at such a critical juncture. At times, he has appeared uncomfortable in the spotlight. When Sotomayor visited his office yesterday, the white-haired senator who speaks with a heavy Southern accent sat before a throng of cameras clutching his hands together and nervously tapping his right foot.

As the committee's ranking Republican, taking over after Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.) switched parties this spring, Sessions sets the priorities of a party already facing a deep split between conservatives and moderates. He is considering comments by radio host Rush Limbaugh and former House speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) that Sotomayor is racist, but he also is conscious of turning off Latino voters by questioning Sotomayor too aggressively.

And then there is the political reality: Sessions has just one vote, and Republicans have seven, on a committee of 19.

"It's a tough job because you're the principal negotiator and point man for your party," said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.). "But Jeff is not a shrinking violet by any stretch of the imagination."

A Senator Who's Seen the Other Side

Sessions has promised a rigorous review of Sotomayor's record and warned that there may be a "drop in deference to the president" because he said Democrats were "very, very aggressive" in questioning President George W. Bush's nominees. He also is resisting calls from Obama and Leahy to confirm Sotomayor by Aug. 7, when the Senate breaks for a recess. Yesterday, he said he wants hearings to take place in October.

Beloved by conservatives, Sessions has been a vocal opponent of allowing undocumented immigrants the chance to become U.S. citizens. But unlike many of his colleagues on the panel, he lacks a national profile and a signature issue. Some in Alabama describe Sessions as "vanilla."

Yet what the 5-foot-5 senator lacks in bravado, he makes up for in discipline, practiced over hours as a Sunday-school teacher at his family's Methodist church, 14 years in the Army Reserve and decades as a lawyer. An early riser, he often goes to the Capitol gym before 7 a.m., running on the treadmill and hashing over bills with Cornyn.

Known as a nuts-and-bolts senator, Sessions arrives at committee meetings having done his homework, colleagues said. The Boy Scout motto, "Be Prepared," is engraved on a stone on his office desk.

His steady handling thus far of the Sotomayor nomination has earned praise from across the aisle.

"We may well disagree on the final outcome of the nomination, but I think he's handled it in a very statesmanlike fashion," Leahy said.

Sessions's courtroom experience lends credibility to his arguments, his Republican colleagues said. As someone who supports a strict interpretation of the Constitution, he believes that no judge should be swayed by personal or political allegiances, and he takes issue with Obama's statement that judges should have "empathy . . . with people's hopes and struggles." Sessions called this a "postmodern infection" that threatens law.

"We need to articulate why it's important that judges show restraint and that every American can believe that when they call that ball a ball and that strike a strike it was an honest call, not because they were pulling for one side or another," he said.

If Sotomayor's America is the South Bronx in New York, then Sessions's is Hybart, Ala. The two locales couldn't be more different. Sotomayor chased her dreams as a Latina in the city projects, playing loteria, a card game, with neighborhood kids. She once bragged about her cultural taste in food as a young lady, eating such delicacies as pig intestines, pigs' feet with beans, and pigs' tongue and ears.

Sessions, meanwhile, came of age in a vast, bucolic land. He grew up in a modest country house and went hunting and fishing. He worked with his father around the general store the family owned. Every bit the good Alabama boy, Sessions became an Eagle Scout just before enrolling at Huntingdon College, a small Methodist school in nearby Montgomery.

In the 1960s, as the world around him changed dramatically, Sessions said he was disengaged from the civil rights movement, becoming engrossed instead with the conservative politics of the National Review. He said he regrets not having taken a lead in fighting for civil rights.

"I guess I was more like the average Alabamian," he said. "Most of my contemporaries, including myself, we probably could have been more affirmative in taking stands on those issues."

Sessions said the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books and the TV show "Dragnet" inspired him to become a lawyer. (Sotomayor, too, cites Nancy Drew novels as an inspiration.)

After President Ronald Reagan appointed him U.S. attorney in Mobile in 1981, Sessions brought charges of voter fraud against three black civil rights activists, including a former aide to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. They were acquitted.

In 1986, Reagan nominated him for the federal bench, and accusations of racial insensitivities hung over his Senate hearings. Sessions called the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union "un-American" and "communist-inspired" and said they tried to "force civil rights down the throats of people," according to sworn statements. He was accused of calling a black assistant "boy." And he once said of the Ku Klux Klan "I used to think they're okay" until learning that some members were "pot smokers," according to sworn statements.

After Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) led the fight against Sessions, calling him "a throwback to a disgraceful era," Sessions responded: "That is the most painful thing I have ever heard. . . . It breaks my heart."

The Judiciary Committee approved 269 Reagan nominees to the federal bench before ever voting one down. Sessions was the first, and he left Washington without even the support of his home-state senator on the panel, Howell Heflin (D).

Recalling the episode, Sessions said his comments had been distorted to smear him. "It was so embarrassing to have people think that I didn't believe in equality, that I was racist or had discriminatory intent," he said. "This was horrible. That was not so."

For Sessions, the Sotomayor hearings provide a chance to recover.

"He's spent much of his career on the far side of the gulf from the civil rights community, from the party now in power, from people like Sonia Sotomayor," said NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous. "We hope that he will distinguish himself not just as a leader of the Senate, but distinguish himself from his own history of making divisive comments."

So far, Sessions and Sotomayor have gotten off to a smooth start. When they first met yesterday, they exchanged laughs. By the time Sotomayor left after 30 minutes of closed-door conversation, the Southern senator and Latina judge appeared as if they had found common ground -- perhaps over Nancy Drew.

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[News > Environment] from [The Guardian]

[Environment > Climate Change ]
Nancy Sutley: Obama to stake political prestige on passing US climate bill
Congressional leaders working against a six-month deadline to pass a sweeping package of environmental legislation before global climate change talks begin in Copenhagen in December

Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 2 June 2009 14.07 BST
Article history

Barack Obama is prepared to stake his own political prestige on getting climate change legislation through Congress, and would be willing to intervene directly to ensure passage of America's first law to reduce the carbon emissions that cause global warming.

Nancy Sutley, who is pivotal in setting Obama's green agenda as the chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, told the Guardian that the president is ready to use his considerable personal popularity to rally Congress behind a sweeping climate change bill.

"When the bill is further along in the legislative process there are some things where it may make a difference in expressing a strong view," Sutley said in an interview. "What [Obama] has been saying consistently is that he wants a bill and that this represents a very important step forward. "

Congress is now working against a six-month deadline to pass a sweeping package of environmental legislation through both houses before the world gathers at Copenhagen in December for talks on a global climate change treaty.

World leaders have warned US officials that Congress needs to take concrete action to reduce emissions if Washington hopes to bring China and other major polluters to a deal at Copenhagen.

Some Democratic leaders are pushing to bring forward the original timeline for putting in place the most crucial element of Obama's green agenda - the greenhouse gas reduction laws. The president told Congress in February he wanted legislation by the end of its current session in November 2010.

The accelerated pace set by some Democrats seems designed to capitalise on recent momentum behind a climate change bill which cleared a crucial committee in late May. The strategy also seeks to take advantage of Obama's current popularity - Gallup gave him a 65% average approval rating last month.

The Senate voted down a climate change bill a year ago and it was thought it might not attempt to move a vote on the issue again before the Copenhagen talks. But in a sign of growing confidence from the Obama administration, Democratic leaders are reportedly planning to move forward the date for the full vote in the house of representatives to the end of this month.

The house energy committee, which is weighed heavily towards coal and oil state Democrats, was the first major obstacle for the climate change bill, and Obama drew on his political capital help get it passed.

The president invited key members of Congress to the White House to make a personal appeal for the bill. Those at the meeting say the pitch was crucial to securing the support of wavering Democrats.

Obama would be ready to take further gambles on his personal popularity, Sutley said.

She said he was unlikely to intervene in the near future to shore up targets for emission reductions - already criticised by some environmentalists as failing to go as far as dictated by the science to prevent a catastrophic rise in temperature. However, the president may feel compelled to step in to shield consumers from higher electricity bills. "He has talked about the idea that we have to think about consumers," she said.

The bill in its current form would force polluting industries to reduce steadily their emissions of carbon and the other greenhouse gases that cause global warming. It would also require power companies to get 15% of their electricity from clean sources of energy like wind and sun.

As Congress resumes this week, the bill now undergoes review by as many as eight committees, which could all attempt to put their stamp on the bill. The biggest threat to the bill's survival comes from the agriculture committee, where the Democratic chairman, Collin Peterson, has threatened to impose a veto.

Peterson, and other Democrats from farming states, say the bill would hurt farmers and producers of corn-based ethanol. He told MinnPost.com: "If they don't fix this, there isn't going to be a bill."

Environmentalists are concerned that those competing pressures during the review process could force compromises that would seriously weaken the bill.

The bill is already is doing less than scientists recommend to prevent a catastrophic rise in temperature. In its current incarnation, the bill calls for a 17% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions below 2005 levels by 2020 - which is much lower than the European Union's targets. However, the US matches the longer-term EU target of 80% reductions by 2050.

Obama, when running for president, supported a 2020 target of a 14% cut in greenhouse gas emissions. However, Sutley said the president was unlikely to press for that original target, or to explicitly adopt the new more stringent 17% cut.


[Environment > Carbon Offsetting]
UK carbon offset schemes 'failing to reduce emissions'
Expansion of carbon offsetting and clean development mechanism is locking developing nations into a high-carbon path, report warns

John Vidal, environment editor
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 2 June 2009 17.59 BST
Article history

Britain is the world centre of a multibillion dollar "carbon offset" industry which is failing to lower global greenhouse gas emissions, a major report from Friends of the Earth claimed today.

The authors urged governments meeting this week in Bonn for UN climate change talks to drop plans to expand offsetting schemes, which allow rich countries to invest in projects that reduce emissions in poor countries as an alternative to more expensive emission reductions in their own countries.

Offsetting is set to expand enormously if the 192 governments meeting in Bonn allow forests, nuclear power and other sources of "clean energy" to count towards emissions reductions as part of a UN climate treaty expected to be agreed in Copenhagen this December..

The problem, said the report, is that offset schemes are delivering much lower greenhouse gas cuts than the science says are needed to avoid catstrophic climate change. Offsetting supports the idea that the cuts can be made in either rich or in poor countries " ... when it is clear that action is needed in both," said the report. "Offsets are a dangerous distraction ... It is almost impossible to prove that offsetting projects would not have happened without the offset finance. Nor is it possible to calculate accurately how much carbon a project is saving," it added.

Offsetting has been promoted heavily by the UK government in Europe and the UN as a painless way of reducing global emissions. The idea has mushroomed in the last five years with the rapid growth of the UN's clean development mechanism (CDM) which attracts investment money to poorer countries in new projects. These are expected to deliver more than half of the EU's planned carbon reductions to 2020.

"The clean development mechanism is supposed to be a way of making the same level of carbon cuts as would otherwise happen, but more cost effectively. At best it shifts a cut in a developed country to one in a developing one. In practice, it does not even do this," said Andy Atkins, executive director of Friends of the Earth UK.

Moreover, said the report, the CDM is locking in poor countries to a high-carbon path, with some big CDM projects approved for even major fossil fuel power stations. "A large part of CDM revenues are subsidising carbon intensive industries or projects building fossil fuel power stations."

Two previous analyses of the CDM suggested that companies routinely abuse the UN-backed offsetting scheme, wasting billions of pounds.

The UK government has already used offsetting as a way to justify high carbon investments in major projects like the expansion of Heathrow, it said. "Offsetting makes it far more likely that developed countries will continue on a high-carbon path, choosing to buy cheap permits rather than invest in low-carbon infrastructure," said the report's authors.

Nearly 30% of the world's 2,500 CDM projects originate in London, although not all the projects offset UK emissions.

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[News > Environment] from [The Guardian]

[Environment > Wildlife]
Penguin poo viewed from space reveals new Antarctic colony locations
British Antarctic Survey finds 10 new emperor penguins colonies using satellite images that show patches of guano

Shiona Tregaskis
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 2 June 2009 00.05 BST
Article history

Stretches of excrement-stained ice that are so large they are visible from space have helped scientists to locate 10 newly discovered emperor penguin colonies in Antarctica.

Researchers at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) have used satellite images, created to survey the sea ice around Antarctica's coast, to identify emperor penguin colonies using the huge tell-tale reddish-brown patches the birds leave behind.

BAS mapping expert, Peter Fretwell, said it was a "fortuitous" discovery. He noticed that patches on the ice in a satellite image corresponded with a known colony. The images, which came from the Landsat Image Mosaic Of Antarctica (LIMA), compiled by Nasa, USGS, National Science Foundation (NSF) and BAS, provide a high-resolution satellite view of the Antarctic continent.

By studying the images, the scientists discovered that guano stains are reliable indicators of the birds' presence. "We can't see actual penguins on the satellite maps because the resolution isn't good enough. But during the breeding season the birds stay at a colony for eight months. The ice gets pretty dirty and it's the guano stains that we can see," said Fretwell.

The study, published today in the journal Global Ecology and Biogeography, identified 10 new colonies – which are each made up of thousands of penguins – bringing the total number to 38.

Emperor penguins spend a considerable part of their lives at sea. During the Antarctic winter when temperatures can drop to -50°C they return to their colonies to breed. Fretwell said: "Traditionally we would have used helicopters to find them because colonies breed on sea ice – which means they can be anywhere on the coast of Antarctica. Our previous knowledge is patchy."

Dr Phil Trathan, BAS penguin ecologist, said: "Now we know exactly where the penguins are, the next step will be to count each colony so we can get a much better picture of population size. Using satellite images combined with counts of penguin numbers puts us in a much better position to monitor future population changes over time."

Emperor penguin populations are a useful climate change indicator due to the birds' reliance on sea ice. They are the least common Antarctic penguin, with an estimated 200,000 breeding pairs.

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[Today's Paper] from [Slate Magazine]

Military Made Mistakes in Afghan Strikes

By Daniel Politi
Posted Wednesday, June 3, 2009, at 7:17 AM ET

The New York Times (NYT) leads with word that an internal investigation has found that military personnel failed to follow strict rules on some of the airstrikes carried out in western Afghanistan on May 4 that killed dozens of civilians. According to a senior military official, at least some of the civilian deaths could have been avoided if the rules had been followed. The Afghan government claims 140 civilians were killed in the attacks, while an earlier American investigation put the civilian death toll at 20 to 30.

USA Today (USAT) and the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) 's world-wide newsbox lead with, while the Washington Post (WP) and Los Angeles Times (LAT) off-lead, confirmation from Brazilian authorities that pieces of Air France Flight 447 were found spread out over a three-mile trail in the Atlantic Ocean, more than 300 miles off the Brazilian coast. An international team of searchers is scouring the area to locate more debris, particularly the plane's "black box" recorders that could shed some light into what could have caused the Airbus A330-200 to "simply drop out of the sky," as the WP puts it. The LAT leads with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger pushing California lawmakers to cut spending to deal with the $24 billion hole in the state's budget. "We are running out of excuses and we have run out of time," Schwarzenegger said. The WP leads with news that no one is likely to be charged in last year's death of an inmate in Maryland. The chief prosecutor in Prince George's County said that after investigating for nearly a year, he doesn't have enough evidence to indict anyone in the death of the 19-year-old who had been accused of killing a police officer.

The NYT was only able to get its source to talk about the military investigation into the airstrikes in the Farah province in broad terms because it's not complete. So there are no exact numbers on how many of the airstrikes the investigating officer determined shouldn't have taken place. Still, the findings amount to "the clearest American acknowledgment of fault in connection with the attacks," notes the NYT. Although all the targets were determined to have posed legitimate threat, in "several cases," according to the source, the airstrikes weren't the appropriate response due to the civilian presence or the strict rules on how to conduct them weren't followed. The American airstrikes have angered many Afghans who say they show how U.S. troops aren't careful enough to avoid civilian casualties when conducting airstrikes. In his confirmation hearing to become the American commander in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal said reducing civilian casualties was "essential to our credibility" because it would be impossible to sustain military gains if the civilian population turns against the Western coalition.

Finding out what led the Air France flight carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris to crash will be anything but easy. "Most of the wreckage is probably resting now 9,000 feet to 14,000 feet below the surface, where it is pitch black, the water temperature is 40 degrees and the pressure as high as 7,000 pounds per square inch," summarizes the LAT. USAT reports that French navy ships are trying to locate the plane's "black box" by dipping a receiver into the water to try to pick up signals from the "pinger" that is attached to the recorder. The floating pieces that were located yesterday may not even provide that much help in pinpointing the exact location of the wreckage since it's quite feasible that winds and currents moved the debris since the crash. Although searchers have been successful in recovering data from planes that crashed in deep water, it's not clear that searchers will be able to get to the wreckage if it's too deep in the water. "We're closer to the limits of technology than I'd like to be," said a flight safety expert. USAT points out that the crash is likely to spark a debate about whether the flight recorders should be able to float.

The WP fronts word that former Vice President Dick Cheney led at least four briefings with senior lawmakers in 2005 where he defended the harsh interrogation techniques that had been used on suspected terrorists. Although it's hardly a secret that Cheney advocated using harsh interrogation methods during his time at the White House, the "hands-on role" he took in trying to convince members of Congress, particularly during times when lawmakers were raising questions about the program, wasn't previously know. His name wasn't listed in the documents that the CIA delivered to Congress about the briefings, in which the documents related to the meetings that were overseen by Cheney stated that the name of the person who oversaw them was "not available." According to a witness, Cheney allowed professional briefers to give details on the interrogations, and then he proceeded to defend the program.

The NYT fronts, and everyone else goes inside with, speculation that North Korea's leader has designated his youngest son, Kim Jong Un, as his successor. South Korea's intelligence services told lawmakers in Seoul that North Korean embassies were informed of the decision last week, and reports from inside North Korea claim that schoolchildren have been including his name in songs. Little is known about Kim Jong Un, and although the WP says he is 26, the NYT notes that no one is sure of specifics and he's generally believed to be in his mid-20s. He apparently attended an international school in Switzerland for two years under an assumed name, where he enjoyed skiing and was an avid fan of Jean-Claude Van Damme. Some intelligence officials believe that even if he was picked as his father's successor, it doesn't necessarily mean Kim Jong Un will be taking over because other key officials could be plotting their own rise to power. White House officials say it might be impossible to carry out any sort of negotiations with North Korea during a time of transition.

Everybody reports that a Pakistani court ordered the release of the founder of a banned militant group that is thought to have masterminded last year's terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Hafiz Muhammad Saeed is the leader of an Islamic charity that is widely believed to be a front of Lashkar-i-Taiba. The court said there was insufficient evidence to hold him, raising complaints from India that Pakistan is once again showing its lack of resolve for combating terrorists within its borders. Tensions are likely to increase between the two countries, making it even more difficult for U.S. officials to convince Pakistan that it should move troops from its Indian border to fight the Taliban.

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor went to Capitol Hill yesterday to meet with key lawmakers and the WP fronts a look at how the Sen. Jeff Sessions, went up against the same committee in 1986 and was denied a federal judgeship due to claims of racism. Now that he's the top Republican in the Senate Judiciary Committee, there have been those who wonder how he would handle the proceedings, particularly considering that "race (and ethnicity) once again looms as a major subplot," points out the Post. "I've felt sorry for the poor person in the pit getting grilled," Sessions said. "I don't think you'll find that I've abused any witness. And I don't like vindication."

Sotomayor and Sessions seem to have gotten off to a good start but yesterday "her task was to be seen but not heard," notes the Post's Dana Milbank. "Rather, it was a time for senators to show how terribly important they are—so important that a future Supreme Court justice would come to meet with them and to plead her case for confirmation." Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was so eager "to praise the nominee that he became tangled in his own clichés," notes Milbank. "We have the whole package here," Reid said, later adding that "you've been an underdog many times in your life but always the top dog." Reid was later asked whether anything in her record could raise concerns. "I understand that during her career, she's written hundreds and hundreds of opinions," he said. "I haven't read a single one of them, and if I'm fortunate before we end this, I won't have to read one of them."