news20090807bil

[Biography of the Day] from [Britannica]
August 7
Emil Nolde
Born this day in 1867, Emil Nolde was a leading German Expressionist painter, printmaker, and watercolourist whose art—notably violent religious works and foreboding landscapes—was later called “decadent” by the Nazis.

[On This Day] from [Britannica]
August 7
1942: Japanese airfield on Guadalcanal seized by Allies
In the Allies' first major offensive in the Pacific theatre during World War II, U.S. Marines on this day in 1942 landed on Guadalcanal and captured the airfield from Japan, sparking a battle that lasted some six months.

1960: Côte d'Ivoire gained independence from France.

1957: Oliver Hardy—member of Laurel and Hardy, the first great Hollywood motion-picture comedy team—died in North Hollywood, California.

1932: Abebe Bikila, an Ethiopian runner who was the first athlete to win two Olympic marathons, was born in Mont.

1888: The first of the murders committed by Jack the Ripper took place in London's East End.

1819: A group of South American insurgents under Simón Bolívar defeated Spanish forces at the Battle of Boyacá, which freed New Granada (Colombia and Venezuela) from Spanish control.

1807: The first serviceable steamboat—the Clermont, designed by American engineer Robert Fulton—embarked on its maiden voyage.

1782: George Washington ordered the creation of the first U.S. military decoration, the Badge of Military Merit (today called the Purple Heart), which was later awarded to three Revolutionary War soldiers for bravery in action.


[Today's Word] from [Dr. Kazuo Iwata]
August 7
I do not love him because he is good, but because he is my little child.
I alone have a right to blame and punish, for he only may chastise who loves.
    Rabindranath Tagore (died this day in 1941)

私が彼を愛するのは、彼が善良だからではなく、彼が私の幼子だからである。
Watashi-ga kare-wo aisuru-nowa, kare-ga zenryo-dakara-dewa-naku, kare-ga watashi-no osanago-dakara-de-aru.

私だけが攻め罰する権利を持っている。なぜなら愛する人だけがこらしめることができるからである。
Watashi-dake-ga seme bassuru kenri-wo motteiru. nazenara aisuru hito-dake-ga korashimeru-koto-ga dekiru-kara-de-aru.


[日英混文稿]

news20090807jt1

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

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, Aug. 7, 2009
First lay judges hand killer 15-year term
But with death penalty off table, hardest choice remains untested

(Kyodo News) The nation's first lay judges found Katsuyoshi Fujii guilty Thursday of murder and sentenced him to 15 years in prison.

The trial was relatively straightforward because Fujii admitted killing his neighbor, 66-year-old Mun Chun Ja, a woman of South Korean nationality.

Media attention was intense for the first trial in the postwar period in which ordinary citizens took part.

With the trial centering on determining the punishment for Fujii, 72, prosecutors demanded that he receive 16 years in prison, while a lawyer representing the victim's family called for "at least 20 years."

Fujii's lawyers said the prosecutors' demand was too severe because he did not intend to kill Mun and her death occurred after the two quarreled.

Throughout the trial, all six citizen judges posed questions to Fujii, such as why he had a survival knife at the time rather than a kitchen knife and why he used a knife that belonged to his late daughter.

The new judicial system is intended to make criminal trials, long dominated by legal professionals, more reflective of public sentiment.

Some 3,000 cases a year are expected to be tried under the lay judge system, in which six citizen judges and three professional judges oversee serious criminal cases, including murder, at district courts.

But many people in Japan remain reluctant to be involved in handing down sentences, including the death penalty, and questions have been raised by critics over what they say is the overly strict lifetime secrecy obligation imposed on lay judges.

The obligation exists so all judges can speak their opinion freely during closed-door discussions, according to the Supreme Court. But critics are wary it could prevent lay judges from blowing the whistle on professional judges for mishandling the discussions and say it will make it difficult to ascertain problems in the new system.

The first lay judge trial started Monday after the court chose people and three alternates from randomly selected eligible voters. One of the six judges was replaced with an alternate Wednesday because she fell ill.

Trials are to be kept relatively short to lessen the burden on lay judges, who may have to take time off from work or ask others to take care of their children while they attend court.

Japan had a jury system, albeit limited, between 1928 and 1943, but it was suspended amid the rise of militarism.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, Aug. 7, 2009
Hiroshima sides with Obama on nukes

HIROSHIMA (Kyodo) Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba urged people around the world to join the city's effort to abolish atomic weapons in response to U.S. President Barack Obama's appeal for a world free of nuclear arms, as Hiroshima marked the 64th anniversary of the 1945 U.S. atomic bombing Thursday.

"We support President Obama and have a moral responsibility to act to abolish nuclear weapons," Akiba said in the Peace Declaration at a commemorative ceremony at the city's Peace Memorial Park, reiterating Hiroshima's conviction that "the only role for nuclear weapons is to be abolished."

"To emphasize this point," said Akiba, "we refer to ourselves, the great global majority, as the 'Obamajority,' and we call on the rest of the world to join forces with us to eliminate all nuclear weapons by 2020. The essence of this idea is embodied in the Japanese Constitution, which is ever more highly esteemed around the world.

"We have the power. We have the responsibility. And we are the Obamajority," he said. "Together, we can abolish nuclear weapons. Yes, we can."

In April, Obama said in Prague that "the United States has a moral responsibility to act" as the only nuclear power to have used atomic weapons and the country will "take concrete steps towards a world without nuclear weapons."

During the 50-minute memorial ceremony, a moment of silence was observed at 8:15 a.m., the time the atomic bomb detonated over Hiroshima at an altitude of about 600 meters 64 years ago, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 140,000 people by the end of 1945.

According to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, a total of 235,569 survivors were living throughout Japan as of March 31, down 8,123 from the year before, with their average age at 75.92, while some 4,500 hibakusha live overseas.

Prime Minister Taro Aso attended the ceremony, vowing to strongly stand by Japan's three antinuclear principles of not producing, possessing or allowing nuclear weapons on its soil.

On the previous day, the prime minister and health minister Yoichi Masuzoe struck a deal to provide relief to all 306 plaintiffs who sued to be recognized as suffering from illnesses related to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, bringing their legal battle, which has been fought in courts across Japan since 2003, effectively to an end.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, Aug. 7, 2009
U.S. nuclear umbrella crucial: Aso

HIROSHIMA (Kyodo) Prime Minister Taro Aso stressed on Thursday the need for Japan to stay under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, while opposition leader Yukio Hatoyama supported President Barack Obama in seeking a nuclear-free world.

"Located next to a country possessing nuclear arms and thinking of making an attack by using them, Japan is in alliance with the United States, which tries to use its nuclear arsenal as a deterrence," Aso told reporters, referring to North Korea, after attending Hiroshima's annual ceremony marking the atomic bombing.

"It is not true to say if someone unilaterally abandons them, everyone else will follow," Aso said. "It is unimaginable that nuclear weapons will be altogether abolished around the world."

Aso made the comments while reiterating that Japan seeks a nuclear-free world.

"Realizing a nuclear-free world as called for by U.S. President Obama is exactly the moral mission of our country as the only state to have been hit with atomic bombs," said Hatoyama, president of the Democratic Party of Japan.

At a ceremony in Hiroshima organized by the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, Hatoyama said Japan should lead the world in efforts to abolish nuclear arms, particularly at the coming U.N. review conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty next May.

He said to attain that goal, it is important to appeal directly to leaders of other countries, and he is willing to work for an early realization of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, Aug. 7, 2009
Survivor updates annual tally of dead

HIROSHIMA (Kyodo) Kazuko Ikegame's summer "job" requires a lot of concentration.

For more than 20 years, the 67-year-old has meticulously written out the names of A-bomb victims who died during the year using a traditional Japanese brush and black ink.

As a message of peace to the world, the list of the dead is updated every year and placed back under a memorial stone in Hiroshima's Peace Park during an annual ceremony hosted by the mayor of Hiroshima and attended by local citizens as well as the prime minister and foreign guests.

Now retired, Ikegame herself is a survivor of the world's first atomic bombing, of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945.

Ikegame, a skilled calligrapher who was then a city government worker, was given the task of updating the list in 1985.

Since then, she has added more than 50,000 names.

"Now there are not many A-bomb survivors who are ex-city officials and can write characters with a brush like me," she said.

One of the most memorable moments in her job came in 1993, when she added the name her father, who had passed away at the age of 84 the previous year.

"At that time I realized again he had actually died," she said.

She has often been seized with emotion upon coming across the names of friends and ex-coworkers. Ikegame only learned of the deaths of some of her acquaintances after receiving their names as additions to the memorial list.

She says she is determined to keep up the work as long as she can.

news20090807jt2

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

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, Aug. 7, 2009
Citizens stepped up, fulfilled new court duty
By SETSUKO KAMIYA
Staff writer

With the Thursday close of the first lay judge trial, Japan has joined the ranks of some 80 countries whose citizens participate in criminal trials.

Experts interviewed by The Japan Times agreed that all parties involved in the Tokyo District Court trial, including the six "saibanin" (lay judges), had done "a great job" amid the attention and pressure.

Hundreds of mock trials during the five-year preparation period seem to have paid off, they said, adding the lay judges should speak out about their experience to help the system take root.

"This is probably the first time the Japanese public paid so much attention to every detail in the criminal trial process, and that itself is already significant," said Akira Goto, a professor at Hitotsubashi University Graduate School of Law who specializes in criminal procedure law.

Previous government public opinion polls showed that about 70 percent of surveyed voters were willing to serve as lay judges. Legal professionals were thus stunned when 96 percent of those who were summoned, or 47 out of 49 potential judges, showed up for the selection process Monday.

"To be sure, it was the first case ever and attracted much attention, but I believe the high turnout actually showed the Japanese people are taking (the duty) very seriously," said lawyer Takeshi Nishimura, a senior member of the task force of the lay judge system at the Japan Federation of Bar Associations.

Five women and one man were chosen randomly by computer for the trial of 72-year-old Katsuyoshi Fujii, who was accused of stabbing to death his neighbor, Mun Chun Ja, 66. All had gone through the process of filling out a questionnaire and submitting to a brief interview to determine their impartiality. The selection process was closed to the public.

During the years when trials were handled solely by professional judges, the process relied heavily on documents and was loaded with legal jargon.

But in this case, in which the accused admitted his guilt, the proceedings centered on direct questioning of witnesses, while the legal professionals made an effort to couch their arguments in plain language.

Had this case been held under the previous system, Fujii would not have been questioned so extensively, professor Goto noted.

Fujii and Mun had been on bad terms for years. On May 1, after an argument, Fujii took a survival knife from his house and stabbed Mun to death.

Prosecutors demanded a 16-year prison term for Fujii, who had a criminal record, including a conviction for bodily injury resulting in death several decades ago.

In their closing argument, the prosecution team reminded the judges that murder is punishable by a wide range of sentences, from a five-year term to the death penalty. They recommended not imposing the death sentence or life imprisonment in this case because the stabbing was not premeditated and the death was the result of a quarrel between neighbors on bad terms.

"This sort of thing was never mentioned before in trials, because professionals shared common criteria for sentencing," Nishimura said.

Fujii's lawyers speculated that the prosecutors didn't want the lay judges to focus too much on the severest punishments when weighing the sentence. Calling the prosecution's sentencing demand too harsh, the defense asked for a lighter sentence. In the end, Fujii got 15 years.

The straightforward presentations and speeches have consequences beyond simply enabling lay judges to more easily follow the proceedings.

According to Goto, the principle of an open court has finally been realized in Japan.

"The fact that the evidence is now clear to understand means it will allow the public to see whether the procedure is being done accurately," he said.

"And when a sentence is handed down, people will know the basis for that decision," he said, stressing that the change is especially important for the defendant, who was often ignorant of the proceedings, despite the right to a fair trial.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, Aug. 7, 2009
Aso inks pact on hibakusha relief
Certifications, fund end six-year legal struggle

HIROSHIMA (Kyodo) Prime Minister Taro Aso signed an agreement Thursday under which the government will provide a blanket resolution to 306 plaintiffs seeking recognition as suffering from illnesses caused by the 1945 atomic bombings.

The agreement, signed after Aso attended the commemorative ceremony marking the 64th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, will bring a six-year-long legal battle involving the 306 plaintiffs to an end.

The new relief measures feature certifying plaintiffs who have won district court-level lawsuits as victims, even though high courts have yet to rule on their cases.

For those who have lost their cases at district courts, the government will create a fund through Diet legislation to compensate them.

The move came after the government lost 19 straight lawsuits filed across the country over the certification issue.

"The government solemnly acknowledges the fact that stern judicial decisions have been given on 19 occasions over the certification of atomic bomb-related illnesses," Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura told reporters.

"During this period, the lawsuits have been drawn out, A-bomb survivors have aged, and their illnesses have worsened," he said. "By extending its thoughts to A-bomb survivors' sufferings, which cannot be described in words, and to the sentiments the plaintiffs have put into the jointly filed lawsuits, the government apologizes for all that."

Aso also commented after the signing in Hiroshima.

"Considering that the plaintiffs are aging and they have fought this legal battle so long, we have decided to introduce the new policies to bring relief to them swiftly by paying respect to the legal decision," he said.

"I am happy and relieved for our battle has finally come to an end, but at the same time I can't help thinking about those who passed away without receiving the certificate," said Haruhide Tamamoto, a 79-year-old plaintiff. "A certificate is very significant because it means the government admits that it started a war and caused this atrocity. Being dead without receiving one is an absolute tragedy," Tamamoto said.

Another plaintiff, Kamiko Oe, 80, said: "I once held grudges against the government, but my hard feelings went away today. I just wonder how happy those who are already deceased would have been if they had still been alive."

Following the event finalizing the deal, groups of A-bomb survivors submitted a petition to Aso requesting the government enact a law providing relief to all people with bomb-related ailments, including those who live abroad, and their children.

"Hibakusha who have been anxious for so long can be at ease at last," said Sunao Tsuboi, head of the Hiroshima Prefectural Confederation of A-Bomb Sufferers Organization.

There are still calls for the government to provide relief to unrecognized survivors who were not involved in the lawsuits.

Kawamura in June expressed his intention to show the government's position on the certification issue before the anniversaries of the bombing of Hiroshima on Thursday and of Nagasaki on Sunday.

Kawamura had since been negotiating with the plaintiffs' representatives over the matter, while consulting with other government officials, including health minister Yoichi Masuzoe and Justice Minister Eisuke Mori.

Masuzoe and lawyers for the plaintiffs also attended the signing ceremony.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, Aug. 7, 2009
Child porn cases, victims jumped to record highs in year's first half

(Kyodo News) Child pornography cases and victims soared to record highs in the first half of this year, with Japan failing to create effective countermeasures despite criticism that it proliferates child porn images via the Internet.

The National Police Agency said Thursday the number of victims rose to 218 over the six months through June, up 51.4 percent from the same period last year, and the number of cases police found hit 382, up 27.3 percent.

Japan does not prohibit the possession of child porn images and faces international criticism for being child pornography's global supplier through the Internet.

Recent Diet debate to tighten regulations on child pornography came to a halt when the Lower House was dissolved in July.

The agency attributed the sharp increases in the figures partly to enhanced crackdown efforts but still called it "only the tip of the iceberg."

The NPA said the number of people found involved in producing and distributing child pornography rose 53.7 percent to 289.

Meanwhile, cases of child abuse crackdowns dropped slightly from the record figure marked in the first half of last year to 157, down 3.1 percent, involving 165 suspects, the same as in last year's survey. The number of child deaths caused by abuse was 11, down 62.1 percent, the agency said.

news20090807jt3

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

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, Aug. 7, 2009
Lay judges relieved case over but enthusiastic about experience
By SETSUKO KAMIYA
Staff writer

The first serving lay judges expressed relief Thursday at having completed their duties and encouraged others to step up and benefit from what they called "a valuable experience."

After handing down a 15-year prison term for murder to 72 year-old defendant Katsuyoshi Fujii at the Tokyo District Court, the six lay judges and an alternate said the proceedings were clear and easy to follow.

Although the names of the seven were withheld, they all gave their ages and occupations. The six lay judges were comprised of four women and two men aged between 38 and 61, and included company employees, a piano teacher and a dietitian. The alternate was a 38-year-old male company employee.

"It was not an easy decision to make, so we had to carefully take time to go over the evidence again and again and find the elements we needed to weigh," said 50-year-old lay judge No. 1, a company employee. It was the first time she had seen a trial, but she was able to follow the proceedings, which she said were clear and easy to understand.

Lay judge No. 5, a contract employee and the youngest of the group, said: "Initially I wasn't sure that an ordinary housewife like me could serve in a trial, but we all worked together with the (professional) judges and completed the task."

At home during the evenings, the woman said she had thought about society rather than the trial itself. "I thought about crime victims, and I also had to question why society has such crimes."

Similar sentiments were shared by lay judge No. 7, a part-time company employee who was the oldest of the group. He said he thought about the defendant Wednesday night and could not help feeling sad. Evidence submitted by the prosecution showed Fujii had an unfortunate upbringing.

The man said he was not too excited about being summoned, but now appreciates the opportunity to have been a lay judge because the four days changed his views of society.

"Society is made by each one of us, and as long as we don't say anything, it won't change," he said. "To make this society a better place, we should actively take part in it."

The press conference was strictly controlled following an agreement between the media and the court that the questions would be addressed carefully to protect the confidentiality of the lay judges. By law, lay judges are prohibited from revealing confidential matters, including details of the deliberations, but they are free to discuss their impressions about the new duty.

The 51-year-old piano teacher said she appreciated the professional judges, who helped create an environment for them to discuss the case freely. "I saw things in ways I've never seen before, and I thought of things from different viewpoints. It was hard at the start, but it was a precious experience," she said.

The lay judges said they managed to come to a decision within four days, but the length of trials may vary in other cases.

"If the case is more complicated, with more witnesses, or is one that is subject to the death penalty, I don't think four days will be enough," lay judge No. 6 said, adding he appreciated the support of his family and coworkers while he was away on duty.

Defense dissatisfied
Staff report
The citizen judges did not fully consider the argument of the defense when they sentenced the accused to 15 years, his counsel said after the nation's first lay judge trial ended Thursday.

"The reasons (for the sentence) were completely based on the prosecutors' closing statement," lawyer Shunji Date told reporters after the six lay judges and three professional judges found Katsuyoshi Fujii guilty of killing his neighbor, Mun Chun Ja, with whom he had repeatedly argued, and handing him a prison term that fell one year short of what the prosecutors had sought.

"Although the lay judges were there, I felt the ruling seemed to mirror the though process of the professionals, and we wondered why the defense's argument was not included," Date said.

Date said the defendant was also dissatisfied with how the judges reached the verdict.

"More than the sentence itself, the defendant was unhappy because he felt his argument was not acknowledged," the lawyer said.

Fujii, 72, felt the relatively young lineup of lay judges, who seemed to be in their 30s and 40s, worked against him, his lawyers said.

"Fujii mentioned that if the lay judges had been the same age as him, they may have sympathized with him more. He felt that if they had been 60 or 70, with that much life experience, they may have understood why he felt the need to suddenly bring out the knife," Date said. The defendant has not yet decided whether he will appeal, he added.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, Aug. 7, 2009
Singer who fled ill woman 'got scared'

(Kyodo News) Actor and pop singer Manabu Oshio, who was arrested Monday for allegedly taking Ecstasy, said he got scared and fled from a Tokyo apartment after a woman with whom he was using the drug became ill, police sources said Thursday.

The 30-year-old woman was found dead Sunday.

"She developed a health problem after taking the tablets. I got scared and left," Oshio was quoted as saying.

Oshio and the woman were in a luxury apartment in the Roppongi Hills business and entertainment quarter Sunday when he called his manager and left after the woman fell ill, police said. The police then received a report from the manager at around 9:30 p.m. Sunday and found the woman's body later.

Oshio was arrested after his urine was found to contain the synthetic drug, also known as MDMA, in a test conducted in connection with the woman's death.

An autopsy showed the woman died sometime between around 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. Sunday.

Investigators are looking into the actions of Oshio and his manager during the four- to six-hour period between the woman's death and the manager's call to the police, the sources said.

Oshio, an actor and lead vocalist for pop group LIV, told investigators the woman took a sudden turn for the worse after using two Ecstasy tablets, whereas he had taken one at her recommendation.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, Aug. 7, 2009
DPJ to aid individuals: Otsuka

(Kyodo News) A key policymaker of the Democratic Party of Japan said Wednesday the DPJ plans to provide "first aid" to needy individuals, instead of to companies as the ruling Liberal Democratic Party does, if it wins the Aug. 30 general election.

But economic and fiscal policy minister Yoshimasa Hayashi criticized the DPJ's policies, which include cash benefits for families with children and an end to highway tolls, as being "too costly" and having a "touch of socialism."

Kohei Otsuka, vice chairman of the DPJ's Policy Research Committee, said the LDP's conventional policies based on the belief that supporting companies will lead to improvement in family finances have been a "failure."

"If we take power, we'll provide first aid to needy individuals," Otsuka said. "If their living (situation) gets better, that would boost demand and improve the economy."

Meanwhile, Hayashi said in a separate interview that the DPJ "says financial aid to households should help buoy consumption, but the party seems more (bent on) creating a big government that collects a lot of money and then hands out a lot. It has a strong touch of socialism."

The DPJ, which opinion polls have shown is well positioned to win the Aug. 30 House of Representatives election, unveiled late last month its manifesto, including the creation of a monthly child allowance for families of \26,000 per child.

If implemented in full, the party's initiatives would cost a total of \16.8 trillion in the fiscal year beginning in April 2013, and the LDP has criticized the DPJ's proposals, saying the source of funds was vague.

news20090807jt4

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

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, Aug. 7, 2009
ELECTION 2009
Big promises, but where's the funds?
DPJ vows cuts in other areas; LDP stresses overall growth
By TAKAHIRO FUKADA
Staff writer

Second in a series

A monthly allowance of \26,000 for every child of junior high school age and under, free rides on highways and no tuition fees for high school are all goals of the Democratic Party of Japan as spelled out in its manifesto for the Aug. 30 election.

The key questions are where the party will come up with the funding to pay for this juicy lineup and whether all of its pledges are even attainable.

"It isn't that we don't have fiscal sources. We have them," DPJ President Yukio Hatoyama said when he announced the DPJ platform July 27. "First, we will thoroughly eliminate wasteful spending."

By slashing waste, the DPJ says it can come up with \9.1 trillion, including \6.1 trillion by slashing projects carried out by the government-affiliated organizations where retired bureaucrats often end up, as well as other ministry spending. It also vows to utilize \4.3 trillion in reserves set aside in special accounts.

In total, the DPJ claims it can come up with \16.8 trillion by the end of fiscal 2013.

But Masaaki Suzuki, senior economist at Mizuho Research Institute, doubts the DPJ can fulfill its goal.

"It is a good direction itself that the fiscal resources will be generated by eliminating wasteful spending," Suzuki said, also praising the DPJ's efforts to specify clear targets for spending cuts.

"But since the scale is so big, I wonder whether it will be feasible just by restructuring the government," Suzuki said, referring in particular to shaving \6.1 trillion in government expenditures.

The DPJ's big plans for lavishing funds on its own agenda, on the other hand, raises concerns that the national debt — already at 170 percent of gross domestic product — will mushroom further and leave it to future generations to foot the bill.

The party has said it won't rule out the possibility of resorting to a tactic to which its arch foe, the Liberal Democratic Party, is no stranger to, and this is issuing deficit-covering bonds if its efforts to find funding fall short.

"If policies are to be implemented to seriously consider our children's future, it is important not to increase public debt any further," said Ryutaro Kono, chief economist at BNP Paribas. "If public debt again increases, (policy) options will be really limited in our children's era."

The LDP meanwhile has vowed to secure funds by revitalizing the economy so tax revenues will go up. Unlike the DPJ, it has set a goal of achieving annualized economic growth of 2 percent in the latter half of fiscal 2010.

With this in mind, the LDP is promising to boost domestic demand by \40 trillion to \60 trillion in the next three years, which would translate into some 2 million new jobs.

The party is also vowing to increase annual household disposable income by \1 million within a decade and raise per capita income to the world's top tier.

"Until now, I have made the economy my priority in carrying out policies," Prime Minister Taro Aso said last week when he unveiled the LDP's platform, adding that financial resources will be procured through economic growth.

But Takuji Aida, senior economist at UBS Securities Japan, said the LDP still needs to offer more details on where it will get the money to implement its policy platform.

On achieving its target for economic growth, Aida said the LDP needs to clarify how much the budget will have to grow and how much will have to be raised through deficit-covering bonds.

To boost revenues, raising the 5 percent consumption tax may be the only logical option. But both the LDP and DPJ are reluctant to specify before the election when they would raise the tax.

"After the economy recovers, I will ask for a comprehensive tax reform, including raising the consumption tax, to allocate funding to social welfare and to tackling the low birthrate," Aso said.

The LDP plans to draft the necessary legislation for tax reform by fiscal 2011 and implement it immediately after the economy recovers.

The DPJ meanwhile says it won't raise the current 5 percent levy in the next four years.

Regardless of which party will take the lead role in the government after the Aug. 30 poll, economists are skeptical there will be a quick cure for the ailing economy.

No matter what kind of policies are introduced, Japan's economic recovery will be contingent on a recovery in the United States, where the global economic crisis started, and Japan's low birthrate and graying population will not change dramatically, said Yasunari Ueno, chief market economist at Mizuho Securities Co.

"There will not be any major change" to the economy even if the measures in parties' campaign pledges are carried out, Ueno said.

Other economists agree. They say the public is looking for a clear vision on how the government will handle Japan's worrying demographic problems and boost demand in the long term.

If the population fails to grow, which would translate into a bigger labor force and taxpayer base, the government will have to promote tourism, immigration and foreign investment to spur demand, they said. These measures will eventually help Japan rebuild fiscal health.

"Both the DPJ and LDP lack long-term growth strategies," Aida of UBS Securities said. "I still cannot harbor any expectations that the potential growth rate will fundamentally change, or be boosted, by this election result or the policies to be implemented."

In this series, we take a close look at possible changes under a DPJ-led government and compare them with current policies under LDP rule.

Competing economic policies
Economy

LDP: Achieve annualized economic growth of 2 percent in the second half of fiscal 2010. DPJ: Lower corporate tax rate for small firms from 18 percent to 11 percent.

Employment

LDP: Implement job training for 1 million people in three years. DPJ: Provide job training with a monthly allowance of \100,000.

Education and child-rearing

LDP: Make infant education free and create scholarships with stipends for high school and university students. DPJ: Distribute a monthly allowance of \26,000 for junior high students and below and make public high school free.

Sales tax hike and fiscal resources

LDP: Complete legislative action for tax reform by fiscal 2011 and hike the consumption tax once the economy recovers. DPJ: Don't touch the consumption tax for four years and create fiscal resources by eliminating waste and revamping the budget.

Target time to achieve a primary budget surplus

LDP: By fiscal 2019. DPJ: Not specified.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Friday, Aug. 7, 2009
MUFJ Nicos loses data on credit card customers

(Kyodo News) Credit card company Mitsubishi UFJ Nicos Co. said Thursday that it has lost key information on about 197,000 customers but that the data are unlikely to be leaked to unauthorized sources or abused in electronic transactions.

The incident is the latest in a spate of data-loss cases and is likely to trigger calls for more reliable information management. Insurer Alico Japan recently warned customers about possible credit card fraud after admitting that widespread leakage of its customer data had taken place.

Mitsubishi UFJ Nicos said an internal investigation revealed the company may have mistakenly discarded the data, which were compiled between 1993 and 2001 and include the names, addresses and bank account numbers of current and former Nicos and UFJ card customers.

The lost data, however, do not include their personal identification numbers, the company said.

Since the data were stored in a film that requires a special reading device to use, it is unlikely they will be leaked and no inquiries about the matter have been received, the company said.

"We will actively work to reinforce information management and implement preventive measures for erroneous disposal," it added.

In July, Alico Japan, a unit of American International Group Inc., reported possible cases of fraud connected to suspected leakage of credit card information on its policyholders.

In April, Mitsubishi UFJ Securities Co., a brokerage arm of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., announced that a former executive may have sold personal data on around 49,000 customers to three data list dealers.

news20090807jt5

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

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, Aug. 7, 2009
Japan's smoking habit runs into court challenge
By YURI KAGEYAMA

(The Associated Press) YOKOHAMA (AP) One plaintiff is a cancer patient. Another is represented by his widow. The third has emphysema and rolls into the Yokohama District Court in a wheelchair with tubes trailing out of his nose.

The three people are waging a minnow-vs.-whale battle against Big Tobacco in one of the world's most smoker-friendly countries.

Precedent suggests they will lose, but they hope their suit will at least draw attention to the dangers of smoking.

Even if they win, they're unlikely to dent the finances of Japan Tobacco Inc., a former monopoly still half-owned by the government. The three are asking for a total of \30 million from a company with \6.8 trillion a year in sales.

Their larger goal, they say, is to gain stronger curbs on tobacco, and legal and social acceptance of a notion that much of the world now takes for granted: that smoking makes you sick.

They have a long way to go. There's little of the concerted discouragement of smoking that has gained momentum in the West. Few bars and restaurants ban smoking. Only last year, to curb smoking among children, did the taspo smart card become necessary to buy cigarettes from a vending machine.

A pack of 20 usually costs \300, less than a third of New York prices, and about 60 percent of it is tax.

Other countries print dire health warnings in bold letters and add pictures of dead babies, gangrenous feet and crumbling teeth. Here, in small print, they say: "Smoking can be one of the causes for lung cancer."

Secondhand smoke? "Tobacco smoke has a harmful effect on people around you, especially infants, children and the elderly. When smoking, please be careful of those around you," the warnings say.

Japan Tobacco officials still flatly deny passive smoking is a problem, arguing that the dangers come from burning cigarettes left in an ashtray — not secondhand fumes.

The corporation has argued in the Yokohama District Court that it has no case to answer because smokers are free to quit anytime, smoking is legal and cancer has multiple causes. It's the same defense that gained it victory the last time it was taken to court, in 2003.

The current case began in January 2005. Since then, coplaintiff Kenichi Morishita has died of pneumonia and bacterial infection at age 75, leaving 67-year-old cancer patient Koreyoshi Takahashi, who has one lung, and Masanobu Mizuno, the emphysema patient, a former mechanic who is also 67 and smoked from age 15 to 51.

With final arguments over, the ruling is slated for Jan. 20.

Although the case has attracted little media attention, there are signs that even Japan is beginning to kick the habit.

Among adult males, the number of smokers has been falling and now stands at 39.4 percent compared with about 24 percent in the U.S., according to the health ministry and the American Lung Association.

Cigarette ads no longer appear on TV, although Japan Tobacco gets on the air with ads that discourage tossing butts on the street or in trash cans.

There are more smoke-free cabs and areas on train platforms. Some communities have passed ordinances allowing small fines for smoking on streets.

Smoke-free bars and restaurants are enough of a novelty to have spawned a backlash against "smoker-bashing."

In April, a major restaurant chain opened Cafe Tobacco, a Tokyo coffee shop billing itself as a haven for smokers. It has proven popular among customers such as 28-year-old Kousuke Kishi, who takes his coffee with a Marlboro Light.

"I don't want to live an extra year or two by giving up what I love to do," said Kishi, 28, manager at a consultancy.

The lawsuit demands sterner warning labels on cigarettes, a ban on cigarette vending machines, and an acknowledgment that smoking is addictive and harmful.

"When I began smoking, about 80 percent of men were smokers," Mizuno said. "The advertising phrase was, 'You're healthy when a cigarette tastes so good.' "

In the U.S., President Barack Obama has signed a law empowering the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco products, and while that, too, got little attention in the Japanese media, Obama's own struggle to quit smoking has been an inspiration to Mizuno.

"Times have really changed," he said. "The people's victory is near."


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Friday, Aug. 7, 2009
Toyota planning a new sports car with Subaru

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) Toyota Motor Corp. will produce a fun but affordable sports car as the automaker seeks a return to profitability with vehicles that meet customers' desire for fuel efficiency without sacrificing style.

President Akio Toyoda announced plans Wednesday for the new car — a joint venture with Subaru — while outlining his strategy for reversing the company's sales and income slide and charting a long-term course designed to appeal to new generations of motorists.

He also said the company has not decided the future of a California manufacturing plant that it operated jointly with General Motors, which announced in June it was abandoning the 50-50 venture as it emerges from bankruptcy protection.

"We are back where we were 100 years ago, at a point where we must reinvent the automobile," Toyoda said during an industry conference at a Lake Michigan resort. It was his first speech in North America since becoming president in June of the company founded by his grandfather.

Earlier this week, Toyota reported a smaller than expected loss of \77.82 billion for the quarter ending June 30 and said it expected less red ink for the full year than initially projected. Still, it suffered a 38.3 percent global sales drop during the quarter as the recession took its toll on the industry.

Despite its reputation for high quality and fuel efficiency, company officials acknowledge a need for more stylish vehicles to attract U.S. buyers — especially younger ones.

"You're going to have to have passion in your products" while retaining quality and value, Jim Lentz, president of Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc., said after Toyoda spoke.

Toyoda, 53, described himself as a "car nut" and race driver who loves the feel of a car on the open road.

"I want to see Toyota build cars that are fun and exciting to drive," he said.

Without offering details, he said the planned sports car would fit the bill without being too expensive.

"I am very excited about it and I plan to fast-track it," Toyoda said, adding it would be launched within a few years.

He also emphasized fuel efficiency, saying rising oil prices and dwindling supplies have left the industry at a "once-in-a-century crossroads" where excelling at making gas-sippers and alternative-power vehicles will be a matter of survival.

Toyota has sold 2 million of its Prius hybrids and will launch a plug-in hybrid for fleet customers this year. A pure electric car is planned for 2012 and the company is making progress on hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles, Toyoda said.

Lentz acknowledged the planned sports car might seem at odds with the goal of saving energy, but said the company needs products that will appeal to a cross section of U.S. consumers. He declined comment on where the vehicle would be built.

Toyoda made only a passing reference to the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. plant in Fremont, Calif., which makes the Pontiac Vibe station wagon for GM and the Corolla compact and Tacoma pickup truck for Toyota.

Toyoda once was vice president of NUMMI, which was established in 1984 and employs 4,600 workers. Company officials have said they might liquidate Toyota's stake.

GM's withdrawal "has created some extremely difficult issues for us to resolve," Toyoda said. "We are still studying the situation and hope to make a decision soon."


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Friday, Aug. 7, 2009
Seven & I opens first drugstore

(Kyodo News) Seven & I Holdings Co. opened its first drugstore Thursday at an Ito-Yokado supermarket in Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture.

The convenience store chain said it aims to set up two more Seven Bi no Gardens at Ito-Yokado Co. outlets in the Tokyo area by yearend, with an eye to opening around 30 each year. "Bi" means "beauty" in Japanese.

"We intend to begin handling pharmaceuticals under our private brands next year," said Toshihide Mizushima, president of Seven Health Care Co., the firm in charge of the new drugstores.

The company is a venture formed in June between Seven & I and Ain Pharmaciez Inc., a major chain of prescription drugstores.

The new Funabashi drugstore also sells cosmetics and nursing care products and offers a wide selection of products targeting women in their 20s and 30s, Seven & I said.

The company entered the drug business in June after the Pharmaceutical Affairs Act was revised to ease restrictions on medicine sales.

Ever since, convenience stores and supermarkets, including Seven & I group firm Seven-Eleven Japan Co., have been selling nonprescription drugs, including aspirin.

news20090807jt6

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

[BUSINESS NEWS]
Friday, Aug. 7, 2009
Prius ranks best-selling vehicle for second month in a row

(Kyodo News) The Toyota Prius was Japan's best-selling vehicle in July with 27,712 sales, holding the No. 1 spot for the second straight month, industry groups said Thursday.

Toyota Motor Corp.'s hybrid, including both old and new models, maintained its momentum from June when it came out on top for the first time in terms of overall domestic auto sales, including imported cars and minivehicles, according to data from the Japan Automobile Dealers Association and Japan Mini Vehicles Association.

Suzuki Motor Corp.'s WagonR minicar came in second with 18,140 units sold.

Also in the top 10 was Honda Motor Co.'s Insight hybrid, finishing seventh with sales of 10,210 units, reflecting the popularity of environmentally friendly cars. The Insight hit the domestic market in early February with a starting sticker price of 1.89 million.

The Prius is expected to retain its No. 1 slot in August and beyond, having already received more than 250,000 orders. Speculation is also high that the Prius could win the annual sweepstakes, industry observers said.

Toyota rolled out a fully remodeled version of the Prius in mid-May with a retail price starting from 2.05 million, nearly 300,000 less than the previous low-end model, and with better fuel-efficiency.

Among minicars, Suzuki's WagonR along with Daihatsu Motor Co.'s Move and Tanto minicars continued their strength since April, with all three finishing in the top five the last four months.

For business 2008, these cars won the top three slots.

Toyota Motor Kyushu Inc. said Thursday that orders for the hybrid version of its luxury Lexus sedan have been robust, leading the Toyota unit to expand production of the model.

Orders for the HS250h Lexus hybrid launched July 14 have reached 8,600 units, far more than the monthly target of 500, Seiichi Sudo, president of the Toyota unit, said in Fukuoka.

"Orders are very brisk as customers endorse its environmental performance," he said.

The company is making employees work 30 to 90 minutes of overtime a day to meet demand, Sudo said, warning, however, that delivery of many ordered cars could be delayed beyond the March 31 expiry for the government's subsidy program.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Friday, Aug. 7, 2009
BOJ said to see deflation stretching through 2011
By MAYUMI OTSUMA and MASAHIRO HIDAKA

(Bloomberg) The Bank of Japan will probably forecast that declines in consumer prices will extend into 2011 even as the economy recovers, sources said.

The estimate would be included in policymakers' first economic projections for the financial year ending in March 2012, scheduled for release in October, said the sources, who declined to be identified ahead of the report. BOJ Policy Board members have already predicted prices will fall 1.3 percent in the current year and 1 percent in fiscal 2010.

Prospects for a third year of deflation make it likely BOJ Gov. Masaaki Shirakawa and his colleagues will keep interest rates near zero through next year, analysts said. It would also erode profits at companies.

"The BOJ will hold the key rate at 0.1 percent at least through March 2011 to stop deflation from becoming deeply entrenched," said Jun Ishii, chief fixed-income strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities Co. "The central bank will probably consider further policy-easing action" should the risk of spiraling deflation mount, he added.

Japan is beginning to emerge from its worst postwar recession as exports improve and manufacturers boost production to replenish inventories. The revival has yet to spread to consumers, who are facing record declines in paychecks and an unemployment rate that economists say will reach an unprecedented 5.8 percent early next year.

Deflation may escalate as households, whose spending accounts for more than half of the nation's gross domestic product, delay purchases on the expectation that goods will get cheaper, restraining a recovery in the economy.

The BOJ cut the key overnight rate to 0.1 percent in December, and has since begun buying corporate debt from lenders and offering them unlimited loans backed by collateral to channel funds to companies. The BOJ Policy Board last month extended the credit steps by three months to Dec. 31; some analysts said they'll need to extend them again.

"With little room left to trim the key rate, the BOJ will have no choice but to keep the current extraordinary policy measures, including the credit-easing programs, for a long time," said Akio Makabe, an economics professor at Shinshu University in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture.

Subdued consumer prices have helped keep Japan's debt yields from climbing even as the government enacted fiscal-stimulus measures. Benchmark 10-year bonds yielded 1.435 percent at 10:16 a.m. in Tokyo, down from the year's high of 1.57 percent in June and an average of 1.47 percent the past decade.

Japan endured years of deflation earlier this decade, only defeating it in 2005. A BOJ forecast signaling a return of the trend would come weeks after a new government takes office. The Democratic Party of Japan leads the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in polls ahead of the Aug. 30 general election.

The BOJ is bound by law to maintain price stability, and policymakers have indicated that inflation is steady within a range of zero to 2 percent. The prospect that prices will stay below that scope will force the BOJ to keep the key rate unchanged at least through 2010, according to 10 of 13 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.

Prices excluding fresh food, the BOJ's preferred gauge, slid a record 1.7 percent in June, in part because oil traded at about half of last year's levels.

BOJ Deputy Gov. Hirohide Yamaguchi said last month it will take "some time" before consumer prices return to the Policy Board's range. He added there is no need for the BOJ to implement additional policy-easing measures for now, with the risk of a deflationary spiral being low.

Retailers are discounting products in an effort to maintain sales amid the recession. Aeon Co. in July started selling house-brand beer that's 20 percent cheaper than the equivalent products of major breweries. The company, which last month reported its fourth net loss in five quarters, cut prices on more than 6,000 items in March as rivals, including Seven & I Holdings Co. and Seiyu Ltd., a Wal-Mart Stores Inc. unit, also discounted products.

"Retailers are slashing prices to appeal to households, which are tightening their purse strings in response to job losses and wage cuts," said Ryutaro Kono, chief economist at BNP Paribas in Tokyo.

Kono anticipates the BOJ in October will forecast prices will fall about 1 percent in fiscal 2011 because a growing number of consumers and companies are expecting price declines.

A measure of the gap between supply and demand in the economy widened to a record in the three months that ended March 31, according to the Cabinet Office.

"It's inevitable that the BOJ will forecast price declines for a third year," given that slack in the economy has widened and growth will be subdued, said Seiji Shiraishi, chief economist at HSBC Securities Japan Ltd. "The BOJ will continue to focus on the economy's downside risks."

Key index rises again
The broadest indicator of Japan's economic health rose for a third month in June, signaling the nation's deepest postwar recession is easing.

The coincident index, a composite of 11 indicators including factory production and retail sales, climbed to 87.8 in June from 87.1 in May, the Cabinet Office said Thursday.

"The index is rising since bottoming in March as companies have brought forward inventory adjustments and exports are increasing," said Yoshiki Shinke, a senior economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute. "That signals the economy is on a recovery track."

news20090807jt7

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

[BUSINESS NEWS]
Friday, Aug. 7, 2009
Sapporo sex shops count: BOJ poll

(Bloomberg) The Bank of Japan is counting brothels in Hokkaido to help determine demand for services as the country battles its deepest postwar recession.

The number of sex parlors in the Susukino red-light district in Sapporo have more than quadrupled in the past 20 years, according to a central bank report Wednesday titled, "Susukino, Recent Trends and Changes to a Pleasure District." The number of eateries fell to 3,620 from 4,191 during that period, the BOJ said.

The survey of sex shops and restaurants was designed to better gauge demand for services, an area of the economy that's becoming more important as exports slump.

"Any study into services is most welcome," said Martin Schulz, senior economist at Fujitsu Research Institute in Tokyo. "We've got hundreds of studies on exports and manufacturing. What's needed is creative thinking on services, and if that includes brothels, so be it."

Susukino covers an area about five times the size of the Tokyo Dome, home of the Yomiuri Giants baseball team. While the number of restaurants in the district fell 14 percent between 1989 and 2008, the number of brothels climbed to 264 shops from 63, the report said.

"The number of brothels has increased. There's no question about that," said Tadao Yonezawa, 66, an official at the Susukino Tourist Association. "It must be because people want those services. Where there's demand, you get supply."

Hokkaido's economy has lagged most of the nation. Even between 2002 and 2007, when the national economy was enjoying its longest growth streak in postwar history, Hokkaido suffered a jobless rate that exceeded the nationwide record of 5.5 percent.

The BOJ commissioned the report because Susukino is the heart of Hokkaido's service industry, according to a BOJ official who declined to be identified. The official added that nonmanufacturers are suffering with some exceptions.

The survey, posted on the BOJ's Web site, was conducted by Kenichiro Kouno, who is based in the central bank's Sapporo branch. Kouno wasn't available for comment.

The BOJ upgraded its assessment of Hokkaido's economy to "stagnant" from "stagnating amid increasing hardship" in a quarterly report released in July.

Susukino is one of Japan's three top pleasure districts, along with Kabukicho in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo, and Nakasu in the Hakata area of Fukuoka. By law, licensed shops operating in designated zones can offer services including oral sex and other activities that don't involve intercourse.

District planners should consider ways to appeal to a broader segment of society, including female customers, to ensure the vitality of the area, the report concludes.


[BUSINESS NEWS]
Friday, Aug. 7, 2009
Currency gains lift Kirin forecast

(Bloomberg) Kirin Holdings Co. has raised its annual forecast 5.3 percent on currency gains.

Net income may total \60 billion for the year ending Dec. 31, compared with the May estimate of \57 billion and \80.2 billion earned last year, Kirin said in a statement Thursday. It maintained the forecast for annual sales of \2.3 trillion.

Kirin and other domestic beverage makers are seeking acquisitions and partnerships to expand overseas sales as their home market contracts amid a shrinking population. Kirin, Japan's largest beverage maker, aims to merge with rival Suntory Holdings Ltd. and has spent more than $7 billion in the past two years in Asia, including its plan to take full control of Australian brewer Lion Nathan Ltd.

"Kirin will proceed with merger talks with Suntory honestly and quickly," Chief Financial Officer Yoshiharu Furumoto said at a news conference.

For the six months that ended June 30, Tokyo-based Kirin reported net income of \15 billion, down 82 percent. The company beat its May earnings estimate as it had a gain of \13 billion because of a stronger-than-expected Australian dollar.

Kirin and Suntory said last month they're in the early stage of merger discussions. The move would create one of the world's biggest beer makers, which may challenge market leader Anheuser-Busch InBev NV. Suntory, based in Osaka, isn't publicly traded and is controlled by President Nobutada Saji and the founding family.

news20090807lat

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

[Top News]
Sotomayor will bring unique perspective to the Supreme Court
The newly confirmed justice's experiences with a disability, economic struggles and as a prosecutor and trial judge are among several things that may set her apart from her new colleagues.
By David G. Savage and James Oliphant
August 7, 2009

Reporting from Washington -- The historic confirmation Thursday of Judge Sonia Sotomayor as the nation's newest justice will bring new perspectives to the Supreme Court, and not just because she will be its first Latino.

After three days of debate, the Senate voted 68 to 31 in her favor, with nine Republicans crossing party lines to support her.

During the debate and confirmation hearings, her experience as a Latina seemed to overshadow discussions about her qualifications. But her background will probably affect her thinking and influence her decisions in ways that were hardly mentioned in the Senate fight.

After she is sworn into office Saturday, she will be the only justice whose first language is not English. She has had diabetes since childhood -- a medical condition classified as a disability under federal law. She was raised in a Bronx housing project where drugs were more common than Ivy League college success. And the 111th justice is a divorced woman with no children.

Sotomayor, the 55-year-old daughter of Puerto Rican parents, watched the vote in a conference room at the federal courthouse in Manhattan where she served as an appellate judge. Other judges and court workers celebrated with Sotomayor, who took a call from her mother after the vote was completed.

"Mommy, I have people here," she said, before conversing briefly in Spanish. When she left the courthouse, she declined to answer questions from reporters, saying: "I'm going to be with my friends."

More Republicans than expected voted for Sotomayor, given the partisan nature of recent Supreme Court confirmation hearings.

"Sixty-eight votes is a victory for the White House," said John Geer, a political scientist at Vanderbilt University. "If the Obama administration got that kind of support for healthcare, they would be dancing down Pennsylvania Avenue."

President Obama praised the result. "With this historic vote, the Senate has affirmed that Judge Sotomayor has the intellect, the temperament, the history, the integrity and the independence of mind to ably serve on our nation's highest court," he said.

But Sotomayor's rejection of Obama's assertion that empathy is a crucial qualification for the court had Republicans claiming victory too Thursday, saying it would be harder now for the president to nominate a liberal jurist if there is another court vacancy.

"By the end of the hearing, not only Republicans, not only Democrats, but the nominee herself ended up rejecting the very empathy standard the president used when selecting her," Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said Thursday.

Sessions, who voted against Sotomayor, said: "This process reflected a broad public consensus that judges should be impartial, restrained, and faithfully tethered to the law and the Constitution. It will now be harder to nominate activist judges."

Although the confirmation hearings focused on whether she would be an activist on the high court, the many ways in which she will be an unusual member of the elite judicial fraternity were largely overlooked.

Sotomayor refers to herself proudly as an "affirmative-action baby," having been admitted to Princeton University with less than stellar SAT scores, but who nonetheless graduated with the highest honors.

She will "change the conversation on affirmative action" within the court, said University of Maryland law professor Sherrilyn Ifill. The only other minority on the court, Justice Clarence Thomas, is a staunch foe of affirmative action; he maintains that such policies taint the accomplishments of all minorities.

"Her story of how hard she worked to graduate first in her class from Princeton makes her really the poster child for the benefits of affirmative action," Ifill said.

Her diabetes and daily insulin shots it requires were not much discussed during the hearings, but that experience is bound to influence her views, some lawyers say.

"She may be a strong voice for access to healthcare," said Sylvia Lazos, a law professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. "She will be a real player in the debates over what is a disability."

Advocates for those with disabilities have suffered some big defeats in the court in the last decade, and they have high hopes for Sotomayor. "We're very excited. We don't feel we have had a champion on the current court," said Andrew Imparato, president of the American Assn. of People with Disabilities.

And her status as a single woman could, some expect, have a bearing how she looks at nontraditional families. The court is expected to face a series of cases soon involving the legal rights of families of gay and lesbian couples.

Even her personal finances look more like contemporary America's compared with those of the wealthier colleagues she'll join on the Supreme Court. Friends say that Sotomayor has struggled to pay her mortgage and her credit card bills, and her financial disclosures show that she has no substantial savings or stock portfolio.

Before becoming a judge, she served on a New York board that strictly enforced the city's campaign finance laws, but she will be joining a court whose conservative justices are skeptical of limiting the role of money in politics.

And unlike any current justice, she has both tried cases as a prosecutor and presided over trials as a judge. Friends say those experiences shaped her view of the law and judging, giving her an up-close look at how the criminal justice system works. By contrast, most of the justices have spent their careers as law professors, government lawyers and appellate judges, all at least one step removed from trials.

"She is intensely focused on the facts, not the ideology," said Los Angeles lawyer Nancy Gray, who worked with Sotomayor as a prosecutor in New York. "In the criminal system, you often see the worst in people, the damage that crime does to victims and their families, and the revolving door of people coming through the system. She is acutely aware of all that."

The effects of Sotomayor's ethnicity and gender -- she will become the second woman on the court, the third ever -- may not be obvious in her decisions, many lawyers say, but could influence her fellow justices.

After Justice Thurgood Marshall retired, several justices, including Sandra Day O'Connor and Byron R. White, wrote that the first African American justice had a powerful influence through the stories he told in their private conferences. As a young lawyer, he traveled throughout the South to represent black defendants who often faced a white prosecutor, a white judge and an all-white jury. If his white colleagues had not thought much about how race could infect the criminal justice system, Marshall made sure they understood.

Sotomayor's first major case, due to be heard Sept. 9, will decide the constitutionality of part of the McCain-Feingold Act that forbids the broadcast of corporate-funded campaign ads.

This week, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), cosponsor of the law, voted against Sotomayor because, he said, she was not a "believer in judicial restraint."

But the newly confirmed justice is more likely to uphold his campaign-finance measure than her more conservative colleagues whom McCain supported, including Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito.

During the vote, the newest senator, Al Franken (D-Minn.), was given the honor of presiding over the chamber. As he did so, an ailing Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va) arrived unexpectedly to boost the tally for Sotomayor by one more vote.

As the final vote was announced, Rep. Jose E. Serrano of the Bronx, a Democrat who represents the district where Sotomayor was born, embraced Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) on the Senate floor.

Saturday, for the first time at the court, cameras will be allowed to record the moment a new Supreme Court justice takes the oath of office.

news20090807nyt

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

[Politics]
Sotomayor Faces Heavy Workload of Complex Cases
By ADAM LIPTAK
Published: August 6, 2009

Now comes the hard part.
　　
With the Senate’s approval of Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court on Thursday, the new justice will soon take on one of the most demanding jobs in the land.

Just over a month from now, Justice Sotomayor will hear her first case, one that may transform how elections are financed, at a special summer session of the court. A few weeks later, she will join her eight new colleagues to decide which of the hundreds of appeals that have piled up over the summer the court should hear.

The volume and difficulty of the work, and the task of fitting into a storied institution populated by strong and idiosyncratic personalities, has unnerved even judges with distinguished records on lower courts, fancy credentials and ample self-confidence.

“I was frightened to death for the first three years,” Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who joined the court in 1994, said in a 2006 interview. Justice David H. Souter once described coming to the court in 1990 as like “walking through a tidal wave.”

The new justice’s presence will unsettle and reshuffle the court, sometimes literally. When she takes the seat reserved for the junior justice — the one on the spectators’ far right side — four other justices will move to new places on the bench. When there is a knock at the door during the justices’ private conferences, it will be Justice Sotomayor’s job to answer it.

In addition to the blockbuster election-law case, the new term is frontloaded with important First Amendment, business, criminal and patent cases. Justice Sotomayor’s early votes and opinions, along with alliances she forges, will provide answers to at least some of the questions she avoided in confirmation hearings.

But Supreme Court specialists said they do not expect her to take a fundamentally different approach from Justice Souter, whom she is succeeding, in most kinds of cases. They also cautioned that a justice’s first few years are often a poor indicator of a long-term philosophy.

“Few justices write broadly or stake out new terrain in their first terms,” said Richard H. Pildes, a law professor at New York University who served as a law clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall.

“The Supreme Court is an intimate group of equals who will live together for years,” Professor Pildes added. “Most newcomers tread gently as they come to terms with the dynamics of the group and a daunting array of new issues, including questions lower court judges never face, such as how bound to be by prior Supreme Court decisions. The cases are harder, the ramifications of decisions far more consequential.”

For Justice Sotomayor, the new job will start with hearing the election-law case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. It concerns whether the government may limit the showing of a negative documentary about Hillary Rodham Clinton under the campaign finance laws, and it attracted only limited attention when it was first argued in March.

In an unusual move in June, though, the court set the case down for re-argument on Sept. 9, asking the parties to address the question of whether it should overrule a foundational decision about the regulation of corporate speech and part of a decision upholding the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.

Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the law school at the University of California, Irvine, said Citizens United is “one of the most important First Amendment cases in years.”

“It has,” Mr. Chemerinsky added, “the potential for dramatically changing all federal, state and local elections if the court holds that corporations have a First Amendment right to contribute money to candidates.”

The docket is also studded with business cases, and the decisions in them will provide hints about how the court will treat disputes arising from economic legislation pushed through Congress by the Obama administration.

“The Supreme Court,” said Joseph A. Grundfest, a law professor at Stanford, “will likely issue important decisions defining the permissible level of punitive damages, the validity of business method patents, whether and when parallel conduct among competitors violates the antitrust laws, and statutes of limitations in securities fraud action. But who the heck knows how Justice Sotomayor will vote in any of these cases?”

A former prosecutor, district and appellate court judge, she has a more fully developed record on criminal issues. Her views are in some ways more conservative than those of Justice Souter, meaning that this is an area where her vote may make a difference.

“I would have expected her to have voted against subjecting scientific experts to cross-examination,” said Craig M. Bradley, a law professor at Indiana University, referring to a 5-to-4 decision from the court in June. The decision, with Justice Souter in the majority, ruled that crime laboratory reports may not be used against criminal defendants at trial unless the analysts responsible for creating them give testimony and subject themselves to cross-examination.

The court has agreed to hear a follow-up case, and the new justice will have to consider whether to narrow the scope of the decision from June, Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts.

A pair of cases concerning whether the Constitution allows juvenile offenders to be sentenced to life without parole for crimes in which no one was killed will also illuminate Justice Sotomayor’s views on harsh punishments. They may also answer a question not fully resolved at her confirmation hearings, that of whether she will look to the decision of foreign courts in considering the issue, as the court did in barring the execution of juvenile offenders in 2005.

The lower courts in the two new cases, both from Florida, had no difficulty ruling against the inmates who brought them. The courts said they were bound by Supreme Court precedent. But the Supreme Court itself is free to alter or reinterpret its precedent.

Justice William J. Brennan Jr., who served for more than 30 years and who wielded his charm and intellect to forge sometimes unlikely liberal majorities, said there was no way to get ready for such a task.

“I say categorically that no prior experience, including prior judicial experience, prepares one for the work of the Supreme Court,” Justice Brennan wrote in 1973. “The initial confrontation on the United States Supreme Court with the astounding differences in function and character of role, and the necessity for learning entirely new criteria for decisions, can be a traumatic experience for the neophyte.”

news20090807wp

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

[In Congress]
Sotomayor Wins Confirmation
Senate Votes 68 to 31 for Judge Who Will Be First Hispanic to Serve on High Court
By Amy Goldstein and Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, August 7, 2009

The Senate, in a vote laden with history and partisanship, confirmed Sonia Sotomayor on Thursday as the 111th justice and the first Hispanic to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.

The confirmation of President Obama's first high court nominee was a milestone for his presidency. But the Senate's nearly 20 hours of debate over Sotomayor this week -- and the fact that only nine Republicans voted for her -- made clear the divisive contours her nomination had assumed since Obama chose her this spring.

Although the 68 to 31 vote was a GOP defeat, Republicans contended that they had succeeded at framing the confirmation debate in a way that could influence Obama's future nominations throughout the federal judiciary, including to the Supreme Court if vacancies arise.

In particular, Sen. Jeff Sessions (Ala.), the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said that Sotomayor and Democratic senators had discarded a standard that Obama and left-leaning legal thinkers have held out: the idea that judges should be guided, in part, by empathy. If Obama nominates other people to courts who believe in that idea, Sessions said, "I don't think that would play well. . . . It could hurt this administration in other areas."

The Senate's vote also provided evidence that sharp disagreements between the political parties have become a fixture of Supreme Court confirmations. Sotomayor drew more "no" votes than one of President George W. Bush's nominees, John G. Roberts Jr., and fewer than the other, Samuel A. Alito, Jr. But all three confirmations proved far more polarizing than had been traditional for the Senate, including as recently as the two justices chosen by President Bill Clinton in the 1990s.

During Sotomayor's confirmation hearings last month before the Judiciary Committee, even some Republicans said her record from 17 years as an appellate and trial judge fits within the legal mainstream. But in the end, more than three-quarters of the Senate's 40 Republicans voted against her, characterizing her as biased -- and wrong on three of her best-known rulings on constitutional matters.

Democrats spoke in partisan terms, too. Moments before the vote, Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.) implored every senator who opposed Sotomayor -- all of them Republicans -- to "search his or her conscience and say, 'Are they voting for this nominee based on their conscience, or are they reflecting a special interest group?' "

In casting their votes, senators used a formality reserved for their most momentous decisions, sitting at their wooden desks on the Senate floor and rising, one by one, to vote aloud. Once the roll call was complete, the White House swung into a celebratory mode. Obama, who nominated Sotomayor 10 weeks ago, placed a call to her chambers in New York at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, where she watched the televised vote with friends.

The Supreme Court announced that its newest member would be sworn in by Roberts, the chief justice, on Saturday morning at a small gathering at the high court. Sotomayor will take her seat on the court in early September when the justices convene for a rare hearing, outside their usual calendar, on a campaign finance case. She will begin her first full session on Oct. 5. Friends said she already has begun reading to prepare for her early cases.

In addition to becoming the first Hispanic to serve on the court, Sotomayor will be the third female justice in U.S. history and the second on the current court.

Thursday's vote culminated a remarkable path for Sotomayor, 55, whose personal narrative became such a defining aspect of her nomination that even her most ardent GOP critics praised her biography. She was raised -- poor and Puerto Rican -- by a widow in a South Bronx housing project, went on to Ivy League schools, and worked in New York as a prosecutor and at a private law firm before beginning her ascent through the federal judiciary. At age 38, she became a federal trial judge and, six years later, joined the appeals court on which she has served for 11 years.

In a statement after the vote, Obama said that "core American ideals -- justice, equality and opportunity -- are the very ideals that have made Judge Sotomayor's own uniquely American journey possible."

Despite the bipartisan admiration for her life story, Sotomayor's nomination became a fulcrum this spring and summer for interest groups on both sides to press their agendas. Advocates for Latinos and various civil rights organizations said she would bring renewed focus to their interests. Conservative groups sought to raise the political costs for GOP senators to support her, with the National Rifle Association taking the unusual step of saying it would consider Thursday's vote in its ratings of senators.

news20090807wsj

[Today's Paper] from [The Wall Street Journal]

[U. S. politics]
AUGUST 7, 2009 Senate Confirms Sotomayor in Largely Partisan 68-31 Vote
By JESS BRAVIN

WASHINGTON -- The Senate confirmed Sonia Sotomayor as the first Hispanic justice on the Supreme Court by a 68-31 vote, handing President Barack Obama a victory right before lawmakers leave town for their August recess.

All of the chamber's Democrats and independents voted in Judge Sotomayor's favor except for ailing Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, who was absent. Among Republicans, the vote was nine in favor and 31 against.

"I'm filled with pride in this achievement and great confidence that Judge Sotomayor will make an outstanding Supreme Court justice," Mr. Obama said after the vote. Judge Sotomayor's confirmation amounted to "breaking yet another barrier and moving us yet another step closer to a more perfect union," he said.

The Senate acted in line with the White House's timetable for confirmation, an achievement for Mr. Obama as Congress takes a slower approach to his health-care and climate-change initiatives.

Chief Justice John Roberts is scheduled to administer the two oaths of office Saturday morning to Judge Sotomayor at the Supreme Court building. She will then become the 111th person and third woman to serve on the high court. Her formal investiture ceremony was scheduled for Sept. 8, one day before her first public appearance on the bench, when the court sits for a special summer argument to consider striking down limits on corporate political expenditures.

Republicans joined Democrats in citing Judge Sotomayor's life story as an example of the social mobility America offers.

Her curriculum vitae in some ways mirrors that of the last justice confirmed to the Supreme Court, Samuel Alito, who was approved in a 58-42 vote that was also largely along partisan lines. During his 2005 confirmation hearings, Democrats criticized his membership in a conservative Princeton alumni group that opposed affirmative-action efforts. This time it was Republicans who faulted Judge Sotomayor for her former membership in a Latino advocacy group, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, and for lectures in which her aspirations for Latinos crossed into "racism," as Sen. James Inhofe (R., Okla.) charged Wednesday,

Democrats said her 17 years of experience on the federal bench, where she compiled a conventional, if liberal-leaning, judicial record, coupled with her working-class background, would equip her to understand the real-world impact of judicial decisions. Republicans, however, seized on the word Mr. Obama used to describe a quality he had sought in selecting her -- "empathy" -- as evidence that he expected his nominee to skew legal cases to favor minorities.

Asked at her hearing whether she would employ empathy to reach decisions, Judge Sotomayor flatly said no. On Thursday, Mr. Obama himself avoided the word, saying that Judge Sotomayor's elevation would ensure that "whether you're a mighty corporation or an ordinary American, you will receive a full and fair hearing," and that "the outcome of your case will be determined by nothing more or less than the strength of your argument and the dictates of the law."

Republicans claimed a consolation prize in discrediting the president's appeal to judicial empathy. Should Mr. Obama have the chance to fill another high-court vacancy, "I don't think we're likely to hear that term," said Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Judiciary Committee's ranking Republican.

news20090807usat

[Today's Paper] from [USA TODAY]

[Top News]
On sidelines, Hispanics cheer Sotomayor

At the moment of Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation as the first Hispanic on the Supreme Court, Carmen Garcia cried, hard.

She was one of several women at the FB Lounge in New York City's Spanish Harlem who saw in Sotomayor's life story a version of her own, or her parents'.

"All the obstacles she must have seen in the South Bronx, I saw in Spanish Harlem," said Garcia, 58, a hospital food-service worker whose parents brought her to New York in 1957. "Any child that looks outside the window to the fire escape and wants to become a judge, a lawyer, a district attorney, a Supreme Court (justice), and sees what Sotomayor used to see, can say, 'I can do it, too.' "

HISTORY: Senate confirms Sotomayor

For many of the nation's Hispanics, Sotomayor's confirmation marked a proud milestone — an affirmation of their struggles and hard work, an inspiration for them and their children.

Janet Murguia, president of the National Council of La Raza, the nation's largest Hispanic civil rights organization, swallowed back tears as she waited to thank senators after the vote. "It's overwhelming," she said.

From Chicago to Oxnard, Calif., from Sotomayor's hometown of New York to Puerto Rico, her parents' home, her ascent from a housing project to the high court has galvanized Hispanics' hopes. Said Murguia: "Her story is our story."

New York City

"I have chills down my back"

The FB Lounge in the center of New York's Puerto Rican community is designed for noise — just look at the conga drums next to the big-screen TV in this salsa club — but absolute quiet fell over the small crowd when the U.S. Senate began its roll call vote.

"Aye," whispered Agnes Rivera to Elyshia, her 3-year-old granddaughter, after each affirmative vote. When Florida Sen. Mel Martinez, a Republican and one of the Senate's two Hispanic members, voted "Aye," she called out, "You better."

As the vote wrapped up, club owner Roberto Ayala yelled "Viva Puerto Rico! Viva las mujeres! Viva el barrio!" to cheers and applause from the crowd.

"I have chills down my back and my leg," said Maria Alvarez Castro, president of the Manhattan Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

To watch the vote, Sandra Rivera put on a religious medal that had belonged to her mother. Her mom, like Sotomayor's parents, moved from Puerto Rico to New York after World War II. She brought home her work as a hatmaker, sent her children to Catholic school and made sure Sandra got to dance class.

Before the vote, Rivera, who danced with Ballet Hispanico, attended a meeting to fight for funding for the dance program she teaches. The image of Sotomayor facing the Senate Judiciary Committee came to her. "If you're prepared and an opportunity comes, then you're able to make that happen."

• By Martha T. Moore

Chicago

"The sky's the limit for me"

When law student Anna Lozoya looks at Sotomayor, she sees herself: a Latina who overcame the limits her culture sometimes places on women.

Lozoya sees her own stubborn nature in the new U.S. Supreme Court justice. Both are diabetic.

When Sotomayor was nominated, Lozoya had not heard of her. Now the justice is a role model as Lozoya, 28, a nurse, studies to be a lawyer.

She said she believes they share an ethos that's particularly strong in immigrants' children: "You follow the dream and you live it."

Mexican-American students from the DePaul University College of Law reflected on Sotomayor's confirmation Thursday, saying it proves they can achieve anything.

"If she can be on the Supreme Court, then the sky's the limit for me and everyone else," said Lydia Colunga-Merchant, 23.

Francisco Gonzalez, 32, said, "She's going to bring a common-man perspective to the court."

Sotomayor "has been able to excel while staying true to who she is," added Adriana Barboza, 25. "That matters a lot to me, because that's what I want."

• By Judy Keen

Oxnard, Calif.

"Hang in there and work hard"

In this city where United Farm Workers organizer Cesar Chavez once lived, migrant workers from Mexico have toiled for decades, and Hispanics make up 66% of the nearly 200,000 population. Here, Sotomayor's confirmation to the Supreme Court is more than just a call to celebrate Hispanic pride. It's a call to action.

Oxnard, the largest city in Ventura County, north of Los Angeles, is an agricultural center also known within the relatively affluent county as a place struggling with poverty, gangs and school dropouts.

"If there was ever a time to tell our kids to hang in there and work hard, this is it," said Carmen Ramirez, 60, a longtime community activist and attorney in Oxnard of Mexican descent. "Any person of color could look at her and say, 'I do have a future.' "

Oxnard attorney Barbara Macri-Ortiz, who is of Italian descent, married a man of Mexican descent and has two partly Mexican-American children. An education lawyer, she represents families whose children face expulsion. Now, she said, "we have an African-American president. We have a Latina on the Supreme Court. We can say to our kids, 'No excuses. You can do great things, too.' "

• By David Leon Moore

Mayaguez, Puerto Rico

"It's like a national sport"

On the streets of this western port city, Sotomayor's relatives have become minor celebrities.

At Tito's Bakery, a mom-and-pop store that her cousin, Jose "Tito" Baez Gonzalez, has owned for 30 years, the traffic of well-wishers has been steady. On Thursday, a New York family stopped by to take photos of themselves with Baez.

"Definitely it's an historic event for our family, for Latinos and for Puerto Rico," Baez, 54, says in Spanish.

Across this island of 4 million people, news outlets have tracked the ins and outs of the nomination. Local radio stations carried the Senate vote live.

"It's like a national sport out here," says William Ramirez, executive director of the ACLU Puerto Rico. "Everybody is pretty much rooting for her."

Baez and his family celebrated Thursday night at a dinner gathering at his home with a champagne toast.

His nephew, Jose Garcia Baez, 37, an attorney in Mayaguez, says Sotomayor's rise from poverty, the loss of her father at a young age and childhood with a single mother to the Ivy League and ultimately the Supreme Court can inspire anyone who works hard.

"It's an incredible story," he says.

Sergio Zeligman, owner of Las Gangas clothing store in downtown Mayaguez, says Sotomayor's achievement makes Latinos feel they are part of the fabric of the United States. "We have representation that we've never had before."

• By Marisol Bello

Contributing: Kathy Kiely in Washington

news20090807slt

[Today's Paper: A summary of what's in the major U.S. newspapers] from [Slate Magazine]

A Latina on Top Court
By Daniel Politi
Posted Friday, Aug. 7, 2009, at 6:55 AM ET

The Washington Post (WP), Los Angeles Times (LAT), USA Today (USAT), New York Times (NYT), and Wall Street Journal (WSJ) 's world-wide newsbox lead with the Senate confirming Sonia Sotomayor as the first Hispanic justice on the Supreme Court. After three days of debate, the final vote, 68-31, was largely along party lines, although nine Republicans did cross over and vote for Sotomayor's confirmation. The White House went into celebratory mode, and President Obama hailed her confirmation as "breaking yet another barrier and moving us yet another step closer to a more perfect union." Chief Justice John Roberts will swear in the Supreme Court's newest member Saturday morning.

USAT says the White House celebration was tempered by the fact that "the vote was not nearly as bipartisan as Obama had sought." But the LAT says that, ultimately, more Republicans voted for her than was expected. The WSJ declares it was a victory for the White House that senators voted within the timetable that the administration had requested. The WP highlights that Sotomayor got more votes against her than Roberts but fewer than President George W. Bush's other nominee, Samuel Alito. Republicans also tried to claim a victory of their own, stating that during the hearings, Sotomayor and Democratic senators spoke against the idea that empathy is an important qualification to serve on the nation's highest court. "It will now be harder to nominate activist judges," Sen. Jeff Sessions, the top Republican on the judiciary committee, said.

The LAT highlights that, while lots of attention has been paid to Sotomayor's experience as a Latina, there are plenty of other reasons why she will "bring new perspectives" to the Supreme Court. She was also raised in a public housing project and will be the only justice whose first language isn't English. She also has diabetes, which is classified as a disability under federal law. Advocates for those with disabilities have suffered several defeats in recent years and are hoping that they will get a new ally with Sotomayor. Plus, some are predicting that the simple fact that she's a single woman could make a difference in how she sees the legal rights of nontraditional families.

Lawmakers love to criticize corporations that fly their executives around in private jets while receiving taxpayer funds. But jets for federal officials who live off those funds? A totally different story, of course. The WSJ reports that House lawmakers added funds to buy eight jets to add to the fleet used by federal officials, for a total of $550 million. That is four more than what the Air Force requested for its fleet of passenger jets that are used by lawmakers, administration officials, and military chiefs on government trips. The Pentagon says it doesn't need the additional planes, but lawmakers perhaps think they do since foreign travel by lawmakers has been increasing lately and there is often a shortage of planes when Congress is in recess.

Everyone goes inside with news that five U.S. troops were killed in the same western province of Afghanistan over a period of 24 hours. Four of them were killed by a single roadside bomb. So far, 11 servicemembers have been killed in August. In a separate piece inside, the NYT says the White House is struggling to come up with a way to measure progress in Afghanistan. Obama has often said that having appropriate "metrics" of success was an essential component to get lawmakers and the public to support the military effort. Having a reliable measure of progress will be particularly important if commanders do end up asking for more troops. Problem is that, as the Bush administration learned with Iraq, it's not easy to figure out what to measure, and the numbers can often end up being misleading. Administration officials are emphasizing that they're taking longer than expected because they want to make sure to get it right, but some lawmakers say it's ridiculous that after more than seven years of war there is no reliable way to know how things are going.

The LAT goes inside with confirmation from a Pakistani minister that the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed in a CIA drone strike. The rest of the papers note that American and Pakistani officials are investigating whether he was killed, but the NYT says American officials "were growing increasingly confident" last night that Mehsud, an al-Qaida ally, was killed. He was Pakistan's most wanted terrorist and believed to have been the mastermind behind the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. One official tells the WSJ that Mehsud's death "would be a big victory" for both the United States and the Pakistani government.

Everyone notes that there will now be more cash available for clunkers, as the Senate voted to devote $2 billion more in funding to the popular initiative that gives drivers up to $4,500 to trade in a car that gets less than 18 mpg for a more fuel-efficient vehicle. Some are skeptical the extension will prove as popular as the first round, and others question the long-term impact of the program as a whole. "The Cash for Clunkers at this point is like one of those energy drinks," an expert tells the Post. "It gives you a short-term boost, then you crash and you fall back into the doldrums."

The NYT fronts a look at how the approximately 90,000 Iraqis who have been released from American detention centers over the past six years often have difficulties adjusting to life after prison. They often go back to families who are facing financial difficulties and find it nearly impossible to find jobs. Old friends and acquaintances often shun them out of fear that they could be seen associating with someone who was behind bars. This makes them particularly attractive to insurgents. "It's just like Jean Valjean," said a former prisoner who read Les Misérables during his 15-month detention. "An innocent guy is thrown in prison, he loses his job, his family goes hungry and they refuse him a job when he gets out. Of course he's going to go the wrong way."

Meanwhile, the talk of the town in Baghdad is a bill presented to the Iraqi parliament by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Cabinet that would ban smoking in public places, report the WP and NYT. It would be one of the first laws of its kind in the Middle East, a region where smoking is particularly cheap and popular. Many Iraqis say it's ridiculous that the government is even worrying about this. "The government has a wild imagination," one Sunni lawmaker said, "and it is trying to delude the world into thinking that there are no problems left in the country other than smoking."

The WP's Steven Pearlstein says that, in opposing the health care overhaul, Republican leaders have "become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems." Of course, there's plenty to criticize in the current proposals, but to say that any of the plans would lead to a government takeover of health care "is a flat-out lie whose only purpose is to scare the public and stop the political conversation." And while criticizing the plans as too expensive, Republicans are guilty of hypocrisy by rejecting almost every idea that would actually make an attempt to keep costs under control.

The LAT fronts, and everyone covers, the death of John Hughes, the Hollywood director, producer, and screenwriter whose films about teenage angst in the 1980s helped define a generation. He was 59 and died of a heart attack. His biggest hits included Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. He changed the way teenagers were depicted in movies at a time when Hollywood studios began to realize the purchasing power of that age group. His biggest success in terms of box office was as writer and producer of Home Alone. In the early 1990s, he largely disappeared from the Hollywood scene, although he occasionally wrote under a pen name. "He's our generation's J.D. Salinger," filmmaker Kevin Smith told the LAT. "He touched a generation and then the dude checked out."

news20090807sac1

[Environment] from [scientificamerican.com]

[Environment]
August 7, 2009
Carbon Nanomaterials: Fine for Fly Food, Bad for Fly Coating
Buckyballs and other nano carbon particles seem to be fine when served as baby food to fruit fly larvae, but some are deadly to adults when they are coated with the infinitesimal stuff
By David Biello

A fruit fly walked into a test tube, got coated in carbon black, and lost its ability to climb. Sound like the set up for some bad science-based joke? Nope, it's the premise of a preliminary safety test for carbon nanoparticles.

Nanotechnology—whether multiwalled carbon nanotubes, buckyballs or nanosize particles of silver—has barely begun to make its way into everyday products. But, in an effort to stave off the kind of after-the-fact bad news that has plagued introduced materials ranging from asbestos to bisphenol A (BPA), scientists are preemptively testing the potentially ill effects of the tiny molecules and even atoms engineered at the scale of one billionth of a meter or smaller.

So biologist David Rand of Brown University and his colleague set out to see what impact four types of carbon nanoparticles—buckyballs (fullerene C60), carbon black as well as single-walled and multiwalled carbon nanotubes—had on larval and adult fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster).

By mixing the different carbon nanoparticles into fruit fly food—small enough to be ingested by larval mouths as tiny as 50 micrometers wide—the scientists delivered a dose of as much as 1,000 micrograms per gram of food without any ill effect on the young insects. Some of the carbon nanoparticles ended up discoloring portions of the subsequent adult flies (see picture), proving it was ingested in quantity but without ill effect, and those adults were able to breed normally in turn.

But carbon black and single-walled nanotubes were not so kind to adult fruit flies exposed in test tubes to layers of the fine nanoparticles in powder form. These quickly engulfed the flies and could not be cleaned off by normal grooming behavior, killing them within six hours. These extrafine nanoparticles also made it impossible for the flies to climb the walls of test tubes—a requisite ability for the average fruit fly—perhaps by blocking or interfering with the foot pads or fluids that enable this feat, the scientists speculate.

Further, flies exposed to lower doses that did not kill them spread the tiny particles to an uncontaminated adjacent test tube, and even to other flies. "Such transport and redeposition may bring nanoparticles into contact with human or environmental receptors that might not otherwise be exposed," the researchers wrote in the upcoming August 15 Environmental Science & Technology. "In these scenarios, we expect nanoparticle–insect adhesion and transport similar to microbial transport by flies [that] act as disease vectors."

It remains unclear what the impact of such human exposure might be, although some studies have suggested breathing some nanoparticles might have health impacts similar to asbestos, which is a carcinogen. If that's the case, beware of flies bearing nanotubes.


[Environment]
August 7, 2009
Some California Amphibians May Need a Lift to Survive Climate Change
As amphibian habitat shifts with global warming, some species will be trapped in shrinking territories
By Brendan Borrell

As temperatures rise over the next century, three California amphibian species could be pushed to the cusp of extinction because the warming climate will effectively block their migration to more suitable habitats. Interventions by humans who physically relocate the animals may be the only way to help them survive.

Managed relocation, or assisted migration, for climate change is a controversial topic because of the challenges of moving an endangered species and the potential harm it may cause in a new ecosystem.

The Torreya Guardians, a self-organized group of naturalists, botanists, ecologists and others, are the most well-known proponents of assisted migration. Last July, the group planted endangered Torreya taxifolia seedlings in new habitat patches north of their customary domain in Florida, where it is becoming too hot for the conifers to survive. More recently, the British Columbia Ministry of Forests and Range launched an Assisted Migration Adaptation Trial, testing out nine tree populations from the U.S. in that Canadian province, to ensure that the latter nation's timber production stays strong as the climate warms.

One practical issue pertaining to managed relocation is deciding which species need to be moved and when to move them. To study the problem, Regan Early and Dov Sax at Brown University created a detailed simulation of how suitable habitat for 16 well-studied—and mostly common—frogs and salamanders will expand and contract over the next century in response to climate-induced changes in precipitation and temperature. Although some species' current and future ranges overlap, a decade-by-decade analysis shows that corridors to new habitats may appear too late or vanish at the wrong moment. Left to their own devices, the amphibians would then have nowhere to go and wink out.

"That was an unexpected result," Early said at the Ecological Society of America meeting in Albuquerque this week. "Species might have no apparent barriers between their current and future ranges, but climate variability and species traits interact to prevent a range shift."

Early used a moderate climate change scenario of 2 degrees Celsius warming by the end of the century. Then the team assumed that animals could expand their ranges by about 12 kilometers per decade, and also could persist in an unsuitable habitat for 10 years.

Early first described two well-known scenarios for how different California amphibians could be affected by climate change. The black-bellied slender salamander, for instance, would have no problem spreading from its home range around Santa Barbara to the more northern central coast region. But for other species, like the black salamander, a changing climate produces new pockets of habitat to the north, but they don't ever overlap the salamander's current or future range in the San Francisco Bay Area, leaving the animals stranded.

Early's step-by-step simulations revealed a third scenario that is not apparent, simply by comparing current and future habitats. In coastal California newts the current and future ranges appear to overlap, but by the time that future habitat becomes available late in the century, her simulation indicates that the current range will have contracted so much that the animals have no route to get there.

Overall, these findings mean that the three California amphibian species will become critically endangered—defined as inhabiting less than 100 square kilometers—by 2100. Other amphibian species also will become vulnerable or threatened, lacking a way to reach a more suitable habitat. The good news, Early explained, is that managers may only have to move species very short distances to give them access to suitable habitat.

"This is something we've definitely been concerned about," says ecologist Lee Hannah of Conservation International, who has studied climate paths in South Africa and Mexico and is part of the managed relocation working group. "Ten years ago it was good enough to do a century or a half-century snapshot...but now we see we have to look more closely."

"Inevitably," Hannah says, "we are going to have to rescue, captive breed, and move some species."