TGIF Edition 27 Feb 2009

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ISSN 1172-4153 | Volume 2 | Issue 27 |

| 27 February 2009

Terrorist link confirmed

on the

INSIDE

But bankers didn’t know

By Ian Wishart

The tax haven bank trying to sue TGIF Edition has now conceded one of its clients was indeed a company named in an international money laundering sting and reportedly funnelling money for drug lords and terrorist group al Qa’ida.

However, in affidavits provided to the High Court this week,WSBC Bank of the Cook Islands also says it was unaware of the client’s involvement, and it has co-operated fully with authorities investigating the transactions since learning that inquiries are underway.

It appears bank staff were taken by surprise when TGIF Edition broke the story two weeks ago, and didn’t realise how their Dubai-based client fitted into the 2007 sting operation by the FBI, DEA, and European and Arab law enforcement agencies.

While initial media attention in India, and subsequently here, centred on Letters of Credit issued by the Wall Street Banking Corporation (now WSBC), and three Indian exporters snared in the moneygo-round, no one – including it appears WSBC – recognised that the “Naresh Jain” mentioned in international news reports as a money launderer assisting Osama bin Laden’s al Qa’ida, was in fact the owner of a company that had been a WSBC client since 2001.

That company, Kumar Trading Co LLC, was named in US court records as we confirmed last week in a money laundering case.

In our interview with WSBC’s Riaz Patel, he initially rejected our allegations that his bank had dodgy clients with terrorist connections, stating that the bank definitely knew its customers.

“You mentioned Jet King [owned by Naresh Jain’s brother] and other people having links to Al Qa’ida, first of all I don’t believe that we were

VOLCANO GOLDMINE

Undersea treasure hunt Page 4

MYSTERY CRASH

What happened?

Page 8 DEA and FBI agents seized US$5.6 million from US banks belonging to a drugs and terror money launderer whose company was also a long term client of WSBC Bank.

involved in any way shape or form directly with clients you are referring to. I’m saying that the person who has an account with us, that person is checked out and has been a long-standing client of the bank.”

The problem, as Patel now admits in his affidavit in the High Court, is that Kumar Trading had initially been “checked out” in 2001 when no one realised it was a money laundering front, and had therefore been a trusted “long standing client of

Big storm rolling in Auckland, Feb 27 – The top half of the North Island has been warned to prepare for power cuts, gale-force winds and heavy rain this weekend as a deepening low moves south.

Power company Vector said the heavy rain and strong gusty winds could bring power cuts to Wellsford,Warkworth and Whangaparaoa to the north of Auckland,Waiheke and Clevedon, South Auckland.

Vector external communications manager Philippa White said extra field crews have been

rostered on over the weekend, and where power was cut by trees or debris falling on powerlines, power would be restored as soon as possible.

She urged people to stay away from fallen power lines and treat them as live all the time.

People who ventured out during a storm should watch for falling trees, which could bring down powerlines.

People should also reduce the risk of damage to electrical appliances by turning them off at the

the bank” for six years until the FBI busted the operation in early 2007.

TGIF Edition will also be presenting evidence if the case goes to trial that senior WSBC personnel met with the Kothari brothers in Dubai, whose company Supama was also named and convicted in the same organised crime money laundering court case from New York that’s sprung Naresh Jain and Kumar Trading.

Additionally, the Serious Fraud Office section wall if the power went off so they were not damaged when power was restored.

Auckland civil defence warned people in the top half of the North Island it could be a wild and wet weekend.

People should have a torch and batteries handy and have at least one telephone which did not rely on mains power.

They should also have an alternative cooking method such as a gas barbecue.

Those relying on medical equipment which ran on power should be prepared for a power cut. If there was an immediate threat to life they should

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call their health provider or the 111 emergency service.

Police also warned people to study the weather forecast before travelling.

Heavy rain and wind gusts of up to 70kmh were expected in some areas around Auckland and Northland tonight and tomorrow as the low moved over the top of the North Island and headed south.

The MetService said the low would develop into a “significant weather system”and bring widespread rain and gale force east to northeast winds to the North Island and to the north and east of the South Island.

– NZPA

NEW ZEALAND

27 February 2009

off BEAT Alleged bank robber lives next to police BARRINGTON, N.J., Feb. 27 (UPI) – Authorities in New Jersey said a 61-year-old man accused of three bank robberies lives next door to a police station.

The Camden County Prosecutor’s Office said Lawrence Dove Sr., 61, was arrested Tuesday after his alleged third robbery at a Susquehanna Bank branch in Lawnside, N.J., the Camden Courier reported Thursday.

Dove – who is also accused of a Feb. 6 robbery at a Bank of America branch in Haddon Township and a Feb. 17 robbery at The Bank in Haddonfield – lives next door to the Barrington municipal building and police department.

Dove was seen near his home driving a car that matched a description of the vehicle used in the Susquehanna Bank robbery, prosecutors said.

Police said during each of the robberies, Dove would hand a bank teller a note demanding money and would flee without openly displaying any weapons.

Dove, who has not yet been indicted, was being held at the Camden County Correctional Facility in lieu of $225,000 bond.

100-year-old man still hard at work SOUTH ST. PAUL, Minn., Feb. 27 (UPI) – A Minnesota man who marked his 100th birthday today continues to work half days at the company he has owned since 1955, family members said.

Bill Horst, son of centenarian Errett Eddie Horst, said his father still puts in weekday hours at Globe Publishing in South St. Paul, Minn., and until six months ago, he was driving himself to work for daily 8-hour shifts, the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer-Press reported this morning.

“He would’ve been gone at 85 if he had retired,” Bill Horst said. “He comes here every day, and it makes him feel like he’s a part of the place. People – his old clients – still come in here to see him and call to see how he’s doing. But there just aren’t a lot of his old buddies left.”

Eddie Horst, who has 15 great-grandchildren, said that despite needing a magnifying glass to read mail and invoices since his eyesight began failing last year, he is otherwise in perfect condition to work.

“Other than my eyesight, I’m fine,” he said.

Aquarium flooded, octopus blamed SANTA MONICA, Calif., Feb. 27 (UPI) – Officials at California’s Santa Monica Pier Aquarium say a curious octopus caused a flood at the facility by working a water-control valve loose.

An aquarium employee came to work yesterday to find the octopus tank overflowing and about 3 inches of water on the floor, the Los Angeles Times reported. Tara Treiber, the aquarium’s education manager, told the newspaper a female California two-spotted octopus likely caused the flood of more than 200 gallons of saltwater by prying a valve loose while exploring.

“It found something loose and just pulled on it,” Treiber said. “They are very smart creatures.”

The octopus has been at the aquarium for about two months.

Treiber said the water damaged new carpet, as well as walls and facades – and the damage might have been worse if it had been discovered later.

Couple, 14 and 17, divorce in Israel JERUSALEM, Feb. 27 (UPI) – The Jerusalem Rabbinic Court has granted a divorce to the youngest couple to ever apply in Israel, a 14-year-old girl and her 17-yearold husband.

A spokeswoman for the Rabbinic Courts Administration said the groom’s parents insisted on the divorce after they discovered that he and his young wife had married under Jewish law by exchanging vows in front of two witnesses, giving one another rings and consummating the relationship, The Jerusalem Post reported today.

“We want young people to learn from this case,” the spokeswoman said. “Getting married like this can ruin a young person’s life.”

Rabbi Eliyahu Ben-Dahan, director of the Rabbinic Court Administration, said young people should take the lesson from the divorce that marriage is not a joke but a serious commitment that should not be taken lightly.

Many of the other ideas were in line with the Government’s policy such as bringing forward and fast tracking big project infrastructure spending and getting more people into education and retraining causes.

Jobs summit’s best ideas

By Ian Llewellyn of NZPA

Auckland, Feb 27 – The Job Summit ended tonight with a set of ideas whose supporters believe can potentially save or create tens of thousands of jobs and prop up many shaky businesses.

The brainstorming sessions among the 200 invited participants – dominated by business heavyweights – ended with a“top twenty”ideas, ranging from the mundane to the unexpected.

After a day of intense debate in Auckland, the country’s banking bosses came up with an offer of a joint fund with the Government to help financially distressed firms through short term equity injections.

The fund – if it gets off the ground – would result in the banks putting in $1 billion and the Government matching this and then the fund borrowing another $8 billion to create a $10 billion kitty to deal with companies that had good long term prospects but needed equity to survive in the short term.

The move came after Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard took the unusual step of publicly warning the banks that they should not underestimate the anger in the corporate sector about their behaviour since the global credit crunch hit international financial institutions.

After Mr Bollard’s statement, the banks’ bosses

said they had lent out $3.6 billion in corporate credit in the last quarter, funded by $4 billion from their Australian parent companies.

The banks said they were committed to continue lending on the same basis in the future to “creditworthy”businesses.

The banks have also offered to develop over a longer period an equity growth fund to make“quality”investment in small to medium size businesses.

Prime Minister John Key said the idea of a joint fund was one that had come solely out of the day’s work and the Government would look at it.

Other major ideas to come out of the summit: • Nine day working fortnights for companies facing a shortage of work, with the Government helping to pay for training costs on the 10th day.This could cover as many as 100,000 workers though no detail has been settled. Other estimates had as few as 10,000 workers affected.

• A freeze on regulation making and enforcement activity reduced to minimum acceptable standards.

• A moratorium on the introduction of minimum air and drinking water quality standards until that could be afforded.

• A $60 million fund to boost tourism numbers set up by the private and public sectors.

• A mountain bike track running through the

entire country to attract tourist and create thousands of jobs around the country.

Many of the other ideas were in line with the Government’s policy such as bringing forward and fast tracking big project infrastructure spending and getting more people into education and retraining causes.

Mr Key hailed the summit as a success and said he would be ensuring that at least some of the ideas were implemented.

Earlier in the day he promised that summit ideas that created jobs would be considered just like any ministerial budget bid and those “that met the hurdle of effectiveness would be seriously considered”.

Finance Minister Bill English said there was “some head room” in his late May budget for the new ideas.

Mr Bollard told the summit he was ready to lower interest rates further if that was necessary to combat the impact of the international recession.

“We are facing the biggest destruction of global wealth ever,”he told participants.

New Zealand’s banking sector was sound, but he issued a warning.

They had made good profits in the good times,and they were expected to help out in the bad times.

– NZPA

Unprecedented ‘destruction of wealth’ Wellington – The world is witnessing the biggest destruction of wealth ever in the current economic downturn, the governor of New Zealand’s central bank,Alan Bollard, said Friday.

If the amount of money lost was represented in one dollar bank notes, they would reach the sun, Bollard told a crisis business summit organized by the new centre-right government to come up with ways to save jobs.

Bollard estimated that the amount of money lost in global stock markets totalled 30 trillion dollars – a sum that could eradicate poverty in the developing world in 10 years.

He quoted an International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimate that losses flowing out of the sub-

prime crisis and the subsequent disruption to the financial sector would eventually amount to about 2.2 trillion dollars, plus 4 trillion dollars in housing values and 3 trillion dollars in lost production.

But the Reserve Bank governor said the world was nowhere near Depression-level economic conditions.

“Unemployment rates will certainly continue to rise, but peak well short of the levels reached in the Depression,” he said.“Then, unemployment rates rose well above 20 per cent in many cases.”

Bollard said that while the New Zealand economy entered recession earlier than many countries – a year ago, partly because of drought that hit farm production – its effects had so far been“quite mild by both international and historical standards.”

Unemployment was 4.6 per cent at the end of last year and the Treasury has tipped it to rise to 7 per cent, though some analysts are forecasting that it will reach double-digit figures.

Prime Minister John Key, whose government was elected in November, called the business summit to reassure voters that his administration could deal with the worsening economy.

“We are a gritty little country with the smarts and determination needed to weather this storm,” he told the opening session.

“We are not a country of whiners,” he said.“We are not a country of slackers.We are not a country of selfish individuals.”

– DPA

NEW ZEALAND

27 February 2009

Harvey Norman says it increases NZ market share Wellington, Feb 27 – Australian homeware retailer Harvey Norman said today it had increased market share in New Zealand at the expense of profit margins.

The company said it made a $A22.85m profit in New Zealand in the six months to December 31, down 17.8 percent on the same period last year.

Sales revenue in New Zealand rose 8.4 percent in New Zealand dollar terms and 3.7 percent in Australian dollar terms.

The half year included trading from two Harvey Norman and two Norman Ross stores opened during previous periods in New Zealand.The company

Govt to focus on crime Wellington, Feb 27 – The Government is to host a meeting in April to look at the causes of crime.

Justice Minister Simon Power, in a speech to a criminal justice forum at Victoria University yesterday, said the meeting would be held at Parliament.

“I would like to reach out to a wider range of individuals and groups across the sector to build consensus around the need to address the drivers of crime,”he said.

“Compared to the ongoing debate about what to do with the offenders afterwards, I believe it is something we can all come together on.

“That also means coming to some agreement on what are the most influential drivers of crime that the Government should target.”

He said priority areas were alcohol, and the over representation of Maori in crime statistics.

“However I would not want to limit the broader conversation about the drivers of crime to these two examples.”

He said better and accessible information was needed for a clearer picture of crime.

“I have asked officials to start work on making the current range of data available in one place, as

an authoritative resource for researchers, journalists and the public.

Mr Power said in the past government responses to crime tended to be fragmented and he did not think any had gone back to start with the basic drivers.

Green Party law and order spokeswoman Metiria Turei welcomed the move and urged victims’rights and rehabilitation groups to take part.

“It’s vital we acknowledge the pain and hurt of crime victims and advocate strongly for solutions that actually work,”she said.

Ms Turei said when looking at Maori crime system, discrimination needed to be considered.

She said Maori were more likely to be charged, convicted and arrested than others.

“Addressing the drivers of crime also means confronting poverty, unemployment and poor educational opportunities. No assessment of the causes of crime can ignore the impact of poverty and for Maori the impact of colonisation.”

She said initiatives would need commitment from government departments, the community sector, iwi and hapu and communities most affected.

FROM FRONT PAGE

Street, and that with the New Zealand investment proposal that you are looking to move forward with a new corporate structure and to make sure that none of these things happen again?

Patel: Yes, it is very definitely a strong corporate governance structure in place with strong people on the board and a strong management team. It’s virtually unlikely and/or impossible for these things to happen.

TGIF: Do you accept that the things that happened in the past are a bad look?

Patel: Yes, it may look and smell bad, but like I mentioned to you these instances were not directly my doing as such. I mean, they can’t point a finger at me and say well look you were responsible because you were running this company. It didn’t happen in that manner, I was always associated in the company yes, but I wasn’t the only person.

TGIF: Yes, but weren’t you the owner of the Wall Street Bank from 2003 through 2004 onwards?

Patel: No I’m not the owner of the Wall Street Bank from that period.You can check the records yourself, no, it’s been my father’s company, I was a director of the bank up to some point of time, and then after I set up operations in New Zealand I wasn’t a director any more and there was an independent directorship and board put in place and it continued. I was very little involved in the day-today routine issues of the bank, which is why, it’s one of the reasons I’m not able to comment on a lot of things of the bank, just peripherally.

TGIF: So what stake, what ownership do you or your interests have in WSBC Bank at present?

Patel: None! I don’t have any interest in the bank, the bank is owned by my father after the legislation was changed in 2003, 2004. It was changed into a trust structure owned by other family constituents.

The bid to injunct TGIF Edition is likely to be heard in court later in March. In the meantime, our Back to the front page inquiries are ongoing.

9 Notice disclosed in last week’s TGIF mentions the Nagdev family as persons of interest. Inquiries

by TGIF suggest the Nagdevs had “millions” on deposit with WSBC Bank at one point.

During the course of probing into the al Qa’ida transactions, TGIF asked Riaz Patel, who now runs WSBC’s sister company in New Zealand, about a string of other unfortunate incidents associated with his family’s companies around the world.

One thing that emerged as a result of the court action is that Patel has been able to give closure on several areas we’d questioned him on. For example, we reported a 1997 case where Indian regulators took court action against the Patels’Wall Street Finance Ltd after a shipload of onions was found to contain hidden travellers cheques worth nearly NZ$600,000 that had been purchased ultimately from a Wall Street Finance branch. Documents now provided to the High Court show it took the Patels six years to get an Indian court verdict recognising that although they had sold the cheques, and although the customer had indeed been moneylaundering and was eventually convicted, the Wall Street Finance staff were not aware of their client’s criminality, and the company was not guilty of breaching any laws.

Patel has also cleared up some of the confusion surrounding the 1994 incident we reported last week where he was taken into custody.Documents provided to the High Court reveal that while he was detained in“judicial custody”and interrogated, he and his coaccused were ultimately released after authorities determined there was no case to answer.

TGIF: To summarise then, as a company there’s been a string of unfortunate incidents that have happened that have cast a bad light on things, some of which happened under your watch and some of which were more loosely associated with the company as a whole, we are fair in saying there is no criminal intent or involvement on behalf of Wall

– NZPA

opened a Norman Ross store at Botany in Auckland in October and a Norman Ross store in Palmerston North in November.

The retailer’s asset revaluation reserve included a $A1.32m upward revaluation of properties in New Zealand.The company has 16 owned and 14 leased properties in New Zealand. Of the 30 stores, 26 are Harvey Norman.

The company expects its New Zealand business to continue to outperform other local market operators.

It considers it has brand strength in New Zealand and is well placed for future growth.

– NZPA

NZ dollar heavy in quiet session Wellington, Feb 27 – The New Zealand dollar had a heavy feel today and it drifted down toward support levels.

The jobs summit is not a market mover so the focus in the currency market was, as usual, on global events and movements in equity markets.

The NZ dollar was trading at US50.56c at 5pm from US51.10c at 8am and US50.15c at 5pm yesterday.

“We have found relatively solid support around US50.50c all this week,”said BNZ currency strategist Danica Hampton.

“There is pretty major support there,”she said.

Investors were squaring positions at month-end but the flows were in “dribs and drabs”.

The yen rose off three-month lows on squaring up of US dollar positions.

Next week there is little on the New Zealand eco-

nomic calendar but there are many events offshore, including central bank decisions in Europe and Australia and non-farm payroll data in the US. “The kiwi is just going to be vented around with global sentiment,”she said.

The kiwi reached its highest level against the Japanese currency in more than five weeks on Thursday night, around 50.50 yen, but by today’s local close was 49.35 from 50.07 at 5pm yesterday.

The NZ dollar was down against the European currency, slipping to 0.3975 euro at 5pm from 0.4015 at yesterday’s local close.

Against the Australian dollar, the kiwi dropped to A78.35c from A78.65c yesterday.Again this was said to be on position-squaring.

The trade weighted index was 51.97 from 52.48.

– NZPA

New FTA deal biggest ever Canberra – The free trade agreement that Australia and New Zealand will sign in Thailand this weekend with 10 South-East Asian countries is the biggest that Australia has negotiated so far, Trade Minister Simon Crean said today.

“It’s the most comprehensive that ASEAN has ever signed,” Crean told reporters at Parliament House in Canberra before boarding a flight to Bangkok.

ASEAN, the Association of South-East Asian Nations, links 10 regional countries - Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam - in a loose trade and investment alliance.

“It’s the largest Australia has signed,”Crean said.

“ASEAN has trade with Australia worth 80 billion Australian dollars (60 billion US dollars). It’s larger than our trade with China, Japan or the United States.”

The FTA was negotiated last year and is expected to be signed at the 14th ASEAN summit at the Thai beach resort of Hua Hin. The summit was postponed in December due to the political crisis in Bangkok.

The 12 governments have yet to reveal the terms of the FTA but it is believed to involve long phase-in periods for tariff cuts in the less-developed ASEAN countries.There will be partial exclusions for some products, including cars.

“In many cases the agreement will lock in low- or zero-tariff rates, introducing a new safeguard against protection,”Crean said.“The agreement will help drive regional economic integration, and sends a positive signal to the rest of the world of the region’s commitment to open trade flows.”

– DPA

NEW ZEALAND

27 February 2009

ComCom loses on technicality

Scientists after deep-sea treasure

By Kent Atkinson of NZPA

Wellington, Feb 27 – New Zealand scientists are joining an American research voyage to investigate three key submarine volcanoes along the Kermadec Arc, northeast of White Island, Bay of Plenty.

They will study the Rumble II West, Brothers, and Rumble III volcanoes within 400km of Tauranga, probing the activity around the their vents, and investigating the plant and animal life there.

Plumes of mineral-enriched super-heated water from the hydrothermal systems on the seamounts have an important influence on the chemistry of the wider ocean, as well as supporting unique biological communities around the vents.

The status of such active vents is becoming increasingly important to determine as the Government considers applications to mine massive sulphide deposits of gold, zinc and copper and other minerals along the Arc. Massive sulphide (SMS) deposits are left on the sea floor by hydrothermal vents over millions of years as minerals in the Earth’s crust dissolve in super-heated fluids then drop to the seafloor when they emerge into cold seawater.

British entrepreneur Neptune Minerals claimed in 2007 to have discovered two “inactive” mineral deposits on the little-explored Rumble II West seamount.

It lodged applications for mining licences with the New Zealand Government “over these inactive SMS zones”.

Announcing the second of these in 2007, several hundred metres south of its earlier find on the seamount, it said in August 2007:“Seafloor mapping activities defined a zone of relict sulphide chimneys

up to 4m high with no indications of hydrothermal activity”.

Earlier water column analyses by independent researchers in the area have indicated active hydrothermal venting, and the voyage starting on March 2 is expected to pin down any hydrothermal activity on the mountain.

“We are particularly interested to obtain a highresolution bathymetric map of Rumble II West to help ground-truth findings from a mining company, who have reported finding a large mineral deposit there,”said the co-chief scientist on the voyage, Cornel de Ronde of GNS Science.

Four scientists from GNS Science are effectively piggybacking a voyage by University of Washington Professors Rick Keil and Deborah Kelley, in their university’s own research vessel, RV Thomas G Thompson, carrying out research projects by 13 of their final-year students, and four from Southhampton University in England. Scientists from the Woods Hole oceanographic institute in the USA are also participating.

The ship will deploy equipment to analyse hydrothermal plumes discharging from the seafloor vents, and will return to Auckland on March 12.

Neptune took out prospecting licences for covering more than 63,000 square kilometres of New Zealand seabed, including the southern part of the Kermadec Arc stretching down towards the North ISland.

Metallurgical testing in Australia on a composite sample from its initial Kermadec exploration contained an average of 11.2 parts per million of gold, 122ppm of silver, 8.1 percent copper, 0.5 percent lead and 5 percent zinc.

Wellington, Feb 27 – The Commerce Commission was today rolled by the Court of Appeal over one of its biggest wins under fair trading law – the $900,000 fine imposed against timber giant Carter Holt Harvey for selling timber with a high strength label when it knew the timber did not consistently meet that grade.

The fine was imposed after CCH pleaded guilty to 20 charges of misleading customers.

MGP10 is a high-strength timber used for trusses and framing in homes and buildings. It was marketed as a premium product, but in many cases weaker wood was labelled as high strength and sold for a premium price.

The Commerce Commission said it had found the company knowingly sold nearly $200 million worth of sub-standard timber – enough for about 20,000 new houses.

Then half owned by the world’s biggest forest products company, International Paper of the US, CCH was alleged to have decided it would have been “financial suicide”to own up to the behaviour.

In addition to CCH being fined for price-gouging, half a dozen executives were prosecuted under the Fair Trading Act and individually fined as much as $20,000 in the District Court.

The commission claimed in the High Court that CCH’s MGP10 sales between May 3 1998 and October 29, 2003 ran to about $63.4 million a year. A packet of 600m of MPG10 cost $3008, while an identical packet of weaker wood was priced at $1566.

But today an appeal court panel of three judges, Justice Robert Chambers, Justice David Baragwanath and Justice Grant Hammond, unanimously ruled that the commission delayed too long in prosecuting, so that the case was held more than three years after it discovered the losses.

CCH said that the commission discovered the likelihood of loss or damage on October 14, 2002, when the executive director of the NZ Timber Industry Federation, Wayne Coffey, provided evidence gathered by Forest Research, or when search

warrants were issued on October 24, 2003.

The commission said the limitation clock was never ticking, or if it did start, it was not until raids on CHH premises on October 29, 2003 – which meant that proceedings were filed two days inside the three-year deadline.

But the judges said today the commission breached the three-year limit and that the commission’s prosecution in the High Court was struck out“on the ground that it is time-barred”.

In addition it hit the commission with significant costs in the appeal court case, and ordered costs in the High Court case to be fixed in light of the judgment in the Appeal Court.

Justice Hammond said:“This gives me no satisfaction whatsoever.

“There is evidence that CCH behaved in an aggressive and bullying sort of way to tray and scare off the commission.

“This may have had something to do with the caution with which the commission proceeded, and which regrettably, has led to the commission’s proceeding ... getting out of time”.

Use of incorrectly graded timber in a roof truss can cause sagging or deflection but not the failure of the truss.

Carter Holt had promoted its product as having “sophisticated” machine grading of structural timber with every piece of wood tested.

But in December 2003 Carter Holt forestry chief Devon McLean said some product did not always achieve the standard and the company had taken too long to fix a problem it had known about for some time.

Changes in forestry management, in which trees were felled younger, had caused some of the problem as 40 to 50 percent of young trees did not produce stiff enough wood for structural purposes.

Carter Holt Harvey has since been taken over by New Zealand billionaire Graeme Hart.

– NZPA

special

the ordinary becomes

– NZPA

Glider crash investigated File

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broken off, he told Radio New Zealand.

Flying conditions were good, he said.

The glider was owned by Glide Omarama, Mr Woodbridge said.

The Civil Aviation Authority was expected to be at the scene first thing tomorrow morning to help investigate the crash.

– NZPA

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Wellington, Feb 27 – One person was killed and an elderly man seriously injured when a glider crashed into a mountain in the central South Island.

Police said the pair were from overseas.

The accident happened on Mount St Cuthbert, near Omarama, 119km northwest of Oamaru. Police were working with embassy staff to notify next of kin.

The injured man, aged 70, was flown to Dunedin Hospital with serious injuries after the glider crashed into the side of the mountain just before 2pm, Sergeant Tony Woodbridge of Dunedin police said.The other person died at the scene.

An eyewitness to the crash, glider pilot Chris Rudge, was flying over Mt St Cuthbert when he saw the wreckage on the hillside and alerted emergency services.

The cockpit was badly damaged and the tail had

EDITORIAL

27 February 2009

Editorial

Family Matters

Uncharted waters So the Jobs Summit has officially ended.A one day ideas-fest designed to generate possible solutions to the current economic crisis.

Firstly,here’s the bad news.The rest of the world is getting worse,not better.Throwing money at international bankers and multinationals is enriching some, but generally rewarding the same old dodgy behavior that caused the problem in the first place.

The hands will continue to reach out, and eventually there will be no money left to feed the monster.

What then?

This crisis has the reek of an engineered storm, pushing ships of state towards a destination unknown.The US total deficit, including below the line and off balance sheet, is US$65 trillion.That’s not a hole that 100 million US taxpayers can dig themselves out of.

China is fast falling into that hole as well. Despite all the talk of the Chinese free trade agreement, China has a small domestic economy and most of its goods are destined for export, except the world has stopped buying. Even cheap Chinese goods aren’t selling anymore.

In Europe, the banks are bankrupt. Royal Bank

By Bob McCoskrie

of Scotland just announced an NZ$78 billion loss, the rest of us whose exports are more expensive? whilst tonight Lloyds HBOS announced a $35 bilNobody in power wants to talk about this elelion loss. phant in the room. It’s claimed protectionism and I’m sorry.We can gab-fest all we like about free trade, closed borders prolonged the Great Depression. open borders and NZ being in a good position provided Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t, but what are the rest of the world recovers,but our options? in truth that recovery is looking Prime Minister John Key A small terminally delayed. has done the right thing so country like far: pouring vast sums of cash I have a horrible, sneaking suspicion that the world is NZ cannot sit on into corporate and banks is about to go “fortress”, despite like using your finger to slow the platitudes being mouthed the sidelines of down a kitchen waste disposal by world leaders at the moment. forever waiting unit. Pretty soon you run out of By that, I mean“Buy America”, finger. Key is correct when he for the world Buy European”,Buy NZ Made”. says the solution is not borrowIf the world economy is broken, to recover ing and mortgaging the next the only way of keeping a nation generations of Kiwis to pay for employed,historically,is a toss-up between world war the debts of the Baby Boomers. or a return to local manufacture of general goods.

So again, here’s my humble suggestion on the job A small country like NZ cannot sit on the side- front. If things don’t pick up internationally within lines of forever waiting for the world to recover. If 2009, it’s time for a radical rethink.We can keep four the world’s cheapest manufacturer, China, is watch- million kiwis employed, making things for four miling its economy tank and witnessing massive job lion kiwis. Better to make things for ourselves, than losses and domestic stresses, what hope is there for for a world that isn’t buying. SUBSCRIBE TO TGIF!

Comment

Top Dem worried Obama too powerful

By Margaret Talev McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON – The longest-serving U.S. senator in history, who’s one of the nation’s top authorities on congressional power, is challenging President Barack Obama for naming White House policy czars who can operate without the same legislative scrutiny as Cabinet officials.

Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., said that the practice may conflict with Obama’s commitment to openness and transparency. Byrd, 91, who has served a half-century in the Senate, laid out his critique in a two-page letter made public Wednesday, a day after sending it to the White House.

Byrd highlighted Obama’s creation of non-Cabinet White House posts to oversee health reform, urban affairs, climate change and technology and management. He recalled how Presidents Richard Nixon and George W. Bush consolidated power in their White House staffs to ill effect.

Presidential assistants and advisers inside the White House“are not accountable for their actions to Congress,to cabinet officials and to virtually anyone but the president,”Byrd wrote.Unlike Cabinet secretaries, who must answer to the Senate that confirms them as the Constitution dictates,White House staff aides rarely agree to testify before Congress and often hide behind executive privilege claims.

“In too many instances,White House staff have been allowed to inhibit openness and transparency and reduce accountability,”Byrd wrote.

Byrd asked Obama to mitigate these risks by committing to assert executive privilege claims only rarely; to keep his White House staff from making funding, personnel or program decisions that go around Senate-confirmed department or agency heads; and to maintain transparency and openness as he has promised.

An administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak on this issue, said:“The czars were put in place to help coordinate the policy process. For issues like climate change and health care, the input of multiple agencies is essential to the decision-making process, and our goal is to move forward with our policy agenda as efficiently as possible.”

His comment didn’t really address Byrd’s concerns, however, which are shared by many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.They see a decades-long slide of power to the executive from what the Constitution intended to be a co-equal branch of government.

Many Democrats also are frustrated by Obama’s

delay in deciding whether to uphold claims of privilege that former Bush advisers including Karl Rove have used in refusing to give public testimony to Congress.

Still,Democrats who control both chambers of Congress seemed reluctant to take sides in a public conflict between the venerable Byrd and a president from their own party who has high public approval ratings.

A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., declined comment when asked about Byrd’s letter, and a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., didn’t respond to a request for comment.

accountability in the process.

“The irony is that the president conveys the message that he’s all about openness and accountability and undoing the tendencies of the Bush era,while on the other hand he’s concentrating power in the White House in a way that reduces accountability.”

Congress does have the power to push back, by refusing to support Obama’s policies or to appropriate his requests for money. But in the current crisis climate, Rozell said, that’s unlikely. Obama’s far more popular than is Congress, and, especially in times of crisis, people look to the president as the authority figure.

The irony is that the president conveys the message that he’s all about openness and accountability and undoing the tendencies of the Bush era, while on the other hand he’s concentrating power in the White House in a way that reduces accountability Mark Rozell, a public policy professor at George Mason University and author of a book on executive privilege, said Byrd’s concerns are“absolutely right.”

“These aren’t people who are going through confirmation hearings; they’re not heading departments and agencies over which Congress does direct oversight,”Rozell said.“Cabinet secretaries begin to play a lesser role in the system. I think it leads to less

“I don’t see the public giving much cover to Congress to take Obama on like this,”he said.“Congress may be absolutely right constitutionally, but the public may not stand for it anyway. The public may just see Congress as meddling where it doesn’t belong.”

McClatchy Newspapers correspondent Steven Thomma contributed to this report.

-Save $8m on smacking referendum It is incredible that in the midst of a recession, the government will spend $8million of taxpayers’ money to tell them what they already know – that the anti-smacking law should be fixed.

The postal Referendum will be held between 31 July 2009 and 21 August 2009.

But if the government is serious about cost cutting, tightening our financial belts, and prioritised spending to the frontline, it makes far more sense to divert that amount of money to more teachers, nurses, doctors and Cops on the beat.

The law can be easily fixed by removing the criminality of parents who use reasonable force for the purpose of correcting their children but at the same time having clear statutory limits on what constitutes reasonable force. This could be achieved through adopting the ‘Borrows’ amendment which the National party was supporting before being ‘whipped’ to vote for the current confusing law.

NZ’ers are crying out for politicians to listen to the voice of the people and to tackle the real causes of child abuse without criminalising and threatening good parents with investigation and interference from already overworked police and CYF social workers.

-BSA lowers not upholds the standard The claims by the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) that there is a softening of attitudes towards foul language and offensive material on television is because of their failure to enforce any standard in the first place. The term ‘Broadcasting Standards Authority’ is an oxymoron, and the board simply cannot be depended on to act in the best interests of the welfare and safety of our community and families.

It is laughable that they suggest that opposition to foul language is decreasing based on a 2006 study yet acknowledge that the number of complaints for foul language in the past six months is double the previous six months, and admit that they only upheld 2 complaints – with no sanctions.

Complaints made to the BSA regarding the standard of good taste and decency average a 4% success rate, so it is hardly surprising that people simply shrug their shoulders and say ‘what can we do’, ‘who will listen to our concerns’ when they are confronted with objectionable material.

Parents do not want their children bombarded with foul language and sexual content – yet broadcasters are pushing the boundaries with little to no retribution.

A Family First investigation of 15 programmes on four free-to-air channels between 6pm and 8.30pm in November last year found a saturation of foul language, sexual innuendo, and promotion of Adult-Only programmes.

Words featured during supposed ‘family viewing’ times included b**ch, fu*k, a*s, pi**, bast**d, bl**dy, and included expressions such as “holy f**k”, “s*x with your mother”, “shove bottle up his a** ”, and “a** bit** ”.

Television needs to clean up its act but the BSA is the last place to look to achieve this goal.

-Upper Hutt slams liberalised brothel laws The Upper Hutt community has given a resounding no to Upper Hutt City Council’s attempt to liberalise prostitution laws.

Previously the law banned brothels from residential areas or within 200 metres of a school, kindergarten, playcentre, pre- or after-school care centre, play area, place of worship, or rest home. The draft Bylaw amends the existing bylaw by allowing a sole sex worker to operate from his or her own home, reducing the buffer zone of a brothel to 100m of a sensitive site e.g. school, playcentre; and permits brothels in limited areas of the central business district including the central shopping area.

But the Council has been given a strong rebuke of its proposals with virtually all of the 50 submissions opposing its liberalisation of the laws.

There is a strong association between brothels and gang involvement, drug and alcohol abuse, used condoms littered about, and general nuisance. This is unacceptable in both residential, business and family areas. The buffer zone is also an attempt to prevent unnecessary exposure of the sex industry to children and young people, and to prevent normalisation of the behaviour.

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ANALYSIS

27 February 2009

A demographic tsunami looms

By Peter Curson

It is the season of global population data. The release of the 2008 World Population Data Sheet by the Washington based Population Reference Bureau follows closely on the publication of the UN’s Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) 2008 Population Data Sheet and the UN’s 2008 State of the World Population Report. The Population Reference Bureau’s data sheet is an event much awaited by demographers and policy makers for it provides a detailed summary of the latest global population figures, by country and region as well as providing information on health and the environment. So what does this latest population report tell us? Well in the first instance it is getting somewhat crowded out there.

One hundred years ago the world’s population stood at less than 2 billion.Today the world’s population has reached 6.7 billion, and within 40 years it will stand at 9.3 billion. We are also looking at a bifurcated world. Currently, 5.5 billion live in developing countries and only 1.2 billion in developed countries.

This imbalance in population location will probably intensify over the next 40 years. Between now and 2050 virtually all the world’s population growth will take place in the developing world, with only small increases in the USA, Canada,Australia and New Zealand.While the developing world will add almost 4 billion people over this period, the developed world will only add a meagre 100 million. By 2050, 86% of the world’s population will be living in the less developed countries. Since the beginning of the 20th century more than 90% of the world’s population growth has taken place in developing countries. Largely this has been brought about by dramatic improvements in health producing significant declines in infant mortality. Consider the case of China.As late as 1955-60 the infant mortality rate stood at 175 deaths per 1,000 live births.Today, the rate is 23 deaths per thousand live births.A decline of this magnitude took more than 150 years to achieve in developed countries. China achieved it in less than 40 years.

Significantly, the latest population figures show that the divide between rich and poor countries is widening and that two distinctive patterns of

population growth are beginning to dominate the world scene. On the one hand there is small or little growth and even in some cases population decline in many wealthy developed countries, and on the other, rapid population growth in the world’s poorest countries.There is one major exception to this trend and that is the USA which will probably grow at a much faster rate than any other developed country over the next 40 years. No where is the discrepancy between the developing and developed world better demonstrated than with respect to maternal mortality rates.Today, probably half a million women die in childbirth. More than 99% of such deaths occur in developing countries, with the majority occurring to women in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

The Population Reference Bureau illustrates the stark contrast facing the world by comparison of a wealthy developed country (Italy) with low fertility, few children and a rapidly ageing population, with that of an impoverished less developed country (Democratic Republic of the Congo [DRC]) with very high fertility, low life expectancy, almost 50% of its population aged under 15, and high growth potential.Today, Italy’s population is 60 million and that of the DRC 67 million. By 2050, Italy will have 62 million people while the DRC will have a population of 189 million.

For the first time in its history our world is evenly divided between rural and urban dwellers. By 2050, 70% of us will be living in urban areas.Asia in particular will benefit from this urban revolution and is expected to double its urban population over the next 40 years. By 2050 Asia may well have 20 mega-cities each of more than 14 million people.

Poverty and inequality, however, continue to dog many urban areas in the developing world. In 2008 approximately 1.4 billion people were living in slums or squatter settlements – about one third of all urban dwellers, and one sixth of humanity. By 2050 the world may well see more than 2.5 billion living in such circumstances.The world is also currently witnessing some of the greatest movements of people both within countries and across borders.

In 2008 possibly 2 billion people were on the move, either on short term holiday or business trips, as a result of being forcibly displaced, moving from rural to urban areas, or migrating to new countries for

work, study or to join family members.

Currently we also live in a greying world. At the beginning of this century the world included approximately 600 million people aged over 65, three times the number recorded in 1950. By 2050 there will be at least 2 billion elderly people – a three fold increase over today. The number of old people in the world is growing at a rate of 2% per annum, almost twice the rate of the population as a whole.Across Asia the number of old people will grow dramatically over the next 40 years, increasing to more than 850 million by 2050. Japan, for example, is ageing at an amazing rate. In the late 1940s only 5% of the population were aged over 65, well below that of the UK, France and the USA. Today, Japan outstrips them all with a rate in excess of 20%, and within 40 years this will have increased to more than 35%.

China too is ageing, and by 2050 will have 350 million people aged over 65. Such growth will have far-reaching social and economic implications.

And what of the Asia Pacific region? Today this region is home to 3.7 billion people, or roughly 55% of the world’s population. It includes 6 of the world’s 10 most populous countries – China, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Japan. In such company, Australia and New Zealand are mere demographic minnows, together comprising less than 0.7% of the region’s population. In many ways our region represents a demographic microcosm of the world.

Incipient population decline in Japan, slow growth, low fertility and mortality in Australia and New Zealand, moderate growth in India, Vietnam and Indonesia, and rapid growth in the Philippines, Cambodia, Laos, Pakistan and a handful of Pacific countries.Arguably, such trends will come to dominate the next 40 years and have important implications for regional security.

So what is the upshot of these latest figures? Well,

here in Australia and New Zealand we are most certainly looking at an ‘Asia-Pacific Century’where China and India will come to dominate our region by sheer size and economic power.We are also looking at a changed world, in that ageing will transform the population structure of the developed world, with many Asian countries not far behind, and high fertility, loads of young children, high population growth, will be largely restricted to a group of African and Middle Eastern countries. It will also be a more mobile world as more people move within countries and across national borders. Finally, it will be an urban world and all that means for sustainability, food security and inequality.Whether it is a more secure world for all of us remains to be seen.

Finally, if we could simply reconfigure the world’s population as a small town of 1,000 persons and apply the current population ratios, then we would have a town comprised of – 604 Asians, 144 Africans, 110 Europeans, 87 Latin Americans, 50 North Americans, and just 4 Australians and New Zealanders. A sobering scenario perhaps, but one that provides a taste of 21st century demography and what lies ahead.

Peter Curson is Professor in Population & Security, at the Centre for International Security Studies, Faculty of Economics & Business, the University of Sydney. He is also a TGIF Edition subscribe

Walker’s World

Beijing and Obama

By Martin Walker

MEXICO CITY – We now know two important and useful items of good news about the forthcoming summit of the Group of 20 nations in London in April. This meeting is likely to be critical for the prospects of economic recovery in the future.

The first reason for this is that President Barack Obama’s attendance is now confirmed, and the second reason, almost as important, is that China has made it publicly clear that it will be on the side of the free traders against the protectionists.

Unlike the last G20 summit in November, which he avoided rather than cause confusion with sitting President George W. Bush, Obama is determined to attend the London event.And he is going to be the most pivotal person in the room.

There are three reasons for this.The first is that the United States, however stricken by the economic recession, remains the economic, military and political superpower. Not much can be achieved without its support and participation, which is why the rest of the world’s leaders were so troubled by that brief threat of “buy American” provisions in Obama’s stimulus package. If the United States backs away from free trade, then protectionism will follow, and the recession will last a very long time.

The second reason is that Obama is not just the new president on the block, but he also has developed an extraordinary constituency of support in other countries around the world, from Russia to

China to the Middle East.The leaders from Beijing and Riyadh, from Moscow and Paris, from Brasilia and Pretoria all know that Obama has become a global symbol of hope and change. Nobody will want to be seen to be opposing him.

The third reason is that under Obama’s guidance, the United States is leading again and bidding to save the world economy by its actions and by its example.

Within a month of taking office, he has launched three massive and separate measures to tackle the American recession and its global metastasis.

His $787 billion stimulus package may or may not work as planned,but it is a very big and bold effort and it should stop the recession getting very much worse.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s plan to stabilize the financial system initially received a poor reception, particularly from Wall Street, which marked down financial shares. But Wall Street has its own agenda. Had Geithner shovelled more taxpayer money at the banks without asking for much in return (as the Bush administration did), then Wall Street might for selfish reasons have rejoiced.

The longer that serious economists have studied the plan, the better their comments have been.The plan is open-ended in time and in financial commitment, but the goal is to use between $300 billion and $1 trillion of federal funds and credit to generate another $1 trillion from private investments.

The purpose is to stabilize the existing banks (if they pass a stress test), to protect them from further

threats of defaulting loans from car buyers, students and credit card holders, and finally to leverage private capital to buy the toxic assets that still weigh down the banks.All this is to be done without using the emotive word nationalization and without being seen to reward the bankers and shareholders who led the way into this crisis.

Its vagueness, given the uncertainty of the real value of the toxic assets and the still unknown way the U.S. economy will react to the stimulus package, is no bad thing. Flexibility will be important. And the third element of Obama’s first month in office, the $75 billion mortgage relief plan, should fend off the political pressure of mass foreclosures and give the banks and mortgage holders important assurance of future cash flow.

Overall, Obama’s triple package carries a convincing price tag that could go as high as $1.85 trillion, which is close to the GDP of Italy, the world’s seventh-largest economy. And it tackles the right targets: the banks, the mortgage system and the U.S. economy as a whole.

So Obama will walk into the London summit as the man with the plan, and the money and the political will to use it. That alone gives the G20 meeting a better chance of success.

But the other country with the biggest stimulus package is also poised to help.China,which is deploying $586 billion in public investment and infrastructure spending,is sticking with the strategic decision it made

last year to be a supportive and responsible partner in sustaining the health of the global economy.

Last October China joined in the coordinated interest rate cuts of the Group of Seven finance ministers.

Then it announced its big stimulus plan. Now it is stressing its commitment to free trade,with a stirring statement Friday from Commerce Minister Chen Deming that the fundamental interest of every country is to step up consultation and cooperation and keep international trade smoothly flowing.Healthy international trade can help revive the world economy.

Let us not be naive. Chen’s concern is that the United States does not go dangerously far down the buy American path because the big victim would be China, whose exports fell last month by 17 percent.

But when he says that global trade is now in dire straits and that protectionist policies would make things even worse, and the consequences would be hard to predict, most economists and most governments around the world would agree with him.

There is an implicit bargain here that China will continue to hold and buy U.S.Treasury bonds and thus sustain the dollar, so long as the United States avoids the protectionist temptation. If this bargain holds, and domestic politics in the East and the West are not allowed to crush the liberal trading order, then Beijing and Obama between them could turn the G20 summit into the springboard that starts the world back to recovery.

– UPI

ANALYSIS

27 February 2009

Who monitors greenhouse emissions?

Methane, for instance, comes largely from animal emissions, which are harder to track and quantify than those leaving a power plant smokestack

By Rosalie Westenskow

The new Congress appears poised to impose tough regulations on greenhouse-gas emissions, but it’s unclear how the government will monitor these climate-changing gases to ensure emitters comply with the law.

A number of leading congressional Democrats plan to introduce legislation this year that would establish a cap-and-trade scheme, whereby the government would cap emissions at a specific level and then allot businesses and other entities shares to emit a certain amount. If an organization cut emissions beneath its share, it could then sell the rest of its allowance to another entity.

But such a program can’t be effective unless the government knows who’s emitting and how much, Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash., said this week at a hearing on the topic in the House Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment.

“In order to evaluate programs – either mandatory or voluntary – for controlling greenhouse-gas emissions, we must be able to track emissions accurately,”Baird said.

The federal government has had some experience with tracking emissions in the past. More than a decade ago Congress passed a provision in the Clean Air Act to reduce sulphur dioxide emissions, which contribute to acid rain. Since 1995 the government has operated a cap-and-trade system for the pollutant and monitored emitters to make sure they comply.“The program succeeded in lowering emissions, but an equivalent program for greenhouse gases will be much more complicated,”Baird said.

There are many more entities that need to be monitored under a greenhouse-gas control program, he said.

The European Union implemented a cap-andtrade system for carbon dioxide in 2005, but the U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report last November pointing out a number of problems the EU has encountered in regards to tracking emissions. The report found the system’s baseline for emission levels was based in large part on projections instead of hard data from specific facilities.“As a result, it’s been hard to judge whether the system is actually lowering emissions,”the report said.

One way to simplify the process is to include only upstream facilities – those that actually produce fossil fuels – in the cap-and-trade program, said

hearing, including Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., because methane has 20 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide is 300 times as potent.

Because of this, some companies are already trying to track all of their greenhouse-gas emissions.

Among them is Waste Management, a major trashand waste-removal and recycling company based in Houston.

In addition to the emissions from company vehicles and the energy used to power its facilities,Waste Management is also tracking its landfill emissions, including methane. This has been difficult to figure out, said Leslie Wong, director of the company’s John Stephenson, director of natural resources and under a cap-and-trade program, it’s important to greenhouse-gas programs. the environment at the GAO. also require third-party verification, said Rob Ellis, “A broadly accepted protocol does not exist,”she “The further upstream you go, the easier it is,” greenhouse-gas program manager at Advanced told representatives.

Stephenson said.

Waste Management Systems, which provides proAs a result, she urged policymakers to carefully That’s because there are fewer entities to moni- fessional auditing services to verify organizations’ consider which gases they include in any legislation tor. For instance, although Stephenson estimates an greenhouse-gas emissions records. aimed at cutting emissions. upstream cap-and-trade system would include about “The consequences of and opportunities for fraud Monitoring emissions isn’t just a domestic issue.

3,000 emission sources, a program covering down- are high,”Ellis said, urging policymakers to be on Some groups are also concerned that, without scistream energy users,like power plants,would encom- the lookout for verification companies that have a entifically based monitoring systems, international pass more than 10,000 entities and would probably vested interest in the organizations they audit. attempts to lower greenhouse-gas emissions will be only include about half of total U.S. emissions.

In addition to deciding what facilities to monitor, impossible to implement.This is a particularly hot However, monitoring emissions at the business policymakers will have to determine which gases to topic right now as the world gears up to replace level encourages greater efficiency,said Jill Gravender, include in a cap-and-trade system.Although witnesses the Kyoto Protocol, the reigning global agreement vice president for policy at the Climate Registry, a at Wednesday’s hearing said it’s possible right now to on emissions. non-profit organization that helps its 316 members scientifically track and monitor carbon dioxide – the “There are wide disparities between countries on record and report their greenhouse-gas emissions. only gas included in the EU program – there’s less the quality, transparency and consistency of emis“Having the company carbon footprint is impor- certainty in how to verify levels of other greenhouse- sions reporting,” Karen Harbert, president of the tant because it gives companies an opportunity to gas emissions like methane and nitrous oxide.

Institute for 21st Century Energy at the U.S. Chammanage their emissions,”Gravender told representaMethane, for instance, comes largely from animal ber of Commerce, told United Press International. tives.“You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” emissions, which are harder to track and quantify “Serious progress needs to be made on the reporting, However, if thousands of companies are suddenly than those leaving a power plant smokestack. monitoring and verifying of emissions.” expected to monitor and regulate their emissions That concerned some of the policymakers at the – UPI

One man’s ‘rocket’ is another’s missile trend,” the committee said, stressing that North Korea has “the sovereign right to send up rockets SEOUL– North Korea acknowledged this week it for peaceful space development.” It is the same is preparing to launch what it claims is a satellite, language it used in 1998 to disguise a long-range in its first official response to weeks of intelligence missile test as a satellite launch. reports that it is gearing up to test-fire a rocket When the North test-fired a multistage rocket believed to be a long-range ballistic missile. named the Taepodong-1 into the Pacific Ocean over The communist country did not say when the Japan in August 1998, it argued that the rocket’s launch would be made, but Seoul expects it will be purpose was to send a satellite into orbit for the ready in a week or two, warning that Pyongyang peaceful use of space. would face sanctions whether it is a missile or a satA year later the North claimed the satellite, ellite. dubbed Kwangmyongsong-1, or Bright Star, was In a statement, the North’s Korean Committee of still orbiting the Earth, transmitting the melody of Space Technology said full-scale preparations are the immortal revolutionary ‘Song of General (North under way to launch a rocket to put a communica- Korean founder) Kim Il Sung’and ‘Song of General tions satellite into orbit. (his son and current leader) Kim Jong Il.’ “When this satellite is successfully launched, our The North said the satellite was “a brilliant space technology will make a great step forward achievement based on our country’s Juche (selftoward becoming an economically strong country,” reliant) economy and scientific research,” though said the statement carried by Pyongyang’s state-run the U.S. Space Command said it did not observe any Korean Central News Agency. object orbiting the Earth or any radio transmission The committee said the rocket would be fired at a that could justify Pyongyang’s claim. launch site in the county of Hwadae in the country’s After the rocket launch, Kim Jong Il cemented northeast. Hwadae County includes Musudan-ri, his status as the country’s new leader in October which is widely believed to be the launch site for 1998, when he was formally inaugurated as head of the country’s long-range missiles designed to carry state under the constitutional revision, succeeding a nuclear warhead that could hit U.S. territory. his father, who died in 1994.

“Outer space is an asset common to mankind, and Wednesday’s statement from the National Space its use for peaceful purposes has become a global Committee called the rocket the Unha-2 that will

By Lee Jong-Heon

put communications satellite Kwangmyongsong-2 into orbit.

“Preparations for launching the experimental communications satellite Kwangmyongsong-2 by means of the delivery rocket Unha-2 are now making brisk headway,”it said.

The North has also employed the same explanation used by Iran to defend its missile programs, saying Pyongyang’s policy of advancing to space for peaceful purposes is a justifiable aim that fits the global trend of the times.

Iran recently launched its first homemade satellite into space, saying its space advancement serves no military purpose. But experts warn Tehran’s space work could lead to the development of an intercontinental ballistic missile.As is the case with North Korea, Iran’s military plays a key role in the space program.

The North’s state newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said that North Korea, as a sovereign state like Iran, has the right to send rockets into space for peaceful space development.

“Currently our scientists and engineers, in keeping with the international trend, are actively pushing ahead with projects aimed at utilizing space for peaceful goals,”it said.

But South Korea has warned the North would face stern international punishment whether the rocket is for a missile or a satellite.

Seoul’s Defence Minister Lee Sang-hee said whether the North launches a satellite or a missile, South Korea will consider it a military threat because putting a satellite into orbit involves technology that is also used in advancing a long-range missile system.

“In either case, we believe it is a threatening act toward us, and we are preparing to deal with it accordingly,”Lee told Parliament.

Foreign MinisterYu Myung-hwan warned that any such launch would invite U.N. sanctions because it would violate the 2006 U.N.resolution banning North Korea from pursuing missile or nuclear programs.

“A rocket launch of any kind would be a violation of the U.N. Security Council resolution,”Yu said.

The U.N. resolution was adopted after Pyongyang launched a Taepodong-2. It failed about 40 seconds after blast-off.

Yu left for Beijing on Wednesday to call on China to use its influence with Pyongyang and ask it to refrain from its missile activities.Yu said he would brainstorm with his Chinese counterpart over how to deal with the North during his two-day tour.

The visit comes after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton toured South Korea, China, Japan and Indonesia last week. During her trip she warned North Korea against any provocative and unhelpful behaviour.

– UPI

WORLD

update

in 60 seconds UN EXTENDS TIMOR MISSION New York (DPA) – The UN Security Council decided unanimously today to keep its peacekeeping mission in East Timor for another 12 months, noting that the political and security situation there remains fragile.

Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta appeared before the council last week to urge continued UN assistance to the tiny southeast Asian island nation.

The council said the UN Integrated Mission in TimorLeste (UNMIT) will remain until February 26, 2010, with the same composition of nearly 3,000 police and civilian personnel. The mission has been providing security to the country and training to local forces.

The UN was first involved 10 years ago in helping East Timor to gain independence from Indonesia and in organizing elections to establish the current government.

Ramos-Horta’s government is scheduled to organize local elections this year and has called on the international community to lend assistance for the democratic process.

RUDD’S BUD BAZZA Washington (DPA) – Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will meet US President Barack Obama in Washington next month for talks on the global financial crisis and the conflict in Afghanistan, the White House said today.

Climate change and nuclear nonproliferation will also be on the agenda at the March 24 meeting, the White House said. “Australia is a close ally of the United States. The president looks forward to discussing with the prime minister ways to address critical global issues,� the statement said.

Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso on Tuesday became the first foreign leader to meet Obama at the White House.

ASK NOT FOR WHOM THE DELL TOLLS New York (DPA) – Dell Inc, the world’s second largest computer manufacturer, said today it saw profits fall by nearly half in the fourth quarter as consumers cut spending in the midst of a global recession.

Profits fell by 48 per cent to US$351 million, or 18 cents per share, down from $679 million, or 31 cents per share, in the year-earlier period. Revenue fell 16 per cent to $13.4 billion, the Round Rock, Texas-based company said.

For the fiscal year ended in January, Dell’s profits were down 16 per cent to 2.5 billion dollars. Revenue remained flat at 61.1 billion dollars.

DREAMERS QUEUE FOR JOB Sydney (DPA) – Fifty fortunate applicants have come a step closer to the dream job of caretaker on a paradise island in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

Nearly 35,000 people applied for the position with applicants from 200 countries led by 11,565 job seekers from the United States, followed by Canada (2,791), Britain (2,262) and Australia (2,064). “I think we’re safe in saying that this is the most sought-after job in the world,� Queensland state Tourism Minister Desley Boyle told the local media.

Some job seekers had earlier failed to lodge their 60second video clips because the website crashed under an avalanche of last-minute applications for a post that pays a lot of money for very little work.

The panel will announce the names of the 50 applicants on March 3, who will then undergo a series of online psychometric tests, reports the national news agency, Australian Associated Press (AAP).

The selection will be from 11 finalists and the successful applicant will start work on July 1.

27 February  2009

Big spending US budget unveiled Washington (dpa) – US President posal as a typical tax-and-spend effort by Barack Obama today outlined his admina left-leaning Democratic president. istration’s 2010 budget and projections for “The era of big government is back,�

Highlights of President Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget proposal for 2010: the next 10 years, offering a look at how he John Boehner, the top Republican in the Military Tax hikes plans to revive an embattled economy while House of Representatives, told reporters. s BILLION FOR WARS IN )RAQ s BILLION INCREASE OVER AND !FGHANISTAN BILLION YEARS IN TAXES FOR WEALTHY THOSE completing a series of ambitious priorities He called the budget a “job-killer, plain MORE FOR REMAINDER OF EARNING SINGLE

he set out on the campaign trail. and simple.�

COUPLES BY REDUCING BENEFIT FROM TAX s )NCREASE SIZE OF !RMY DEDUCTIONS CANCELING "USH TAX CUTS The budget includes many initiatives The budget entails an extra 250 billion TO SOLDIERS -ARINES TO BY that could be resisted by legislators in Condollars for struggling Wall Street banks on Tax cuts s )NCREASE $EFENSE $EPT gress, such as a cap-and-trade programme the verge of collapse, which would allow the s -AKE PERMANENT THE SPENDING BY BILLION FOR COUPLES ANNUAL TAXCUT to reduce climate-damaging emissions as administration to inject up to 750 billion 6! SPENDING BY BILLION IN THE STIMULUS PACKAGE OVER FIVE YEARS well as health and education reforms. dollars in extra capital into the financial s %XTEND THE MIDDLE CLASS CUTS PASSED BY THE "USH ADMINISTRATION Health care It would also make permanent a set of sector.

DUE TO EXPIRE IN s 3ET ASIDE BILLION RESERVE tax cuts for middle-class workers enacted That comes on top of a $700 billion FUND OVER YEARS TO BEGIN Energy last week but allow a series of tax cuts for financial rescue plan approved in October FINANCING NATIONAL HEALTH CARE s BILLION REVENUE FROM CARBON PROGRAM the wealthy – enacted by former president and could be hard to get past sceptical EMISSIONS CAPS BILLION WOULD s 4O PAY FOR FUND #UT -EDICARE George W Bush in 2001 and 2003 – to legislators. The administration stressed it PAY FOR TAX CUTS BILLION TO FUND PAYMENTS TO PRIVATE INSURERS

CLEAN ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES expire after 2010. was not yet making a formal request for -EDICAID DRUG REBATES TO MANUFACTURERS REDUCE TAX BREAKS Together, the administration forecasts a the extra funds.

TO HIGH INCOME HOUSEHOLDS Who’d see a tax increase nearly US$4 trillion Obama has promised an ambitious set 0ERCENT OF RETURNS OVER

Financial rescue ADJUSTED GROSS INCOME

budget in 2009 that will raise the federal of reforms in health, education and energy s !T LEAST BILLION MORE Total returns deficit to $1.75 trillion, more than 10 per over the coming years – all issues where 5% FOR RESCUE PROGRAM MILLION cent of gross domestic product and the previous administrations have struggled "OTH INDIVIDUAL AND s 4O REGULATE FINANCIAL MARKETS

COUPLES FILING JOINTLY RAISE SPENDING ON 3ECURITIES result of unprecedented spending to pull to make inroads.

AND %XCHANGE #OMMISSION Growing deficits the US out of a severe recession.

The outline includes a more-than 600BY PERCENT #OMMODITIES

ARE PROJECTED &UTURES 4RADING #OMMISSION But Obama believes he can slash that billion-dollar “down payment� on health

BY PERCENT OVER LEVELS

$455 billion deficit to $533 billion by the end of his first care reform, which Obama expects to be

$1.75 trillion Š 2009 MCT 3OURCE /FFICE OF -ANAGEMENT AND "UDGET

four-year term in office. addressed by legislators this year. It also

$1.2 trillion !0 )23 -C#LATCHY 7ASHINGTON "UREAU 'RAPHIC *UDY 4REIBLE “While we must add to our deficits in includes 15 billion dollars per year in spendthe short term to provide immediate relief ing on renewable energy investments. to families and get our economy moving,�

While Obama’s plans offer an insight Obama said,“it is only by restoring fiscal discipline Obama slammed his predecessor for what he into his own spending priorities, they also assume over the long run that we can produce sustained called “dishonest accounting� and noted that his that Congress will follow through with the corregrowth and shared prosperity.� administration inherited a 2008 deficit of $1.3 tril- sponding legislation, much of which remains in its The Obama administration said it identified 2 lion. The budget outline entails a 12-page section infant stages and is highly controversial. trillion dollars in deficit reductions – half from detailing a “legacy of misplaced priorities.�

That includes a cap-and-trade plan that would spending cuts and half from higher revenues – over “This budget is an honest accounting of where force companies to pay for carbon dioxide emissions the next decade. That includes a drawing down of we are and where we intend to go,�Obama said. He blamed for global warming.The administration has troops from Iraq and cutting wasteful programmes warned that tackling the ongoing US recession said it can raise up to $300 billion per year in revin defence, health care, education, agriculture and would have to take priority over the deficit in the enue, which already exists in Europe. other departments. near term.

But legislation to create the system failed in 2008 The budget for the first time includes cost estiObama provided a 140-page outline to Congress and a revived effort has been making slow progress mates for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which today. A full 2010 budget will be handed over in in Congress this year. Many expect a cap-and-trade had been left off the books by the Bush adminis- April for approval. plan won’t become law until 2010 at the earliest. tration.

Opposition Republicans derided Obama’s pro– DPA

President’s budget outline

With no official information yet provided by crash investigators, speculation continued about what caused the plane to go down short of the runway. / NOTIMEX

Mystery over downed flight Amsterdam – Investigators continued today to search the wreckage of the Turkish Airlines plane which crashed a few hundred metres short of the runway at Schiphol Airport yesterday,killing nine persons, amid speculation about what caused the crash.

Investigators of the Dutch Safety Board, which investigates all major accidents in the Netherlands, were at the crash scene and the plane was to remain at the site for further investigations expected to last at least until Sunday.

The board said it would publish details of the analysis it made of flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder by early next week.

Spokeswoman Sandra Groendendal said work on the recorders was still“in progress. No information can be released yet, but we will provide more information on Monday or Tuesday.�

Air traffic on the Polderbaan runway where the Boeing 737-800 crashed will not be resumed until the aircraft’s wreckage has been removed, airport officials said.

Meanwhile authorities confirmed the nine killed in the crash were fiveTurkish and four US citizens.Mayor of the local municipality of Haarlemmermeer Theo Weterings said there was neither confirmation nor denial that two of the US citizens were Boeing employees.

Weterings said the precise identification of each individual victim still required more time.“Only after this has been completed will we release the names,�he said.

The mayor said the nationalities of all critically injured were also known now, though their precise identities had not yet been established.The nationality of two passengers remains still unknown.

Weterings said the aircraft carried one passenger not registered on the list, bringing the total number of passengers to 135.

The plane was carrying 53 Dutch and 51 Turkish nationals.There was also passengers from Italy, Germany and Taiwan.Weterings said 63 people were still be treated in various hospitals, including six who were critically injured.

With no official information yet provided by crash investigators, speculation – fed by reports from eyewitnesses on the ground – continued about what caused the plane to go down short of the runway.

Several people told Dutch media their attention was initially drawn to the plane because they first heard it flying unusually low and making relatively much noise, following by silence.

Speaking in a late night current affairs show on Dutch television, Hans Tettero of the Dutch pilots association said this might indicate a complete and sudden failure of both engines.

He added this could have had several reasons, including possible human error, a blockage of fuel to the engines, or that the plane simply ran out of fuel, either due to leakage or not enough fuel having been taken on board for the flight.

But Tettero believed that insufficient fuel intake was not a likely cause because“airlines maintain an absolute minimum of 30 to 45 minutes extra flying time when calculating the required fuel.� – DPA

WORLD

27 February 2009

Climate change ‘driving tax’ mooted Washington – The United States must raise petrol taxes in the short run and consider shifting towards charging drivers per kilometre as cars become greener in future, an independent panel commissioned by the US Congress said today.

The 15-member Financing Commission said the current petrol tax was “unsustainable”as carmakers are producing more fuel-efficient cars, and recommended a system be put in place by 2020 that charges people based on the number of kilometres they drive.

Until that transition is made, the commission suggested a 10-cent increase in the federal petrol tax from its current level of 18.4 cents per gallon (4.9 cents per litre) to help repair the country’s crumbling transportation infrastructure.

The report will further fuel a long-running debate among US politicians over how to raise more money for highways and spur the transition to greener cars, without harming the economy.

The federal petrol tax was last raised in 1993 and has actually lost a third of its purchasing power

since. US states levy a separate tax on petrol – typically almost twice as much as the federal government.

The United States collects a fraction of the rate of many European governments. But a growing number of groups in the US, including some carmakers, are suggesting the time may have come for an increase.

Both General Motors Corp chief executive Rick Wagoner and Ford Motor Co CEO Alan Mulally last month suggested higher petrol taxes could help

them make the transition to greener cars, which is considered crucial if the US car industry has any hopes of survival in the long run.

The panel warned there was a “widening gap” between government spending and the country’s infrastructure needs.

Many politicians argue an increase in the petrol tax will further burden US families and is the last thing to be considered in the midst of a severe recession.

– DPA

UN acquits Serbian leader Washington – Kosovar President Fatmir Sejdiu said he has “full trust” in the verdict by a UN tribunal today that acquitted former Serb president Milan Milutinovic of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“Of course we at all time have full trust in the verdicts of the international court,” Sejdiu said through a translator during a press conference in Washington with US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“Enormous crimes, crimes against humanity, took place in Kosovo and Bosnia and Croatia”during the Balkan wars of the 1990s, he said.“These crimes were committed by people who were leading the politics at that time.”

The UN court in The Hague ruled that Milutinovic did not have authority over the Serbian campaign against Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians in 1999. Slobodan Milosevic, the former president who controlled power as prime minister at the time, was also on trial but died in his prison cell in 2006.

The International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia in the decision today convicted Milose-

vic’s deputy Nikola Sainovic, three Army generals and a police general for crimes against humanity and sentenced them to prison terms ranging from 15 to 22 years.

Sejdiu was in Washington with Prime Minister Hashim Thaci for meetings with Clinton only days after Kosovo celebrated its first anniversary of independence from Serbia.The United States quickly recognized Kosovo’s declaration of independence.

US support for the tiny Balkan state dates back to the US-led NATO bombing campaign, under former president Bill Clinton, against Serbia to force Milosevic to abandon the military assault in Kosovo.

Hillary Rodham Clinton said Washington’s backing for Serbia will not waver. Since Kosovo declared independence, 55 countries have recognized it as a state.

“By any fair measure the last 10 years has been miraculous and the last year of independence has been a real tribute to the leadership and the people of Kosovo,”she said.

– DPA

US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice / UPI

Troop surge in Afghanistan? draw from that country sooner.

The 15-nation council heard reports about the improved security situation in Iraq and the successful provincial elections held last month, which Iraq’s UN Ambassador Hamid al-Bayati said was proof of democratic progress.

Al-Bayati said an estimated 500,000 Iraqis were expected to return home this year because of the improved security situation.

He said Iraq’s Minister of Displacement and Migration Abduk Samad Rahman Sultan was recently in Syria and will visit Egypt and Lebanon to coordinate the return of Iraqis who fled when US troops invaded their country in March 2003 to topple dictator Saddam Hussein.

Some 220,000 Iraqis returned home last year.

Up to 2 million Iraqis have taken refuge in neighbouring countries, Europe and the United States since 2003.

“The acceleration of improvement in the security situation in Baghdad and other provinces has helped to return life to a normal pace in most areas,” al-Bayati said in an address to an open session of the council.

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New York – The United States said today that its planned military withdrawal from Iraq would give it“flexibility”in Afghanistan and a chance to work out a comprehensive programme to bring peace to the Middle East.

US Ambassador Susan Rice told the United Nations Security Council that Iraq and the US have agreed on a timetable to pull out the more than 150,000 US troops from Iraq.

“This carefully managed programme to ending the war in no way diminishes America’s long-term support for a sovereign, stable, democratic and prosperous Iraq,”Rice told the council, which convened to discuss the situation in Iraq.

“We have signed a broad agreement that sets out long-term cooperation between the two countries, from education to trade, technology and to meet the challenges in energy in the 21st century,”she said.

Since taking office in January, US President Barack Obama decided on a quicker pace of US withdrawal from Iraq and said those troops would be shifted to Afghanistan.

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27 February 2009

11

Lee misses cut, Smail hits form at Moonah NZPA correspondent

Sydney, Feb 27 – Johnnie Walker Classic champion one week, missed cut the next.

The realities of life among the professionals hit home for New Zealand’s golfer-of-the-moment Danny Lee when he crashed out of the Moonah Classic in Melbourne today.

The 18-year-old Rotorua amateur fired a second round of three-over-par 75 at Moonah Links to be five-over for the $US600,000 ($NZ1.18 million) Nationwide Tour and Australasian Tour co-sanctioned event, well outside the cut which was forecast at even par or one-over.

Lee arrived in Melbourne as the talk of the golfing world after a one-stroke victory over the battlehardened pros in Perth on Sunday.

But he spoke pre-tournament of his dislike of links courses, and also revealed he was trying a new swing.

He made a strong start yesterday and was among the early leaders at three-under before dropping four shots in his last six holes.

Today Lee was one-over for the front nine before a double bogey six on the 11th and a triple bogey seven on the 12th.

Remarkably, he birdied four of his next five holes but his fate was sealed, and a bogey on the 18th only confirmed he’d have the weekend off.

Next up for Lee is the New Zealand PGA Championship-New Zealand Open double, then the US Masters before he officially turns pro in April.

There was better news for New Zealand’s topranked golfer David Smail, who put himself in con-

tention with a second round of four-under 68.

It left Smail on five-under at the halfway point, three strokes behind clubhouse leader Michael Sim, of Australia, who signed for opening rounds of 69 and 67.

Smail, who finished eight shots behind Lee in a tie for 31st in Perth, shot an opening round of 71 and made an eventful start today with a birdie and a bogey on his first two holes.

The bogey was a solitary blemish as Smail recorded five birdies in all.

Compatriots Michael Long and Mahal Pearce were also in contention for a healthy payday at two-under.

Long shot a second round 70 and Pearce a second consecutive 71 today.

Lee arrived in Melbourne as the talk of the golfing world after a one-stroke victory over the battlehardened pros in Perth on Sunday. But he spoke pre-tournament of his dislike of links courses, and also revealed he was trying a new swing

– NZPA

Cycling newcomer wins NZ tour

By Cathy Walshe of NZPA

Masterton, Feb 27 – Elite rower-turned-cyclist Amber Halliday has only one regret after a singleminded, perfectly paced race earned her the final stage win and overall victory in the women’s threeday cycling Tour of New Zealand here today.

Entering today’s 125km hill-strewn stage, the Australian was one of a number of riders 24 seconds off the pace set by race leader and compatriot Rochelle Gilmore who was not expected to feature after admitting her sights were now focused on Sunday’s 119km International Cup around a Masterton street circuit.

By race end, Halliday had conquered the 12km grind up Admiral Hill and finished 1-1/2 minutes clear of second-placed Min Gao, of China, in a time of three hours 51 minutes 28 seconds.

She Australian also claimed the overall win, clocking 10hr 22min 04sec over the three stages, 1min 33sec ahead of Gao. The result left her wondering what might have been achieved had she started cycling sooner.

“I wish I’d discovered this sport about four years earlier, because it’s so much fun,”the ebullient 29year-old said minutes after finishing.

“I’ve just been riding a few months. Before that I was in rowing for about 13 years at the elite level, world championships and everything.”

The “everything”included the last two Olympic Games, with a disappointing showing last year prompting her switch to cycling.

In Beijing as defending world champion in the lightweight double sculls, Halliday was devastated to finish eighth.

“It was really disappointing, so I came back and started to ride out some of my anger,”Halliday said.

From using cycling as cross-training for rowing – “getting around on a little clinker”– to learning the ropes as a serious cyclist had been a big jump, she said.

“We went pretty hard on the bike, but as rowers cross-training, we had no skills or anything. These girls in MB Cycles (her team) have taught me so much about skills and tactics.

“It’s like they say, cycling is chess on wheels.”

While Halliday’s relative inexperience could have proved a problem, she admitted it actually proved an advantage.

“I guess that’s what helped me in this race – nobody knew me. I was a bit of an unknown, so I could get away without people panicking and chasing me down.”

There was still plenty to learn, with today’s race being the first time Halliday had used a two-way radio to keep in contact with team management.

“It was awesome,I knew what I was doing,and I knew what I was meant to be doing a whole lot more”.

That extra information proved vital after fellow Australian KathyWatt,riding for Hardy Rentals,jumped out after about 45km and built up a 3min lead.

In a typically gritty ride,Watt held her opposition

Australia’s Amber Halliday rests after winning stage 3 and becoming the overall winner of the Womens NZ Community Trust cycle tour, Masterton.NZPA / Andrew Labett.

at bay until Australian Peta Mullens and Halliday caught her 40km later.

Mullens dropped off almost immediately, caught out when her chain slipped, but Halliday hung on despite everything Watt threw at her.

“I just kept her in sight and then got her at the

first queen of the mountain,”Halliday said.

Once Halliday passed Watt on the climb known as“The Wall”, she kept building momentum, finding a good rhythm and powering up the ever-increasing climbs.

“I kept saying to my team manager `have you got

a plan B just in case I don’t make it up the hill?’but he was really encouraging the whole way.”

No plan B was necessary.

With 12km to go, Halliday attacked the daunting Admiral Hill and maintained the 1min 30sec lead she had at the foot all the way to the line, despite some strong riding from Gao in the closing stages.

Gao’s Giant Pro teammate Meng Lang came through for a surprise third placing, beating Australian hillclimbing specialist Ruth Corset on the line to finish 2min 54sec down on Halliday.

Halliday is non-committal about the chances of her taking up a professional cycling contract.

“I’ve learnt my lesson after the last two Olympiads – I was also in Athens – and the key is just to have fun.”

Wellington 19-year-old Rachel Mercer was the first New Zealander to finish today, crossing 13th 4min 55sec down on Halliday and followed closely

by Cyclosport teammate Emma Crum at 5min 03sec, with Jo Kiesanowski (New Zealand) 16th at 5min 06sec.

Mercer also came home as the first New Zealander in the general classification, 13th at 5min 05sec down on the winning time.

Kiesanowski was 14th at 5min 12sec and Crum 15th another 1sec back.

– NZPA

SPORT

12

UPI

He’s back Tiger Woods is the straw that stirs the $1 billion drink Shortly after that, golf went in the tank, along with the economy.

Sure, there were some bright spots.The U.S. won All hail the human stimulus package. the Ryder Cup. Padraig Harrington won the BritWith six words on his Web site last week, Tiger ish Open and the PGA.Villegas and Anthony Kim Woods stuck an IV of extra-strength sizzle into the emerged as the hot new stars, though it would be a PGA Tour and jolted it back to life. stretch to call them the heirs apparent.

“I’m now ready to play again,”Woods declared.

Woods is the heirless wonder, and his return Somewhere in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., Commis- couldn’t come at a better time for golf.The distressed sionerTim Finchem was on his figurative knees,shout- economy has taken a toll on the Tour, which is trying “Hallelujah!”to the heavens. The Tour without ing desperately to hold on to corporate sponsors; Woods is Rushmore without Washington, the Hima- Finchem announced Tuesday that FBR will drop its layas without Everest, April without Augusta. One sponsorship of the Phoenix tournament after 2010. hundred Camilo Villegases cannot replace one Tiger.

With Woods off changing diapers and rehabbing He is the straw that stirs the $1 billion drink. his knee, television ratings took a bigger tumble “He’s the man,” said Rocco Mediate.“He’s the than your 401K. Ratings were off a whopping 55 king. He’s it.” percent for the 2008 PGA and 50 percent for the The most dominant athlete of his time is ready FedEx Cup playoff events. The West Coast swing to resume his relentless march toward Jack and the was Ambien with ocean views.

Record Book on a reconstructed left knee. It’s the Quick, someone, anyone, name two Tour winners biggest news in golf since Woods stammered “Uh, this year besides Phil Mickelson on Sunday. well, I guess ... hello world,”right here in Milwaukee See? in 1996.

“It hurts the Tour whenever you lose the greatest He makes his return to competitive golf on player in the world,”said Kenny Perry.“With the econWednesday at the World Golf Championships- omy as crappy as it is and all you hear is bad news,bad Accenture Match Play Championship in Arizona. news, it’s nice to finally get some good news.”

He’ll tee it up in a first-round match against Yes, the 33-year-old Woods is back, riding his Brendan Jones as the defending champion and a trusty steed, Nike, with crusty caddie Stevie Wilthree-time winner of the WGC-Match Play title (he liams at his side. Ratings will spike at the first sign of also won in 2003 and ‘04). a fist pump. Interest will soar when he’s in the field, “We are delighted that Tiger is returning to com- never mind the lead. Joe the Plumber will tune in petition and look forward to watching him compete,” to the Golf Channel.

Finchem said in what surely ranks among the great We can be sure Woods has practiced every shot in understated statements in golf history. his unmatched repertoire, but can he pick up where Delighted? How about out-of-our-minds deliri- he left off? He won four times in six starts last year ous? This is the best thing to happen to golf since to push his career victory total to 65 and trails only the pediatrician told Earl and Kultida Woods,“It’s Sam Snead (82) and Jack Nicklaus (73). a boy!”

The players who have seen Woods up close, who Woods played a practice round Tuesday at the have felt his aura, who have marvelled at his otherRitz-Carlton Golf Club at Dove Mountain, but he worldly skills and wilted under his 1,000-yard stare, last played a round that counted on June 16. That know he will be as good as ever. Maybe better. was the day he shook free from the ankle-biting “I will guarantee you he wins the (Match Play),” Mediate on the 91st hole to win the U.S. Open at Mediate said.“I’ll guarantee it.You think he’s comTorrey Pines. ing out not 180,000 percent?”

It was an unforgettable display of willpower and Said Rich Beem,“I’m sure he’ll go out and win and guts, with Woods gritting his teeth through the sear- show us all how inferior we are.And that’s great.” ing pain of bone grinding on bone.

If anything, the time off has perhaps given Woods Eight days later, he underwent season-ending a glimpse of his own golfing mortality. He has won reconstructive surgery to repair a torn anterior cru- 14 major championships and is four short of tying ciate ligament and cartilage damage in his knee. He Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18. also had stress fractures in his left tibia.

Daylight is burning.

By Gary D’Amato Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

27 February 2009

Stunning Tigers comeback ends Breakers season Auckland, Feb 27 – The MelbourneTigers will get a chance to defend their Australian National Basketball League title after a stunning come-from-behind victory over the New Zealand Breakers here tonight.

Down 20 points at one stage in the first quarter, the Tigers slowly clawed their way back into the match before stealing a 103-97 victory.

The result gave them a 2-0 victory over the Breakers in their best-of-three semifinal series and earned them a final against either the South Dragons or the Townsville Crocodiles next week.

The Breakers made a flying start thanks to aggressive defence and scored 13 points before the Tigers were on the board, courtesy of two Tony Ronaldson three-pointers and extras from Kirk Penney and CJ Bruton.

They looked like going into quartertime with a 20point lead before a three-pointer on the buzzer from Melbourne’s Daryl Corletto brought the score to 33-16.

It was a different story in the second quarter as the defending champions came out more aggressively, with Ebi Ere and bench player Stephen Hoare leading the way.

The Tigers dragged the margin back to seven midway through the quarter, but two unexpected three-pointers from Breakers bench centre Tim

Behrendorff helped the home side take a 60-49 lead into halftime.

A 10-5 run then gave the Breakers a 16-point lead at the beginning of the third quarter and forced the Tigers into an early timeout.

It seemed to do the trick as some shooting magic from Ere and David Barlow, who was in foul trouble, and strong defence brought the Tigers back into the match.

A miracle basket from Corletto on the threequarter buzzer left them behind just 79-81 at the last break.

Four quick points put the Tigers in front for the first time early in the quarter.

The Breakers seemed bereft of scoring options and a 12-2 scoring run from the Tigers gave them the upperhand.

The New Zealanders briefly threatened to come back but an Ere three-pointer with one minute remaining effectively sealed the result.

Ere, Barlow and Chris Anstey were strong for the Tigers along with Hoare, who played a big part in launching their comeback.

Bruton and Dillon Boucher were among the best for the hosts.

– NZPA

NZ beat India by five wickets to take series 2-0 Auckland, Feb 27 – New Zealand beat India by five wickets in the second and final Twenty20 cricket international in Wellington tonight to take the series 2-0.

Brendon McCullum broke the deadlock on the last ball of the match when a skied single carried the hosts to 150 for five. McCullum topscored with an unbeaten 69 from 55 balls.

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Yuvraj Singh led India’s 149 for six with 50 off 34 balls.

New Zealand won the opening match by seven wickets in Christchurch on Wednesday.

A five-match cone-day series between the teams starts in Napier on Tuesday.

– NZPA

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WEEKEND

27 February 2009

13

TV & Film

The Velveteen Rabbit

0Cast: Matthew Harbour, Una Kay and the voices of Ellen Burstyn, Jane Seymour and Tom Skerritt.

0Director: Michael Landon Jr. 0Length: 88 minutes 0Rated: G

Before he was a punchline Two Lovers

0Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow, Vinessa Shaw 0Director: James Gray 0Length: 110 minutes 0Rated: R (for language, some sexuality and brief drug use) Before he became a talk-show punch line in a tumbleweed beard, Joaquin Phoenix was a fine character actor.The evidence is on display in Two Lovers, a quietly moving romantic drama as evocative as a Philip Roth short story.

Phoenix is solid as Leonard, only child of a doting immigrant couple, still living in their Brooklyn apartment and delivering orders for the family dry cleaning business. Deep in an emotional funk after losing his fiancee, Leonard unexpectedly finds himself with two attractive women tapping at his cocoon.Warm, brunette Sandra (Vinessa Shaw), the daughter of a prospective business partner, offers a stable, if mundane, future. Blonde, troubled Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow) promises adventure. Leonard, uncertain and a touch unstable, bounces between the two.

There’s more at stake here than in many love stories. We meet Leonard during an abortive suicide attempt, and whenever he’s near a whizzing

subway train or near the ocean at Brighton Beach, worry for his safety is near the surface. Phoenix doesn’t pander for sympathy. He makes Leonard a superficially charming character with a cold core and a tight, tiny smile.

He also shows us this immature outsider’s anxiety over making the wrong choice. With Michelle, he loosens up and dances, and glows when she encourages him to pursue his passion for photography.

(Director James Gray wisely allows us to see Leonard’s snaps, and they’re mediocre.) Sandra doesn’t have her rival’s neuroses nor her drug habit, and she could step directly into the role of Leonard’s hovering mother (Isabella Rossellini).

Each woman has her own allure and Leonard knows he won’t have many more options. But he’s too aimless to be truly searching. He’s waiting for his destiny to be delivered.

Phoenix bravely shows us Leonard’s slight capacity for remorse, and Gray keeps the tone chilly. Leonard is manipulative, yet Sandra and Michelle use him as a means to their own ends as well. Nobody is a villain, exactly, and neither do they get off easy.

Paltrow makes her character deeper than the standard crazy-trainwreck shiksa. She offers Leonard honest friendship and when Leonard demonstrates that sex is his sole means of contact with women, you can feel her relief: she understands the terms of barter. Shaw’s Sandra is crushing on

Deep in an emotional funk after losing his fiancee, Leonard unexpectedly finds himself with two attractive women tapping at his cocoon. Leonard, uncertain and a touch unstable, bounces between the two Leonard because she wants a good-looking provider.

She doesn’t notice, or doesn’t care, that this 30-ish guy acts like a misunderstood teenager in a 1950s generation gap movie.

There are no big dramatic conflicts, and story points are undeveloped or left dangling, but in its ragged, nonlinear way, Two Lovers has more going on than most movies.These are people reaching out to each other to break their solitude, but finding only solitude once again.The film is all about creating a mood, and it hangs over you for days.

Watch the trailer

– By Colin Covert

Family- and low-budget-Christian film specialist Michael Landon Jr. – you-know-who’s son – lifts his game considerably in turning Margery Williams’ children’s classic The Velveteen Rabbit into a film. Though it flirts with maudlin here and there, and the animation is hardly state of the art, the director of The Last Sin Eater and Love’s Abiding Joy turns his loose adaptation of that story into a nice children’s tear-jerker and a generally winning combination of live action and animation.

In the America of the early 1900s, Toby (Matthew Harbour) is a boy who has lost his mother and whose sad, humourless dad (Kevin Jubinville) has dropped him off with his own icy, society matron mom (Una Kay) to live. Life with his fussy, imperious grandmother in her rural estate doesn’t hold the promise of much fun for the kid. But Dad’s injunction must be Toby’s motto – “No tears.”

At least there’s an attic to play in, and grandma’s permission to play there. That becomes Toby’s escape. And when he finds a stuffed bunny, a rocking horse and a wooden goose, the boy slips into the world his dad once knew, a room transformed by his imagination.

All it takes is a tear and the toys are transported into an animated, magical alternate setting where the bunny, the goose (voiced by Oscar winner Ellen Burstyn) and horse (Tom Skerritt, funny) chat and pass along life lessons to the boy.

“Everything that’s real was imagined first,” the rabbit (Chandler Wakefield) teaches.

Horse knows the legend of the toys that can become real if their owners believe in them fervently enough. Of course kids outgrow their toys before that belief ever magically transforms their favourite playthings. But a horse can dream. And so can a wooden goose with an eye for the metaphor at the heart of this tale.

“Love is what makes us real.”

This holiday-set Velveteen isn’t a literal translation of the Rabbit tale, but it hits the emotional highlights. Toby gets sick and the toys don’t know what to do; love and sacrifice play their part. The film’s odd production history – it was filmed a couple of years ago and is only opening in select cities a month before going to video – suggest that it’s been edited, and that trying to sell it with only a couple of “names” in the voice cast flummoxed its producers.

That’s a shame. This modestly mounted Rabbit is more touching than children’s movies typically are today. The live action cast may be unknowns, but they’re effective enough; the 2-D (drawn and digital) animation is winning; and the story will engross any 8-and-under with the patience to watch it.

Perhaps Landon & Co. should have taken their own script’s advice and put this in more theatres.

“Just throw your heart into it and the rest will follow.”

Watch the trailer – By Roger Moore

REVIEWS

14

27 February 2009

Music

Part of Mac’s on-off existence the last three decades has been because of Buckingham’s creative restlessness; he has maintained a solo career defined by adventurous albums between Mac projects.

As one of the band’s primary songwriters as well as its producer and arranger, Buckingham is first among equals, and his word goes a long way in determining Mac’s fortunes

The Mac is back

‘Unfinished business’ reunites the band Buckingham has long detested the idea of doing a nostalgia tour, but he says he’s“just trying to ride the machine.”Part of Mac’s on-off existence the last As the relationship between Stevie Nicks and Lind- three decades has been because of Buckingham’s sey Buckingham goes, so goes Fleetwood Mac. creative restlessness; he has maintained a solo The band, formed as a British blues-rock outfit career defined by adventurous albums between Mac in 1967, has a history that reads like a soap opera projects.As one of the band’s primary songwriters script. Band members have literally gone crazy. as well as its producer and arranger, Buckingham is Some have gone AWOL. Others have slept with first among equals, and his word goes a long way in one another. Marriages were broken. More than 73 determining Mac’s fortunes.This time, he agreed to million records have been sold.And still the quarrels do a hits tour to promote a boxed set release of the continue. Even a 2004 tour that raked in US$22 mil- band’s best-selling 1977 “Rumours”album. lion ended in acrimony, with a fed-up Nicks saying “There’s still a push-pull inside me that says I she was through and Buckingham returning to his need to redefine myself creatively, but I did two solo solo career. albums in the last three years, so it allowed me to But now, on the eve of another Mac tour, the big- feel a little more relaxed about doing something like gest problem facing Nicks is a sore arm. this,”he says.“I am very consciously going into this While being interviewed, she mentions that a not wanting to drive anyone in the band crazy if I physical therapist is working her over.“I strained can help it – and sometimes it doesn’t take a lot for my right arm doing arm curls, which I never do, so me to do that. My priority is working on the interI’m trying to get it back so I can comfortably and action within the band, especially between me and enjoyably play tambourine.”

Stevie. I’m doing a tour that the industry and the Such are the rigors of being a multimillionaire listeners and the rest of the band want, and maybe icon in a band that defined mainstream pop in the sow some seeds of stability for once.”

‘70s. Mac is commanding as much as $149.50 per That sounds like a man compromising his artistic ticket (plus service charges) for a national tour. instincts in the name of peace, harmony and cash.

They promise few surprises; just a show with more Buckingham laughs. than two hours of greatest hits – just the way fans “Why am I doing this? It’s a good question ... let presumably like it.“The songs we’re playing are the me see, why am I doing this? Well, we’ll probably tapestry of not only our fans’lives but our own lives,” make a ton of money, and that’ll make everything a Nicks says. bit easier. But the other reason is that there’s unfinBy Greg Kot Chicago Tribune

ished business with Fleetwood Mac. Stevie left the last tour saying she wasn’t going to do this again, and that’s not right.

“It’s been a difficult road, we’ve been through a lot, and I want to see it play out and come out the other side in a bit better place than we were last time.”

Mac’s last tour followed the release of a 2003 studio album,“Say You Will.”

That’s where the troubles began. Buckingham had interrupted his solo work to make the album with Mac, and he brought finished songs into the recording session. Christine McVie had retired from the music business, leaving Buckingham and the founding rhythm section of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie to focus on Nicks’songs.

Buckingham and Nicks already had a long, fractured history; they were former lovers, and old tensions would resurface whenever new conflicts emerged.

“It felt weird, working for nine months in a Bel Air mansion on just my songs,”Nicks says of the Los Angeles recording sessions that focused on her work, not Buckingham’s.“It started to grate on everyone.

It started to grate on Lindsey. It ended up not being our happiest album.”

Nicks says the departure of Christine McVie had a huge impact on band chemistry:“She was the voice of reason.”Nicks hunted for another female foil after the tour ended.“I vowed not to do it again unless we had another person who could act as a buffer,”

she says. She recruited Sheryl Crow, but the singer backed out when she realized how big the commitment would be.

“She just had a baby, and once you’re in Fleetwood Mac, you don’t have a life of your own,”Nicks says.“It’s like joining the National Guard and being deployed to Iraq in two weeks.”

Well, no, it isn’t, actually.

But melodrama is as much a part of Fleetwood Mac as hit songs.

Nicks says she agreed to hit the road with Buckingham and risk opening up old wounds again because she sensed a change in her old sparring partner.“He has little girls who are 8 and 4 years old, plus a wife, and he has been living in girl land since coming off the road in 2005. It’s softened him up.

Instead of treating me as a miserable ex-girlfriend, he’s looking at me more like a beloved daughter. He’s been very nice and loving to me.

“This is the guy that I met and fell in love with when I was 17, and I hope it stays that way. No one could come in and make peace between us. Lindsey and I had to.”

Buckingham says if they pull off the tour without any meltdowns, there may be yet one more Fleetwood Mac studio album down the road. But he makes no promises.

He has left the band in the past, and he says he will again if he feels things are growing stagnant.

“We all want this to work,”he says,“but there are only 45 dates scheduled. I’m sure there are people in back rooms somewhere talking about more dates in America and elsewhere in the world, but nothing is in the books, nothing has been agreed to.

“In this band, it’s best not to plan too far in advance.”

ESSENTIAL MAC MUSIC Then Play On” (1969) The best of the Peter Green-era discs, informed by the guitarist’s intensely personal interpretation of Chicago blues.

Bare Trees (1972) Transition from blues to burnished singers-songwriter pop, with strong songs from Christine McVie, Bob Welch and Danny Kirwan. ”Rumours” (1977) A chronicle of real-life romantic travail, and virtually every song a hit.

Peter Green, “In the Skies” (1979) After a decade battling personal demons, the troubled but brilliant guitarist returns with this haunted postcard from the fringe.

“Tusk” (1980) The audacious and sometimes puzzling followup to “Rumours,” it now resonates as one of the band’s boldest statements. A tour de force for Buckingham in particular.

Lindsey Buckingham, “Gift of Screws” (2008) By far the most interesting music out of the Mac stable since “Tusk” has been on Buckingham’s solo albums, and this is his hardest-edge disc yet.

Dreams

REVIEWS

27 February 2009

NEW CD RELEASES

Books

Obama’s little red blue book

seems like a no-brainer.Yet we’ve all seen some of the boneheaded moves by that gilded crew of CEO0Liza’s at the Palace: Broadway Show schnorrers during their congressional appearances, Cast Recording so maybe Charan is onto something by pointing out 0Hybrid/Sire Pocket Obama what’s painfully apparent to the rest of us.

0Edited by The History Company His tone is helpful yet urgent, like this text was 0The History Company, US$5.95 via Amazon dictated on the run.Though it’s polite and thoughtCritics swoon at Van Morrison ful, it’s not terribly introspective or deep, which actudoing his classic “Astral Weeks” “Nothing can stand in the ally adds to the sense of urgency and the let’s-cutlive in a recent album. It reconway of the power of millions the-crap subtext of the laundry list of suggested nects him with his muse, they say. of voices calling for change.” steps and accompanying admonitions.

Perhaps. But few live sessions – Barack Obama, president of I’ve read and reviewed a number of earlier books sparkle with an artist’s brass the United States

by Ram Charan, some written in collaboration with and sass as does “Liza’s at the Palace,” a brashly “If you want to change the others, all directed at senior managers. I appreciate triumphant document of Liza Minnelli’s autumn world,the change has to happen his reality-based approach to commerce and his 2008 run at the Palace Theatre on Broadway. To with you first.”– Barack Obama efforts to encourage honest and informed decisions, quote her,“It’s Liza with a Z Not Lisa with an S These are among the quotations of the 44th transparency, research and innovation.

‘Cause Lisa with an S goes ‘sss’ not ‘zzz.’” president featured in Pocket Obama, a collection of Charan himself is a bit of an enigma. In addition The two-CD set is split between signature Obama-speak compiled by The History Company to his writing,he’s also a peripatetic consultant.Some smashes and her salute to 1940s Broadway/night- in a pocket-size paperback that’s drawing compari- published reports,in fact,speculate that he is of no fixed club doyenne Kay Thompson (Liza’s godmother). sons to another famous book – “Quotations from abode and spends his days traveling from one client to Minnelli goes for broke on belters such as “Maybe Chairman Mao.” the next,meeting,observing,proffering advice and flyThis Time”with delicious clarity. Sympathetic pianThe publisher’s note for Pocket Obama says it ing off into the sunset for his next engagement. ist Billy Stritch and a smallish orchestra allow her is “an unofficial requirement for every American It’s an amusing notion, but if there’s any criticism room to breathe. She saves the scenery-chewing for citizen to own, read, and to carry this book at all I’d have of him,or at least the persona conveyed by his the soft, dramatic subtlety of “If You Hadn’t, But times.”Of course, the publisher would say so, given writing,it’s that he infrequently demonstrates empaYou Did”and the steady sorrow of “But the World that they’re selling it for $5.95 a copy.Yet the solid thy for the people who do the actual work.Though Goes ‘Round.” blue cover of the paperback has lent fodder to crit- there are sports analogies and other proletarian refer–A.D. Amorosi ics who’d like to view Pocket Obama as some sort of ences,Charan’s constituency is,unambiguously,supersubversive tome, not dissimilar from the infamous senior managers,and that’s fine,I guess.One wonders The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart The Little Red Book. though,how he might apply his prodigious experience 0The Pains of Being Pure At Heart “The (amazon.com) criticisms have been rather and vast talents to the plight of mere mortals.

0Slumberland polarizing, with a clear separation between fiveOf course he could argue – convincingly, to be star and one-star reviews,”noted one comment on sure – that helping the bosses helps the little guys. the Web site.

I’m certain that’s true, but Ram Charan at ground There’s a kind of perfection at “Oh happy happy joy joy! Now we can be automa- level, in the trenches with the rest of us poor slobs, work in“The Pains of Being Pure tons just like our brave revolutionary brothers and would really be a profound revelation.

At Heart,” the self-titled debut sisters of communist China,”wrote “Captain Crunch,” – By Richard Pachter of this young New York band. of Oregon.“Those brave soldiers carry their little red Its 10 compact songs perfectly books of Mao quotes everywhere they go.Now we can echo the jangly, dreamy noise- show the Obama Brigades that we are loyalists, too!” pop endemic to the United Kingdom circa 1986 in Then again, another Amazon reviewer said the bands such as My Bloody Valentine, the Wedding book cured his insomnia.

Present, and the Jesus & Mary Chain.

– By Mark Silva The sweet and catchy co-ed harmonies, washes of King of Madison Avenue: David feedback, trebly guitars, and zippy drums distil the Ogilvy and the Making of Modern past, but they lose none of their joy or immediacy.

Advertising Whether rumbling and distorted (“Hey Paul”), 0Kenneth Roman perky and glossy (“A Teenager in Love”), or breath0Palgrave Macmillan, US$27.95 via Amazon less and exuberant (“Come Saturday”), each song sounds as independent, focused and attention-grab- Leadership in the Era of Economic For anyone serious about the bing as a classic vinyl single.

Uncertainty: The New Rules for craft of advertising, there are – Steve Klinge Getting the Right Things Done in several essential books. Two of Difficult Times them, Confessions of an AdvertisShemekia Copeland 0Ram Charan ing Man and Ogilvy on Advertising 0Never Going Back 0McGraw-Hill, US$22.95 via Amazon have permanent places in my own 0Telarc ever-shifting library. The author Ram Charan says in this book of both volumes had been a cook, that he wrote it in December 2008. a spy, an Oxford dropout, saviour of Masterpiece Just shy of her 30th birthday, If that’s the case,whew! Kudos to Theatre and chairman of the United Negro College Shemekia Copeland is already him, his editor and publisher for Fund. He grew up in England (and considered himlong established as one of the getting this out quickly enough to self a Scot),made his name and fortune in the United best of contemporary bluesplug into a very current and obvi- States, but never became a citizen (though the head women. With “Never Going ous problem in a timely, expedi- of the CIA offered to make it happen).

Back,” the daughter of the late tious and expedient manner.This When David Ogilvy, the most famous advertising blues great Johnny Copeland continues to expand is a smart and sharp look at what man of his era, died, it merited front-page notice in her approach, again showing an astute ability to mostly bigger businesses can do to prepare for survival The NewYork Times. He introduced the eye-patched steer clear of blues ruts. in the present uncertain economic environment.

Man in the Hathaway Shirt and Schweppes’ ComCopeland flashes her take-no-guff fire on the Charan, a management guru, usually focuses mander Whitehead (and“Schweppervesence”). He self-empowerment anthems “Born a Penny” and on growth, but he’s in survival mode here, recom- turned Dove (“one-quarter cleansing cream”) into “Rise Up.” Producer-guitarist Oliver Wood, how- mending ways to deal with our present circum- a powerhouse brand, catapulted American Express ever, frames Copeland in a sound that’s not quite stance urgently and efficiently.Tighten the supply from a charge card for travellers into a multifaceted straight-up blues or the Stax-like soul of her earlier chain, reassess vendors, drop some customers, cut worldwide brand and established one of the most albums. It’s closer to the sophisticated but earthy personnel, change the pay structure for your sales successful advertising agencies in the world. He’s roots vibe of the excellent albums he has made staff (good luck with that!), consider reducing or also credited with creating a “corporate culture” with his bassist brother, Chris, as the Wood Broth- eliminating dividends and other smart but mostly decades before the term was coined. ers. (Chris plays bass here.) unsurprising steps are what Charan counsels. He Ogilvy grew up poor, got into Oxford on a special If the jazzy“Black Crow”finds Copeland going a also suggests sensitivity to and awareness of tone scholarship – his grades had been poor, but his intellittle too soft, the organ-kissed sweetness of“Broken and careful management of perceptions: So put that lect and audacity impressed the school – before illWorld,” the noirish atmospherics of “Never Going private jet back in the hanger and shift your annual ness and other distractions kept him from fulfilling Back to Memphis,”and the hipsterish take on Percy executive retreat from Bora Bora to Opa-locka. his academic requirements. He’d tried several jobs Mayfield’s“River’s Invitation”show that Copeland One wonders if the bulk of what Charan advocates until his older brother, a successful ad man, lent can connect profoundly even when she’s not belting is really necessary to delineate.After all, most execu- a hand. After a bit of success borne less of talent or playing the vulnerable balladeer. tives, at the very least, possess a firm grasp of the and more of audacity and tenacity, young David – Nick Cristiano obvious, and urgency in dealing with these matters emigrated to America (in steerage), got a job with

Liza Minnelli

15

The original Mad Man David Ogilvy

Ram Charan’s tips for CEOs

research company Gallup and within a few years opened an American outpost of his brother’s firm.

His early success revolutionized the industry, though he later acknowledged the huge debt he owed to other, less publicized predecessors.

Kenneth Roman’s very readable biography presents an expansive and entertaining portrait, offering insights into the life and times.Advertising had held a different place in culture and commerce before the emergence of Ogilvy, whose career ran parallel to the rise of the great agencies and their eventual consolidation into a handful of multinational corporate entities.

Roman, a former chairman and CEO of Ogilvy & Mather, the agency his subject founded, is also the author of two how-to books on advertising, but his well researched and insightful life story required different skills, and Roman rose to the occasion. Using Ogilvy’s own books,quotes,other writings and reminiscences,copious interviews from friends,family,colleagues and competitors,Roman does a masterful job of conveying the colourful personality of Ogilvy.

It’s far from a fawning tale; the author incisively compares his work and influence with predecessors and peers such as Bill Bernbach, Rosser Reeves and others. Ogilvy often comes up short and vacillated between adoration and disdain of many of his fellow admen during his lifetime.

The only knock on this book is that it isn’t loaded with examples of Ogilvy’s work, though a little digging online and in other books may suffice. Regardless, Roman does his old boss proud.

– By Richard Pachter

The One from the Other: cynicism with idealism at the core The One from the Other: A Bernie Gunther Novel 0Philip Kerr 0Penguin, $15 paperback

Exhaustion and cynicism and wariness: That’s what grips the world after a long war,andWorld War II was a very long war,especially for the losers.It’s also what defines your average detective, as she or he slumps and bumps along from pillar to post, from gutter to back alley to courtroom to seedy bar.

But the important thing is not the cynicism or the wariness.And it’s not the wrinkled raincoat or the battered fedora. It’s the idealism, which blooms anew despite war and human depravity, which lives inside every great fictional detective just as it lives inside every culture, even the beleaguered and humiliated ones.

Bernie Gunther is the Nazi-hating hero of The One From the Other by Philip Kerr, recently published in paperback by Penguin. Gunther has been around the block a few times; he showed up in Kerr’s Berlin Noir trilogy, and now he’s back. It’s 1949. Gunther plies his private-detective trade in Berlin, where the moral ambiguity is as thick as the rubble. His latest case leads him into a nest of troubles including a murder rap, an identity theft, the attempted smuggling of Nazi officers to Argentina, and an uncomfortable confrontation between a well-sharpened chisel and a tender finger.

“If there’s one thing history has taught me to believe it is that it’s dangerous to believe in anything very much. Especially in Germany,”Gunther mopes in the book’s first-person narration.“The trouble with us is that we take belief much too seriously.”

If Gunther were only cynical, he wouldn’t be interesting. If he were only idealistic, he wouldn’t be plausible. Kerr’s gift is to create a detective who is smart enough to think the worst of the world – and sentimental enough to keep hoping for something better.

– By Julia Keller

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DISCOVERY

27 February 2009

A vendor balances a bolw of fresh tropical fruit on her head in a plaza in Cartagena, Colombia.

(Alexia ElejaldeRuiz/Chicago Tribune/MCT)

The magic of Cartagena

By Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz Chicago Tribune

CARTAGENA, Colombia – If it isn’t the bright bougainvillea tumbling from the colonial balconies or the quiet shimmer of the Caribbean Sea, then maybe it’s the impromptu dance parties in the town plazas, or the joyful din of guitars, bongos and maracas that drifts through the city with the evening breeze.

Just what it is that hooks you, no one knows for sure. But soon enough, you begin to understand what the locals keep saying.

Cartagena is magic.

“There’s something mystical in the air,”says Valentino Cortazar, a Colombian painter who lives within the old walled portion of the city in a one-bedroom, two-hammock apartment.

Cortazar, originally from Bogota, said he was splitting time between Miami and New York when he visited Cartagena eight years ago for an art exhibition – and never left.

That happens here, from time to time, that people get sucked in. Musicians Davis Pineda and Elizabeth Salaazar,who roam the streets with a guitar and bongo drums singing Latin American ballads, said they visited Cartagena from nearby Barranquilla five years ago and found a“strange energy”they couldn’t resist.The people were warmer,happier,different from the rest of Colombia.They live here now,struggling to make ends meet,staying for the music,for the beaches, for reasons they can’t explain.

No wonder Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Colombia’s king of magical realism, set several of his novels in Cartagena.

“Beautiful landscape, beautiful people, beautiful colours,” Cortazar muses one night over wine and fish, which you’ll get your fill of here.“For an artist, it’s perfect.”

It’s perfect for a tourist too.

The fifth-largest city in Colombia, Cartagena (pronounced car-ta-HAY-na) has long been a choice vacation spot and convention hub for Colombians both for its beauty and reputation for safety in a land notorious for drug-trafficking and kidnappings. Some European tourists have discovered it, but you don’t find many Americans unless they’re coming off of cruise ships.

Now, security throughout the country has

improved under the tough policies of President Alvaro Uribe, with the high-profile rescue in July of former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, held by FARC guerrillas for more than six years, serving as a dramatic example of the weakened state of narco-terrorist groups.

Seeing renewed potential as a tourist destination, the Colombian government has launched a campaign to shed its violent image to attract more foreign visitors.

The slogan:“Colombia, The only risk is wanting to stay.”

For Cartagena, at least, that rings very true.

Its history is rich and romantic, and some say the ghosts of its past give the city its mystique. Once the largest slave port in the NewWorld,Cartagena fended off pirate attacks,went on witch hunts and sentenced hundreds to die in the name of the Inquisition.

More on that in a moment.

First, you need to hear about the cheap massages.

There’s nothing like lying on the beach,wandering Spanish-Afro cumbia band playing nearby, while a woman with a bottle of green gunk and a beach pail full of sea water kneads the knots out of your body.

We’re talking a full-body massage, lasting anywhere from half an hour to an hour and costing you only 10,000 to 30,000 pesos (US$4 to $13 at current exchange rates), depending on how busy the masseuse has been that day and how good you are at haggling. This is no formal service; the roving masseuses are locals trying to make a living with their green aloe-and-algae concoction. But my masseuse Kari tells me they’ve gone through training, and as she diligently works out the kinks in my back, I believe her (and love her).

You’ll get a lot of that in Cartagena, people trying to sell you things that you don’t want, until you realize that you really do.

On the beach and in the streets, women carrying baskets of tropical fruit on their heads offer you mango slices with lime and salt. Men pushing wheelbarrows full of coconuts hack them open with machetes and stick a straw inside for you to sip.

Everywhere you turn, vendors are hawking sweets, bracelets, maracas, fruit juices, ice cream, sunglasses, kitchen utensils and buckets full of freshly caught crabs, oysters and fish.

A little orientation:

The heart of Cartagena is the old walled city, known as “el Centro,” where colourful colonial houses sit along a maze of narrow streets that change names at every block, and where you’ll find the aforementioned bougainvillea and impromptu music and dancing.Within these stone walls, built to protect the city from greedy invaders, lived the noble, merchant and religious classes when it was a Spanish colony. Several of the grand houses and convents have been converted to hotels.

The best way to see it is to walk, though for about $14 you can have an informal guided tour in a horse-drawn carriage. Pass through the Plaza de Aduanas and Plaza de Los Coches, former slave markets, and see the Puerta del Reloj, a big clock tower that once was the only way into the walled city. Stop by the Portal de Dulces and buy a typical sweet from one of the rows of identical stands.

I recommend the cocada de panela (a coconut-y thing), 30 cents each.

There’s lots to see here, including The Palace of the Inquisition, where a tribunal announced the sentences of those found to have engaged in magic, blasphemy and witchcraft. The court here condemned about 800 people to die. Overlooking the Plaza Bolivar (as in the great liberator, Simon Bolivar), the palace has a creepy little museum of torture devices used during the Inquisition.

Outside the walls is the rest of the city – some of it colonial, much of it a modern commercial district, most of it very poor – with some important historical sites and all the beaches.

A popular area is Bocagrande, where high-rise hotels and apartment buildings overlook a long stretch of beach dotted with stands selling pina coladas and other beverages that come with small umbrellas. The beaches are generally dirty, and the grayish color of the water looks more like the Atlantic than the Caribbean, though it’s calm and warm like bath water. The most beautiful beaches, with white sand and turquoise water and coral reefs, require a boat ride from Cartagena to the nearby Islas del Rosario, an archipelago about 45 minutes away.

Some worthwhile sights outside of the old city: La Popa, a convent that sits at the highest point in Cartagena, about 750 feet up.According to the literature inside the convent, a Spanish priest founded La Popa in 1606 after having a vision instructing him to do so.

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The view of the city from La Popa is spectacular, and on the winding road up the hill you can see how many locals live. Once you’re at the top, you can hear how they live; the festive music rises. Go in the evening, just before the convent closes at 5:30, so you don’t suffocate from the heat. It costs about $2 to enter.

Lots of fortresses. In addition to being an important port, Cartagena served as a storage point for merchandise bound for the Americas and treasures bound for Spain, so it was often attacked by pirates, including the likes of Sir Francis Drake, a hero to the English, a pirate to the Spanish.

Castillo San Felipe may be the best fortress to visit and costs $4.25 to enter. It has a series of tunnels where the defending soldiers would run when being attacked. They would hide in nooks built in such a way that they could see the shadows of the intruders approaching, but the intruders couldn’t see them. Bayonet at the ready, they would stab as the intruders passed.

It was an important advantage for the Spanish colonists to have, our guide said, as they were generally much shorter than their French and English attackers. Clever folk.

The volcanic mud bath at the Totumo volcano, a 50-minute drive from Cartagena. Formed by gases in the earth that push the mud up, the volcano bath is supposed to have healing minerals that are as good for your skin as your arthritis.

At first sight, the small volcano is underwhelming.

But taking a dip ($2) is not.

Stripped down to your bathing suit, with a couple of kids guarding your belongings, you gingerly descend a slippery wooden ladder into a sulphurous caldron of mud said to extend some 1,800 metres deep. It feels like being suspended in a vat of warm gray pudding, or, as my companion put it, like being in the Le Brea tar pits that trapped so many prehistoric animals.

Though your body will be strangely buoyant, it’s hard to stay upright,and you knock unwittingly into strangers.You can get a massage here, too, for tips.

Caked in mud, you rinse off in the nearby sea with the assistance of women who scrub you down – down to the point where they ask you to take off your swimsuit. It’s awkward, but just do it.And be sure not to wear a swimsuit you care about, because the mud lingers.

Tours to the volcano leave from various Cartagena hotels, or you can take a local bus for a few bucks.We took a cab, which cost about US$50 round trip, including the time the cabby waited for us at the volcano.

For all its romance,this is a poor city that relies heavily on tourists patronizing unofficial businesses.

As our cab pulled up to the beach near the hotel Las Americas, where we went to avoid the large crowds in Bocagrande, a group of boys rushed the car, jumping on its trunk and riding along to claim their next customers. Even before we got out of the cab, the boys were setting up beach chairs and shade tarps.They became informal waiters, bringing the group bottles of beer, rum, sunblock, ice, water – for which they charged marked-up prices, plus collected tips.

Very resourceful of them. And convenient for tourists, who may prefer not to leave the shade.

Cartagena is a steady 31 degrees year-round. It is oppressively hot in the city during the day, though it’s pleasant at the beaches.Then at dusk, a breeze ripples through town, and the real magic begins.

Music spills from the bars surrounding Plaza Santo Domingo in the old city, which is filled with people having cocktails (rum and Scotch tend to be the drinks of choice) and dancing occasionally to the music of the roaming musicians. Sometimes men and women dressed in costume perform cumbias and sambas.

There are many good restaurants to choose from, many good bars to party at late into the night, lots of good strolling to be had.There’s no rushing here.

It is the Caribbean, after all.

Cortazar, the painter with the two-hammock apartment,sums up the ethic:“Don’t leave for tomorrow what you could do the day after tomorrow.”

Might as well.You kind of feel like staying anyway.

NZ CLASSIC

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27 February 2009

Aytron’s obstinacy

Acclaimed science fiction writer Jules Verne didn’t just write Around the World in 80 Days, he also wrote an epic about New Zealand and Australia called In Search of the Castaways, published in 1867. If you missed the previous instalment of this serial, you can download it here.

Ayrton came. He crossed the deck with a confident tread, and mounted the steps to the poop. His eyes were gloomy, his teeth set, his fists clenched convulsively. His appearance betrayed neither effrontery nor timidity.When he found himself in the presence of Lord Glenarvan he folded his arms and awaited the questions calmly and silently.

“Ayrton,”said Glenarvan,“here we are then, you and us, on this very Duncan that you wished to deliver into the hands of the convicts of Ben Joyce.”

The lips of the quartermaster trembled slightly and a quick flush suffused his impassive features. Not the flush of remorse, but of shame at failure. On this yacht which he thought he was to command as master, he was a prisoner, and his fate was about to be decided in a few seconds.

However, he made no reply. Glenarvan waited patiently. But Ayrton persisted in keeping absolute silence.

“Speak,Ayrton, what have you to say?”resumed Glenarvan.

Ayrton hesitated, the wrinkles in his forehead deepened, and at length he said in calm voice: “I have nothing to say, my Lord. I have been fool enough to allow myself to be caught.Act as you please.”

Then he turned his eyes away toward the coast which lay on the west, and affected profound indifference to what was passing around him. One would have thought him a stranger to the whole affair. But Glenarvan was determined to be patient. Powerful motives urged him to find out certain details concerning the mysterious life of Ayrton, especially those which related to Harry Grant and the Britannia. He therefore resumed his interrogations, speaking with extreme gentleness and firmly restraining his violent irritation against him.

“I think, Ayrton,”he went on,“that you will not refuse to reply to certain questions that I wish to put to you; and, first of all, ought I to call you Ayrton or Ben Joyce? Are you, or are you not, the quartermaster of the Britannia?”

Ayrton remained impassive,gazing at the coast,deaf to every question.

Glenarvan’s eyes kindled, as he said again: “Will you tell me how you left the Britannia, and why you are in Australia?”

The same silence, the same impassibility.

“Listen to me,Ayrton,”continued Glenarvan;“it is to your interest to speak. Frankness is the only resource left to you, and it may stand you in good stead. For the last time, I ask you, will you reply to my questions?”

Ayrton turned his head toward Glenarvan, and looked into his eyes.

“My Lord,”he said,“it is not for me to answer. Justice may witness against me, but I am not going to witness against myself.”

“Proof will be easy,”said Glenarvan.

“Easy, my Lord,”repeated Ayrton, in a mocking tone.“Your honour makes rather a bold assertion there, it seems to me. For my own part, I venture to affirm that the best judge in the Temple would be puzzled what to make of me.Who will say why I came to Australia, when Captain Grant is not here to tell? Who will prove that I am the Ben Joyce placarded by the police, when the police have never had me in their hands, and my companions are at liberty? Who can damage me except yourself, by bringing forward a single crime against me, or even a blameable action? Who will affirm that I intended to take possession of this ship and deliver it into the hands of the convicts? No one, I tell you, no one.You have your suspicions, but you need certainties to condemn a man, and certainties you have none. Until there is a proof to the contrary, I am Ayrton, quartermaster of the Britannia.”

Ayrton had become animated while he was speaking, but soon relapsed into his former indifference.

He, no doubt, expected that his reply would close the examination, but Glenarvan commenced again, and said: “Ayrton, I am not a Crown prosecutor charged with your indictment.That is no business of mine. It is important that our respective situations should be clearly defined. I am not asking you anything that could compromise you. That is for justice to do. But you know what I am searching for, and a single word may put me on the track I have lost.Will you speak?”

Ayrton shook his head like a man determined to be silent.

“Will you tell me where Captain Grant is?”asked Glenarvan.

“No, my Lord,”replied Ayrton.

“Will you tell me where the Britannia was wrecked?”

“No, neither the one nor the other.”

“Ayrton,”said Glenarvan, in almost beseeching tones,“if you know where Harry Grant is, will you, at least, tell his poor children, who are waiting for you to speak the word?”

Ayrton hesitated. His features contracted, and he muttered in a low Grant found, he would be a witness against him. Hence his persistent voice,“I cannot, my Lord.” silence, which gave rise to great indignation on board, especially among Then he added with vehemence, as if reproaching himself for a the crew, who would have liked to deal summarily with him. momentary weakness: Glenarvan repeatedly renewed his attempts with the quartermaster, “No, I will not speak. Have me hanged, if you choose.” but promises and threats were alike useless. Ayrton’s obstinacy was “Hanged!” exclaimed Glenarvan, overcome by a sudden feeling so great, and so inexplicable, that the Major began to believe he had of anger. nothing to reveal. His opinion was shared, moreover, by the geographer, But immediately mastering himself, he added in a grave voice: as it corroborated his own notion about Harry Grant.

“Ayrton, there is neither judge nor executioner here. At the first But if Ayrton knew nothing, why did he not confess his ignorance? port we touch at, you will be given up into the hands of the English It could not be turned against him. His silence increased the difficulty authorities.” of forming any new plan.Was the presence of the quartermaster on “That is what I demand,”was the quartermaster’s reply. the Australian continent a proof of Harry Grant’s being there? It was Then he turned away and quietly walked back to his cabin, which settled that they must get this information out of Ayrton. served as his prison. Two sailors kept guard at the door, with orders Lady Helena, seeing her husband’s ill-success, asked his permission to watch his slightest movement. The witnesses of this examination to try her powers against the obstinacy of the quartermaster.When a retired from the scene indignant and despairing. man had failed, a woman perhaps, with her gentler influence, might As Glenarvan could make no way against Ayrton’s obstinacy, what succeed. Is there not a constant repetition going on of the story of the was to be done now? Plainly no course remained but to carry out fable where the storm, blow as it will, cannot tear the cloak from the the plan formed at Eden, of returning to Europe and giving up for shoulders of the traveller, while the first warm rays of sunshine make the time this unsuccessful enterprise, for the traces of the Britannia him throw it off immediately? seemed irrevocably lost, and the document did not appear to allow any Glenarvan, knowing his young wife’s good sense, allowed her to act fresh interpretation. On the 37th parallel there was not even another as she pleased. country, and the Duncan had only to turn and go back.

The same day (the 5th of March), Ayrton was conducted to Lady After Glenarvan had consulted his friends, he talked over the Helena’s saloon. Mary Grant was to be present at the interview, for question of returning, more parthe influence of the young girl ticularly with the captain. John might be considerable, and Lady Glenarvan repeatedly examined the coal bunkers, and Helena would not lose any chance renewed his attempts with found there was only enough to of success. last fifteen days longer at the out- the quartermaster, but promises For a whole hour the two ladies side. It was necessary, therefore, were closeted with the quarterto put in at the nearest port for a and threats were alike useless. master, but nothing transpired fresh supply. about their interview. What had Ayrton’s obstinacy was so great, John proposed that he should been said, what arguments they steer for the Bay of Talcahuano, and so inexplicable, that the used to win the secret from the where the Duncan had once Major began to believe he had convict, or what questions were before been revictualed before asked, remained unknown; but nothing to reveal. His opinion she commenced her voyage of when they left Ayrton, they did circumnavigation. It was a direct was shared, moreover, by the not seem to have succeeded, as route across, and lay exactly along geographer, as it corroborated the expression on their faces the 37th parallel. From thence denoted discouragement. the yacht, being amply provi- his own notion about Harry Grant In consequence of this, when sioned, might go south, double the quartermaster was being Cape Horn, and get back to Scotland by the Atlantic route. taken back to his cabin, the sailors met him with violent menaces. He This plan was adopted, and orders were given to the engineer to took no notice except by shrugging his shoulders, which so increased get up the steam. Half an hour afterward the beak-head of the yacht their rage, that John Mangles and Glenarvan had to interfere, and was turned toward Talcahuano, over a sea worthy of being called the could only repress it with difficulty.

Pacific, and at six pm the last mountains of New Zealand had disapBut Lady Helena would not own herself vanquished. She resolved peared in warm, hazy mist on the horizon. to struggle to the last with this pitiless man, and went next day herThe return voyage was fairly commenced. A sad voyage, for the self to his cabin to avoid exposing him again to the vindictiveness courageous searching party to come back to the port without bringing of the crew. home Harry Grant with them! The crew, so joyous at departure and The good and gentle Scotchwoman stayed alone with the convict so hopeful, were coming back to Europe defeated and discouraged. leader for two long hours. Glenarvan in a state of extreme nervous There was not one among the brave fellows whose heart did not swell anxiety, remained outside the cabin, alternately resolved to exhaust at the thought of seeing his own country once more; and yet there completely this last chance of success, alternately resolved to rush in was not one among them either who would not have been willing to and snatch his wife from so painful a situation. brave the perils of the sea for a long time still if they could but find But this time when Lady Helena reappeared, her look was full of Captain Grant. hope. Had she succeeded in extracting the secret, and awakening in Consequently, the hurrahs which greeted the return of Lord Gle- that adamant heart a last faint touch of pity? narvan to the yacht soon gave place to dejection. Instead of the close McNabbs, who first saw her, could not restrain a gesture of incredulity. intercourse which had formerly existed among the passengers, and the However the report soon spread among the sailors that the quarlively conversations which had cheered the voyage, each one kept apart termaster had yielded to the persuasions of Lady Helena.The effect from the others in the solitude of his own cabin, and it was seldom was electrical. The entire crew assembled on deck far quicker than that anyone appeared on the deck of the Duncan.

Tom Austin’s whistle could have brought them together.

Paganel, who generally shared in an exaggerated form the feelings Glenarvan had hastened up to his wife and eagerly asked: of those about him, whether painful or joyous – a man who could have “Has he spoken?” invented hope if necessary – even Paganel was gloomy and taciturn.

“No,” replied Lady Helena,“but he has yielded to my entreaties, He was seldom visible; his natural loquacity and French vivacity gave and wishes to see you.” place to silence and dejection. He seemed even more downhearted “Ah, dear Helena, you have succeeded!” than his companions. If Glenarvan spoke at all of renewing the search, “I hope so, Edward.” he shook his head like a man who has given up all hope, and whose “Have you made him any promise that I must ratify?” convictions concerning the fate of the shipwrecked men appeared “Only one; that you will do all in your power to mitigate his punsettled. It was quite evident he believed them irrevocably lost. ishment.”

And yet there was a man on board who could have spoken the “Very well, dear Helena. Let Ayrton come immediately.” decisive word, and refused to break his silence.This was Ayrton.There Lady Helena retired to her cabin with Mary Grant, and the quarwas no doubt the fellow knew, if not the present whereabouts of the termaster was brought into the saloon where Lord Glenarvan was captain, at least the place of shipwreck. But it was evident that were expecting him.