TGIF Edition Jan 30 2009

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ISSN 1172-4153 | Volume 2 | Issue 23 |

| 30 January 2009

Calls for Fonterra bosses to quit

By Ian Wishart

The media have stepped up the pressure on New Zealand’s largest export earner, by calling tonight for Fonterra CEO Andrew Ferrier to “resign”.

And a combination of New Zealand media aggressiveness and Fonterra management stupidity may tonight have damaged the brand of the big New Zealand dairy company.

The tussle for the past few months between journalists seeking answers and a company refusing to give them is turning international media attention away from China’s Sanlu company and onto Fonterra.

Since the milk scandal broke in September, Fonterra’s name and brand has largely emerged unscathed, but ongoing newswire coverage is starting to single the New Zealand dairy company out for attention.

“Executives at Sanlu, partly owned by New Zealand’s Fonterra group, failed to report cases of Chinese children developing kidney stones and other complications from drinking milk adulterated with melamine for months before the scandal broke in September,”reported a US paper carrying Bloomberg’s newswire service tonight.

Part of the reason for the ongoing media coverage has been the inconsistent story the dairy giant has told about its role in the scandal that killed six babies and injured hundreds of thousands.

When TGIF Edition grilled Fonterra CEO Andrew Ferrier at a news conference in September, he was adamant that no further melamine contaminated milk had been produced after August 2, when the Sanlu board was advised of the problem.

However, the Chinese court hearings this month confirmed that Sanlu continued to ship poison-

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ous milk out to stores until the balloon went up in September, after then Prime Minister Helen Clark found out.

As TGIF has previously reported, Sanlu management were donkey-deep involved in the poisoning,

and in fact tried to bribe and silence whistleblowers on Chinese websites as early as May last year.

At the news conference this week, Fonterra executives described the hectic time they had trying to find out what melamine was.

on the

INSIDE

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NZPA/Ross Setford

Fire out at Wellington apartment building

GOODBYE DADDY

Halatau’s farewell Page 2

Wellington, Jan 30 NZPA – A fire at a Wellington apartment complex is out, and fire safety officers are investigating the cause of the blaze.

Windows were blown out of the Gateway complex on Maida Vale Road in Roseneath during the fire which began shortly before 5pm.

Resident Ross Setford, who lives next door to the second-floor apartment where the fire began, said there has been damage to surrounding apartments, including his.

He arrived home and heard the fire alarm coming from his neighbour’s apartment.

The neighbours were not believed to be at home.

The fire had blown windows out of the complex and was “roaring” by the time fire crews arrived.

The cause of the fire was not yet known.

Seven appliances attended the blaze.

SAMOA’S SUPERSTAR Super Bowl hitman Page 12

TURTLE POWER

– NZPA

A struggle to live Page 19

High speed broadband rollout this year Wellington, Jan 30 – Telecom is being praised for improving its network and for investing in its core home market.

Telecom said today its newVDSL2 (Very High-Speed Digital Subscriber Line 2) will be offered from fibre-fed roadside cabinets and local telephone exchanges.

VDSL2 was expected to offer download speeds of up to 50Mbps and upload speeds of up to 20Mbps to customers who live one kilometre or less from an exchange or roadside cabinet.

Tuanz, the Telecommunications Users Association, welcomed the announcement of the VDSL2 launch and Telecom’s intention to offer it to whole-

sale customers.This means that residential customers would have a range of suppliers.

“We recognise that Telecom these days is putting its key investments in its core business – a very welcome change from the days when major investments were made in other countries, or adjacent markets, leaving the core home market to lag behind,” said Tuanz chief executive Ernie Newman.

But Tuanz said the goal of having fibre to every customer remained.

Already 57 per cent of New Zealand lines can take advantage of Telecom’s next generation access network and this would grow to 84 percent on com-

pletion of the fibre-to-the-node roll out in 2011.

VDSL2 broadband plans will most benefit those who regularly download large files or use their broadband service for multiple voice, video and other applications.

VDSL2 had been tested for several months, said Telecom wholesale chief executive, Matt Crockett.

“We’re excited to be getting the VDSL2 roll out underway in key metropolitan centres across New Zealand.With the fibre-to-the-node programme hotting up and shortening copper loop lengths across the country it’s the perfect time to deploy VDSL2.”

From March,VDSL2 line cards will be progres-

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sively installed into all roadside cabinets and local telephone exchanges in towns and cities with more than 500 lines.

In the second quarter of 2009,Telecom will offer service providers a new, dedicated VDSL2 broadband product initially available in key Auckland exchange areas, with roll out to all major cities and towns in the third quarter of the year.

Service providers can then offer VDSL2 broadband plans to their retail customers based on their needs, and their proximity to the nearest telephone exchange or roadside cabinet.

– NZPA

NEW ZEALAND

30 January 2009

off BEAT Prince Harry lookalike plagued by girls LONDON, Jan. 30 (UPI) – A 21-year-old man who serves as an impersonator of Prince Harry says he has gone into hiding due to all of the female attention the British royal draws.

Elliott Gibson said while he is used to some female attention due to his physical similarities to Prince Harry, he has been overwhelmed with lovelorn girls since the prince’s publicized split from his girlfriend, Chelsy Davy, The Daily Telegraph reported.

“People have been staring at me my entire life because of how much I look like Harry – and, as embarrassing as it is, a lot of girls come up to me to get a picture,” Gibson said.

“But the past few days have been like nothing I’ve ever experienced.”

The prince and Davy ended their 5-year-relationship this month.

Gibson said during a recent London visit he was mistaken for Harry once again, but this time he barely escaped being chased by 50 U.S. teenagers.

“I seriously thought I might be injured. I couldn’t even begin to think what they’d do to me if they caught me,” he told the Telegraph of the Sunday incident.

Halatau Naitoko’s partner Stephanie Cook with their daughter at the graveside: NZPA / Geoff Dale

Goodbye, daddy Office workers admit to porn at work LONDON, Jan. 30 (UPI) – A survey of British office workers found 33 percent of respondents admitted to viewing pornography on their work computers.

However, the survey of 400 office workers, carried out by e-mail security provider Proofpoint, found only 7 percent of those polled said they had been caught viewing inappropriate materials at work, The Daily Telegraph reported.

A quarter of those polled said they had mistakenly sent an amorous e-mail to a co-worker that was meant for a significant other and 54 percent said they had accidentally used the reply all function on a company wide e-mail, mistakenly spreading an inappropriate message.

“A real crossover in the digital realm between personal and professional lives means staff are increasingly relaxed in their use of workplace e-mail and Internet,” said David Stanley, Proofpoint’s managing director for Britain. “Working longer hours and therefore using these technologies more to stay in touch with friends and family can only heighten the risk.”

The survey also suggested 56 percent of office workers have returned to work drunk after visiting a bar during lunchtime and 59 percent have become sick at work due to a hangover.

Escape attempt stopped by lamp post HASTINGS , New Zealand, Jan. 30 (UPI) – New Zealand authorities said a lamp post and a pair of handcuffs foiled an escape attempt by two prisoners from a courthouse.

Security staff at Hastings District Court on New Zealand’s North Island said the two men ran from the courthouse but were stopped when they attempted to run on either side of a lamp post, apparently forgetting they were handcuffed together, Britain’s The Daily Telegraph reported today.

“As they were being led from the Hastings police cells ... they made a bolt for freedom,” Hastings police sergeant Dave Greig said. “They fell over and they were sprayed with pepper spray. But they got up and ran out of the court onto the street, across the road to a car park,” he said. “That’s where they met the pole – it was all over, rover.”

Regan Reti, 20, had been convicted prior to the escape attempt of assault and sentenced to more than two years in jail. He pleaded guilty to charges of escaping from custody and a month was added to his prison sentence.

Tiranara White, 21, who was jailed at the courthouse while awaiting trial on charges of stealing a car and violating his parole conditions, did not enter a plea for the escaping charge. He remains in police custody awaiting a psych evaluation, Greig said.

Auckland, Jan 30 – More than 1000 mourners gathered at Mangere Cemetery today, as Halatau Naitoko, the teenager accidentally shot dead by police last week, was buried.

The mourners gathered for the final part of Mr Naitoko’s service at the cemetery, where flowers were laid on top of his casket by grieving family and friends.

A powerful haka signalled the arrival of the casket to the cemetery, which was carried on the shoulders of Mr Naitoko’s brothers and close family.

Earlier this morning, the gentle lilt of traditional Tongan hymns floated in the air as hundreds of people filed into an open-fronted chapel set up in the back garden of Mr Naitoko’s family home in the suburb of Mangere East, where the funeral service was held.

Many more people sat and stood outside to listen and farewell a much-loved teenager.

Mourners dressed in black and many wore traditional ta’ovala, a woven Tongan flax dress, as they paid their last respects.

The chapel was filled with colourful flowers and family sat on flax mats during the service.

“The Tongan community in Auckland has been

overshadowed by a dark cloud,”one of the five ministers officiating at the service told mourners.

As rain showers broke through the clouds, the minister told mourners the blood of an innocent boy had been shed.

“Let that be a message to the government officials, and dignitaries, Minister of Police and police officers, even to the beloved policeman who fired that fatal shot.”

The words were met by applause.

Mourners were told Mr Naitoko worked hard to help feed his six brothers and three sisters.

The 17-year-old courier driver died last Friday when he was caught in police crossfire during a motorway chase of an armed man.

He was a loving and devoted father to his twoyear-old daughter, mourners were told.

At the traditional Tongan funeral more than 1000 mourners, including Police Minister Judith Collins, Police Commissioner Howard Broad and numerous politicians, were told he was hard-working, loyal, faithful, truthful, respectful and a loving child.

He was killed in the line of duty as his life was just starting to unfold, an aunt said.

His girlfriend Stephanie Cook and his baby were his dream. He had a loving heart and much compassion and hope for the future, the aunt said.

The funeral in Tongan and in English began several hours after the first mourners arrived and after a 6am prayer session over his open casket.

His mother Ivoni Fuimaono, about to give birth to her latest child, a son to be named Halatau after his dead brother, wept uncontrollably.

For Paea Fangu Fangu, Mr Naitoko’s 16-year-old brother, it was a day of sadness.

“I am feeling very sad. I just want to speak to the person that killed my brother and asked him why he took my brother away from us,” he said as traditional hymns of farewell were sung.

Mr Naitoko’s body,dressed in white,had been at the family home since Sunday night,accompanied around the clock by family members, relatives and friends.

On the front of the many mourners’black T-shirts was the message:“In loving memory of Halatau Kianamanu Naitoko. May he rest in peace.”

On the back was a picture of him with the words: “May he rest in Paradise, 1991-2009.”

– NZPA

Treasury preferred Labour’s policies Wellington, Jan 30 – Treasury has come out against several of the National Government’s policies in a briefing paper out today.

It recommended the Government retain Labour’s Fast Forward Fund and tax credit for research and development and has suggested reconsidering the timing and size of tax cuts.

The briefing to the new Finance Minister Bill English was released today.

The National Government ditched the 15c in the dollar research and development tax credit and is scrapping the Fast Forward Fund aimed at promoting research to help food and farming.

The Labour Government was to invest $700 million and industries were to match the Government’s commitment on an annual basis, bringing the fund, with interest, to $2 billion over the next 10 to 15 years.

Treasury said the R&D tax credit should be kept and evaluated after five years.

It said the policy was likely to be more effective than grants.

“Our judgment is that the overall benefit in terms of higher productivity is likely to be greater than the cost and complexity of tax credits.”

Treasury said the Fast Forward Fund was unwieldy but had got industry buy-in and recom-

mended keeping it.

National has also changed the last Government’s KiwiSaver scheme, reducing the minimum contribution to 2 percent.

Treasury said there was no evidence the higher level was a barrier to people joining the scheme and said the lower rate could reduce its value for middle income workers.

It also said changes to contribution levels could increase uncertainty and damage confidence in the scheme.

Treasury also did not think the employer tax credit should be stopped.

Another Government plan – to target 40 percent of the Super Fund for investment in New Zealand – was not “the best way to go”,Treasury said.

It said the investment may push out other investors. As a long term investor it would hold shares for a long time reducing the number of shares that can be freely trading.

Treasury said forecasts had changed since

National developed its tax package and if the Government could not find ways to reduce spending it should reconsider the size or timing of the package.

It recommended taking the top person tax rate down to 30 percent or lower.

– NZPA

NEW ZEALAND

30 January 2008

FROM FRONT PAGE

“Because little was known about melamine, what it did and how in acted, staff went on a worldwide hunt for information as soon as the toxin was detected, and, while much of this was draft research, it was passed on to Sanlu.”

That statement should, in normal circumstances, result in the resignations of Fonterra’s top management on the grounds of negligence.

That’s because melamine was at the centre of several major international food poisoning scandals out of China only a year earlier which Fonterra should have – as a major food producer – known about, and been looking for already.

Although not referring to that specific failure, Newstalk ZB commentators Deborah Hill-Cone and Tim Watkin told host Larry Williams tonight Ferrier and Fonterra chairman Henry van der Heyden had destroyed the international reputation of the country’s premium brand.

“Andrew Ferrier, you should resign”, said Hill-

Cone, citing his responsibility as leader of a company “whose product killed six babies”.

“Let’s start that call right here,”echoed Tim Watkin.

Fonterra claims it has minutes proving it told Sanlu “zero” melamine was the only acceptable level, but given the company’s admission that it was one of the only food producers in the world that wasn’t aware of Chinese melamine scandals, the real timeline might be murkier.The sequence might be that the Fonterra director on Sanlu’s board handed over a document on European Union melamine concerns, allegedly citing a safety level of 20mg per kilo, but that the “zero”recommendation took a little longer to filter through while Fonterra did the homework on the chemical that should have been done a year earlier.

In the US, hundreds of pets died from eating melamine contaminated petfood.

The problem for New Zealand is that weakness in Fonterra at the moment could critically impact our economy, as well as the brand. Back to the front page

Last weekend, Transport Minister Stephen Joyce opens toll road / NZPA

Bollard hints at financial New World Order Wellington, Jan 30 – A rally call went up from New Zealand’s central bank today not to be defeatist about the major international economic shock the country is in the middle of.

Reserve Bank governor Alan Bollard yesterday cut the official cash rate (OCR) to a record low of 3.5 percent to stimulate the economy.The OCR has been slashed from 8.25 percent since the middle of last year.

There was still room to cut the OCR more, Dr Bollard said today in a speech to the Canterbury Employers’ Chamber of Commerce.

Dr Bollard reiterated that the New Zealand economy was well placed with a well-capitalised banking system and a central bank prepared to take further remedial interventions.

“Lest there be any doubt, the tool box is by no means empty,”he said.

Banks should continue to lend on sound business propositions, he said in a long speech – 17 pages of single-spaced text.

“New Zealand will be better prepared for economic recovery if households, firms and banks do not pull down the shutters,” Dr Bollard said after traversing the causes and responses to the crisis.

He acknowledged the economy was in the middle of a major international shock and that households, firms and banks would naturally be very cautious.

“However,we should also be watchful for the opportunities, and mindful of the risks of defeatism.”

Past recoveries occurred suddenly and strongly, and New Zealand needed to remain well-positioned for such a recovery, Dr Bollard said.

The international credit crunch had exposed vulnerabilities associated with household and external debt, and how this debt was funded.

Prudential policy would continue to put a priority on ensuring banks adequately managed risks associated with rolling over their debt funding.

The central bank would finalise a new policy on the management of liquidity risk around March.

The policy would reinforce incentives for banks to lengthen the maturity of their funding.

“We will be further advancing our work programme with our Australian counterparts on improving regulation and supervision of banks with trans-Tasman operations,”he said.

New Zealand’s biggest banks are Australian owned.

“Finally the Reserve Bank is not the only agency with a role to play in stabilising the economy,”he said.

He spoke of the need for targeted regulation and said New Zealand’s fiscal position is stronger than in other countries.

“It is by no means clear how the international financial system will be organised in the future.The institutions and tools of financial regulation and supervision may well undergo far-reaching change,” he said.

– NZPA

Tunnel ‘a billion dollar black hole’ Wellington, Jan 30 – A call to investigate alternatives to a tunnel system on Auckland’s Waterview Connection roading project has come as no surprise to Auckland city leaders.

Transport Minister Stephen Joyce said today he had asked officials to investigate alternatives to the proposed tunnel option for the project, designed to complete the city’s Western Ring Route.

He said the estimated cost of building 3.2km twin tunnels had increased to about $2.77 billion from the original $1.89b estimate and the figure equated to about 1.6 percent of New Zealand’s GDP. “It’s entirely expected, as this Government finds itself in a billion dollar black hole with a project that was never funded,” Auckland Mayor John Banks said today.

He said the main thing was that there was no suggestion the project wouldn’t proceed.

“I support the proposition that all options need to be costed so that we can have value for money,” he told NZPA. There were no alternatives to completing the piece of roading, but alternatives to tunnelling, including cut-and-cover or“at-grade”(raised) roading needed to be explored.

Mr Banks said going through residential areas at the expense of homes was an option – albeit not one he was promoting.

Changes to the Resource Management Act promised by the National Party were likely to enable cogs in the wheel of the project to move more quickly if further consultation was required, Mr Banks said.

NZ Council for Infrastructure Development chief executive Stephen Selwood also said Mr Joyce’s call to investigate alternatives was not unreasonable, but

he didn’t want to see delays.

Surface options which Mr Banks referred to would cost less , and the savings could release funding for other transport projects including rail, road, bus, walking or cycling.

“But a surface road will also have social and environmental impacts that might otherwise be avoided by the proposed tunnel.”

Mr Joyce today accused the previous Labour Government of raising expectations for various transport projects without funding them.

Labour Party transport spokesman Darren Hughes said Mr Joyce’s decision was disappointing and that the Government appeared to be dithering.

“They want to go back to the drawing board on projects that have already had a huge amount of work done on them.”

Mr Hughes questioned how the budget blowout costs had been calculated.

“I’m not sure that the major difference is actually the tunnel itself, it’s just that they’ve decided to calculate it differently...”

“The costs will just keep going up, they are not going to fall just because officials are looking at it for another three months.”

He said exploring options such as going through residential areas was asking for trouble.

“Socially and environmentally it would be a very tough option to take and would meet with stiff opposition.

“You would have to waste more time on litigation and the objections that would inevitably come from doing that.”

– NZPA

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NEW ZEALAND

30 January 2009

Liquor store four face murder rap Wellington, Jan 30 – Four men charged with the murder of a South Auckland liquor store owner have been committed for trial at the High Court after a depositions hearing in Manukau District Court.

Navtej Singh, 30, was shot in June last year while working in his liquor store in Manurewa East. He died the next day.

Following a two-week hearing depositions hearing, Myron Robert Felise, 21, Tino Faamele Felise, 17,Anitelea Chan Kee, 20, and Jason Naseri, 20, will stand trial for the murder of Mr Singh, Radio New Zealand reported.

The four men are also charged with aggravated robbery and armed robbery.

Eti Filoa, 23, and Walter McCarthy, 18, face armed robbery charges, and Mefiposeta Chan Kee, 24, is charged with being an accessory after the killing.

The court has yet to decide whether Filoa and McCarthy will face murder charges.

Chan Kee is charged with disposing of evidence and has been committed to trial.

– NZPA

NZ dollar weakens further Wellington, Jan 30 – The New Zealand dollar was the lowest it has been for six years today as the US dollar climbed and as Reserve Bank governor Alan Bollard signalled further interest rate cuts.

The NZ dollar was US50.89c at 5pm,its lowest since December 2002. It was US51.95c at 5pm yesterday.

BNZ Capital currency strategist Danica Hampton said comments by both Finance Minister Bill English and Dr Bollard knocked the currency today.

Dr Bollard said there was room for more interest rate cuts.He was giving a speech the day after he cut the official cash rate by 150 basis points to 3.5 percent.The currency fell sharply yesterday when the OCR was cut.

“It is also really part of the global backdrop.The

US dollar is firmer against a broad range of currencies so when Kiwi hit the low the euro was low and the aussie was low too,”she said.

As a result against the Australian dollar the NZ dollar was little changed at A78.99c from A78.66c yesterday.Against the euro it was 0.3949 from 0.3972.

It was down against the Japanese yen at 45.48 from 46.19 and lost ground against the British pound to 35.58p from 36.02p.

The trade weighted index stood at 51.47 from 51.82 yesterday. The US dollar rose as deepening concerns about the global recession prompted investors to shed risky assets.

– NZPA

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Wellington, Jan 30 – An Auckland University scientist has told the Environment Court that wind farms have no environmental benefits because carbon emissions are a good thing.

Christopher de Freitas – noted as a sceptic of human-induced global warming – was giving evidence against Meridian Energy’s consent bid for Project Hayes, a $2 billion, 176-turbine, wind farm on the Lammermoor Range in Central Otago, the Otago Daily Times reported.

“Climate is not responding to greenhouse gases in the way we thought it might,” Prof de Freitas told the court.

“If increasing carbon dioxide is in fact increasing climate change, its impact is smaller than natural variation.

“People are being misled by people making money out of this.”

Mild warming of the climate was beneficial, especially in New Zealand, which had a prominent agricultural industry, he suggested.

“There is no data to show benefits in terms of mitigating potential dangerous changes in climate by offsetting carbon dioxide.”

Prof de Freitas has previously argued against wind energy in New Zealand and urged the Government to consider“clean coal”.

Meridian has said that Project Hayes will contribute to a new renewable power suppply meeting New Zealand’s obligation to cut carbon emissions under the Kyoto Protocol.

– NZPA

EDITORIAL

30 January 2008

Editorial

Maori justice, maybe there is a place The Maori Party this week floated a familiar old boat – the idea of some kind of marae-based justice system.

Traditionally, the boat sinks without trace, just as it always has, under a barrage of political correctness about one law for all.

But I think we’re all being a trifle too reactionary about this.With a little thought, maybe it is time to give hapu more of an input into the justice process.

After all, Maori are heavily over-represented as clients of the Corrections Department, and as victims.

The Maori Party concept, that dragging offenders along to a marae before they’re chucked in the clink, might just work.

We have bred a generation of young people, Maori,

Pakeha, Pacific Island and to a lesser extent Asian who are losing respect for life and property, and don’t accept the consequences of their actions.

Maybe if their peers force them to take some embarrassment on the marae, the message might register with a few of them.

In the old days, we had the stocks, and supplies of over-ripe tomatoes. I never really understood why we did away with that particular punishment.

Once upon a time, when people had consciences and communities were tighter, people stayed out of trouble for fear of the public opprobrium that would be heaped upon them.

Not all people behaved, of course, but a darn sight more did than do now.

Accountability.That’s what justice should be about.

Does that mean I advocate a completely separate Maori justice system? Not for a second.It couldn’t work at that level. For a start, most Maori are part Pakeha these days anyway, and many who would call themselves Pakeha have a bit of what my Ngati Whatua father-in-law would call“the tar brush”in them.

How would a separate justice system handle culture straddling cases? It couldn’t. Either the victim, or the offender, would potentially feel cheated by the process.

However, there is a role, after the facts of a case have been determined in the usual way, for the offenders to be forced to front on the marae for a tongue-lashing before they are sent off to prison.

For a start, it would show Maori kids the consequences of bad decisions, and the embarrassment

that goes with it. Modern court hearings are too remote and impersonal to have any “shaming” impact these days. A well-to-do society figure caught pinching a New Zealand Herald suffers far more from her crime, than a 20 year old thug caught for robbery and given five years.The society figure faces public shame, the thug is treated like a hero inside.

So the more thugs who are reminded on the way in that they’re not that crash hot, the better.

The other benefit of marae justice, after the onelaw-for-all court process has determined guilt,is that it will return some mana to local Maori leaders.Little by little, maybe we can reclaim some ground and make a difference ten years from now.

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Comment

Next time, they come for you Today, technology makes a great deal of personal information about each of us publicly available. We therefore depend more than ever on the restraining power of custom – such as the shared sense that people have the right to feel safe in their own home – to keep that information from misuse

By Rod Dreher The Dallas Morning News

If you gave money to the successful Proposition 8 campaign to outlaw same-sex marriage in California, you’d better watch out. Anonymous gay-marriage activists have mashed up public data with Google mapping technology to create Eightmaps.com, an online map to your home.And it’s perfectly legal.

Alarmed Prop 8 backers recently filed a federal lawsuit seeking an injunction against a state law forcing citizens who give $100 or more to campaigns to disclose their names and addresses. We had all better hope they prevail.

“I don’t get the fear,”gay-marriage campaigner Andrew Sullivan disingenuously wrote on his popular blog.“If Prop 8 supporters truly feel that barring equality for gay couples is vital for saving civilization, shouldn’t they be proud of their financial support?”

Oh, please.This is why people are frightened by Eightmaps: •Margie Christofferson, a manager of a popular Hollywood restaurant, did not talk about her politics or her religion but quietly gave $100 to the Prop 8 campaign.Activists swarmed the restaurant, with a mob getting so out of hand that riot police had to be called.

•A man who wrote a letter to the San Francisco Chronicle supporting Prop 8 soon found that gay activists posted to theWeb personal information about him and, as appalled Chronicle columnist John Diaz noted,urged“in ugly language,retribution against the author’s business and its identified clients.”

•In Los Angeles and Salt Lake City, someone sent mysterious white powder to Mormon temples, apparently to protest the Latter-day Saints Church’s role in passing Prop 8.

•In Fresno, Calif., police said the city’s mayor and a local pastor received death threats over their support for Prop 8.Vandals pelted the pastor’s church with eggs.

There’s more where this came from. Given what gay-rights fanatics have shown themselves capable of – did you see the YouTube footage of a furious gay mob chasing a group of Christians out of the Castro district? – who can blame traditional marriage supporters for being afraid?

In online Eightmaps discussion, gays typically take the line that anyone who would vote to take away their marriage rights deserves what he gets (Sullivan:“Why should you be able to protect yourself from the consequences?”). Extremism in the defence of gay marriage, therefore, is no vice. Let this be a lesson about the tolerance those who do not support same-sex marriage will receive if it becomes legal.

Eightmaps.commies are so caught up in their own revenge drama that they don’t understand how this technique can be used against homosexuals. It won’t be long before far-right radicals draw on publicly available data to create an online map to gay-rights

supporters’homes. How safe will gay folks in small towns feel if gay bashers are one click away from a map to their house?

For that matter, anyone who wants to give money to a candidate or cause will wonder if it’s worth taking the risk of being eightmapped by radicals.

Would you give to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, La Raza or Planned Parenthood if you thought right-wing goons would eightmap you, as these left-wing goons have eightmapped social conservatives? Could you afford to put your family at risk?

And that’s the only conceivable point of Eightmaps: to intimidate ordinary people into political docility.

Eightmaps is a vicious cultural bellwether. It rips apart a common understanding that makes it possible for us to live together in a diverse democracy.

Today, technology makes a great deal of personal information about each of us publicly available.We therefore depend more than ever on the restraining power of custom – such as the shared sense that people have the right to feel safe in their own home – to keep that information from misuse.

Recall this memorable exchange between William Roper and Sir Thomas More in Robert Bolt’s

play A Man for All Seasons: Roper: Cut a road through the law to get after the Devil? Yes. I’d cut down every law in England to do that.

More: And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned on you where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? ... I give the Devil benefit of law for my own safety’s sake.

Substitute the phrase “custom”for “law,”and you have captured the danger of what the Eightmaps people have done.They may believe Prop 8 backers are devils, but they ought to give the devils the benefit of custom for their own safety’s sake – especially given the vulnerability homosexuals have always had to gay-bashers.

When some techno-savvy barbarians turn this technique against them,remember Sullivan’s snide brush-off to Eightmaps’potential victims:“Cry me a river.”

He’ll regret that one day.We all will.

Rod Dreher is a Dallas Morning News editorial columnist. Readers may e-mail: rdreher@dallasnews.com.

ANALYSIS

30 January 2009

Weekend poll crucial test for Iraqi democracy

By Leila Fadel McClatchy Newspapers

BAGHDAD, Iraq – This Sunday, when Iraqis cast their ballots for 14 provincial councils, will be the first real test of Iraq’s American-made democracy.

Whether Iraqis reject or accept peaceful transfers of power will be the first credible indication of whether departing U.S. troops will leave behind a democratic Iraq or a failed state.

Iraqis will vote in 14 of the country’s 18 provinces, and if the elections produce some peaceful and longawaited shifts in power, it will be the first time that Iraqis will have reason to believe that change can come through ballots rather than bullets.

Since mutinous army officers murdered King Faisal II in 1958, Iraq has seen only a series of military coups. Modern Iraq’s leaders all came to power at the point of a gun, including those who were carried into office in the wake of the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Elections since then have been stained by violence that kept people from the polls, a boycott by

Sunni Muslim Arabs and allegations of fraud and intimidation.The country’s provincial councils are widely considered to be corrupt parties to the violence that engulfed the nation and killed tens of thousands, and most Iraqis have come to believe that Islamists exploited their faith and their religious leaders to dictate whether people should vote and whom they should elect.

The country descended into a bloody sectarian war in 2005,2006 and part of 2007 that included the militias affiliated with the most powerful political parties.

Now Iraqis are weary. Electricity, water and other basic services are still scant, and so far, democracy has given them governments composed mostly of former exiles who sat out Saddam Hussein’s brutality in cities from London to Tehran.

Men who once fought against the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the American military are now among about 14,500 candidates who are competing for seats in the provincial assemblies. Even some who have no trust in the current government have put away their weapons and are trying their hands at democracy. If their votes don’t

produce the changes they seek, they say, they’ll have no choice but to pick up their weapons again.

However, if Sunday’s elections produce changes, if they’re credible, if they’re peaceful, if they pave the way for a successful national election at the end of the year and a drawdown of U.S. troops, Iraqis finally would have reason to believe in a democracy that so far has brought them nothing but devastation.

That also would open a window of opportunity for U.S. troops to depart without shame and to leave behind a government that might be capable of facing Iraq’s many challenges. The danger, of course, is that the window could be a mirage, that Iraq’s competing factions are merely holding their fire and practicing democracy until the Americans get out of the way.

If both elections are failures, it would be devastating to Iraqis and Americans.The Obama administration, eager to turn its attention to Afghanistan, would have to decide whether to stay in Iraq and try to make a failed system work or to leave behind unfulfilled promises and a failed state.

Fadel is McClatchy Newspapers’ Baghdad bureau chief.

Walker’s World

China’s brave economic face WASHINGTON – China cancelled a scheduled summit with the European Union last year to show its distaste for the decision by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who then held the rotating presidency of the EU Council, to meet with the Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibet.

This followed an earlier snub of German Chancellor Angela Merkel for the same offence the previous year. China’s Foreign Ministry called it a rude interference into China’s internal affairs and strongly hurt the feelings and emotions of the Chinese people, but also gravely harmed China-Germany relations.

All, or almost all, is forgiven. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao arrived in Europe Thursday for a visit that Chinese Foreign Ministry officials have described as a Journey of Confidence. He starts at the World Economic Forum’s annual gathering in Davos, Switzerland, followed by meetings with Merkel in Berlin, U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London, the Spanish government in Madrid and top EU officials in Brussels.

Paris remains off limits, and the French are still being punished. Still, the Europeans as a whole are being courted, largely because they now constitute China’s biggest export market, taking in some US$200 billion of Chinese goods, while China buys about $90 billion from the EU in return, almost half of that total from Germany alone.

Moreover, the Europeans are now China’s leading source of Western technology. According to official Chinese statistics, as reported by Xinhua, the EU accounted for 40 percent of China’s technology imports last year, which includes licences and software as well as high-tech equipment. Europe’s tech exports to China were worth almost $9 billion, compared with $5 billion for Japan and $4 billion for the United States.

In short, the Europeans are becoming the goose that lays the golden eggs for China. So the Beijing leadership evidently has decided to smooth relations, while still demonstrating its need to put the French in their place. Beijing’s diplomatic signals can be very obvious.

But something has changed.A year ago, when the financial crisis had just started its long assault on the world’s stock markets, China was the great hope.

It was fashionable to talk of decoupling, the theory that said China was now able to grow independently of the export markets of the West.That theory was wrong. China’s economy is now in serious trouble.

China claims 8 percent growth last year and growth of 6.8 percent in the final quarter.That’s only true if the comparison is with the fourth quarter of 2007. Compare it with the third quarter of 2008, and it looks to most Western analysts as through growth

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao speaks at the World Economic Forum annual meeting, in Davos, Switzerland. XINHUANOTIMEX

plunged to zero or less (suggests Morgan Stanley) and 1 percent (suggests Standard Chartered).

Economist Nouriel Roubini, known as Dr. Doom for his gloomy but accurate forecasts, noted over the weekend that growth in China in the last three months would be close to zero if not negative. Other data confirm that China was in a borderline recession in Q4 and that it may be in an outright recession in Q1: production of electricity plunged 7.9 percent in year on year basis.

Other analysts suggest China’s hitherto inexhaustible appetite for oil shrank by 4 percent in December and that with its petroleum inventories rising sharply, real demand may have been even lower. Only 18 months ago the International Energy Agency predicted China would be buying an extra 500,000 barrels of oil a day this year.

These are not the news stories that Wen wanted to read as he arrived in Switzerland for the Davos economic conference. He was hoping to see admiring reports of China’s claim to have surpassed Germany as the world’s No. 3 economy, behind the United States and Japan, with a gross domestic product of $3.5 trillion, compared with Germany’s $3.3 trillion.

If there were going to be any negative headlines, the Chinese leaders expected they would be over the usual pressures on China to relax its hard line on Tibet and domestic dissidents, or to volunteer tougher measures of emissions controls, since China is now the world’s biggest producer of greenhouse gases.Wen had an answer for that: China is currently building more than 20 advanced factories to manufacture batteries for non-polluting electric cars.

But he does not have much of an answer for the gloomy news of China’s economic slowdown, except to point to the US$586 billion stimulus program his government announced last year and Beijing’s readiness to coordinate recovery strategies with the Group of Seven developed economies.

Wen’s visit will demonstrate China’s confidence in developing its comprehensive strategic partnership with European countries, said a Foreign Ministry briefing. Demand from China and its economic growth will serve as an impetus for the world economy to recover from the downturn.Wen’s visit will surely enhance the confidence of the international community to jointly address the economic woes in the spirit of cooperation and coordination.

Only don’t invite the French just yet.

– UPI

ANALYSIS

30 January 2008

Gore’s climate plea tions Committee hearing.“This is the one challenge that could potentially end human civilization, and Former U.S.Vice President Al Gore is pushing sena- it’s rushing at us with so much speed and force. It’s tors to lead the world as it gears up to negotiate a unprecedented.” new international agreement on climate change Gore listed a litany of climate-change indicathis December. tors that already have begun to occur, including “Our country is the only country in the world that increased melting of the polar ice cap, a significant can really lead the global community, and this is the rise in the number and severity of annual natural most serious challenge the world has ever faced,” disasters, and a spike in ocean acidity precipitated Gore claimed Thursday at a Senate Foreign Rela- by the water’s absorption of carbon dioxide.

By Rosalie Westenskow

Changing climates around the world could lead to droughts and other resource shortages, which, in turn, will likely spark instability as different groups fight over available water and food, experts say. In addition, if higher temperatures cause global sea levels to rise 39 inches, or 1 metre, as predicted by some scientists, 56 million people in 84 developing countries may become refugees, according to a 2007 study by Susmita Dasgupta, a World Bank scientist.

In response to these potential catastrophes, the world’s leaders plan to meet this December in Copenhagen, Denmark, to negotiate a replacement to the Kyoto Protocol, the current international treaty that requires those who have signed it to limit their emissions to a certain level. Although the United States signed the agreement, it is the only major industrialized nation that has not ratified it.

“Things will be different this time around,”said Committee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., who said attendees at the last U.N. climate meeting, held in Poznan, Poland, last month, told him they want the United States to lead.

“They said to us this challenge cannot be solved without the active leadership of the U.S.,”Kerry said at Thursday’s hearing.

At a time when the economy continues to plummet, though, free-market economists and others at home in the United States have raised questions about whether now is the time to invest in mitigating greenhouse gas emissions.

“Picking between the two isn’t an option,”Kerry said.

Those who pose this question have it fundamentally wrong, he said.“We can’t afford not to address climate change. It will be far more damaging in the long run.”

“Mitigating climate change will actually boost the economy, if it’s done right,”Gore said, by creating jobs for the development of renewable energy projects, like wind and solar farms, and the construction of a new national electricity grid. Because of this, Gore said the first step toward leadership lies in passing the economic stimulus package – along with its investments in green energy – currently in Congress.The next step is placing a price on carbon, either through capping national emissions at a certain level or through a tax.

If Congress does pass a cap-and-trade program – a system wherein entities would buy and sell shares to emit carbon – it should learn from the mistakes of the European Union, which already has one in place, said Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn.

“There’s been a lot of form over substance,”Corker said.

“I hope we’ll be transparent with the American people,” said Corker, encouraging policymakers to return any profits made by the sale of carbon emissions shares to the people.

“If legislators place a price on carbon, then the White House will be in a position to lead the talks for the next international treaty,”Gore said, which he hopes includes five elements: strong emissions targets and timetables for industrialized nations and lesser but binding commitments for developing countries; the inclusion of measures to limit deforestation, which contributes 20 percent of annual global greenhouse gas emissions; compensation for carbon sinks, like crops that sequester the gas; an entity to monitor compliance; and measures to ensure developing countries have access to technologies that help them decrease emissions and adapt to the effects of a changing climate.

“The final point is particularly important,”said Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee. Deployment of genetically modified crops, whose DNA has been altered by scientists to increase yields, should be at the top of the list for adaptation tools, he said.

“Genetically modified crops have the potential to improve agricultural productivity in the poorest parts of the world,”he said.

However, EU policies restricting the import of GM foods have discouraged many developing countries from adopting the technology. Opponents say such crops aren’t as safe as the original, and altering the DNA harms the food chain.

“Opposition to GM technologies contributes to hunger in Africa in the short run and the inability to adapt to climate change and declining food supplies in the future,”Lugar said.

Whether the EU will relax its anti-GM stance remains to be seen, but it looks likely that the new U.S. Congress and administration will take the steps outlined by Gore.

President Barack Obama’s newly appointed Cabinet members – from Energy Secretary Steven Chu to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar – have expressed broad support for investments in renewable energy and the establishment of a cap-and-trade system, with the ultimate goal of energy independence.

I want to work very hard to get the country finally to the point where we can say we’ve become an energy independent nation, Salazar told reporters Thursday at a news conference.

And that independence, according to Gore, is exactly what will enable the United States to lead.

Europe needs to give Obama what he wants

By Leander Schaerlaeckens

BRUSSELS – NATO’s European member states will have to find more creative solutions for meeting operational needs and supporting the United States in Afghanistan, and Iran will have to be engaged if long-term stability is to be reached in the region, said NATO’s chief.

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer made his first speech since the inauguration of U.S. President Barack Obama at the Security & Defense Agenda think tank in Brussels this week.

De Hoop Scheffer spoke frankly about the need for EU members to support the Obama administration in its renewed focus on the war in Afghanistan and his hopes for the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ahead of a key summit in Strasbourg, France, and Kehl, Germany, in April and months before his final term comes to an end later this year.

“When Washington calls, Europe should have a unified answer, backed up with the resources to match,”de Hoop Scheffer said.“If Europeans expect that the United States will close Guantanamo, sign up to climate change treaties, accept EU leadership on key issues but provide nothing more in return, for example in Afghanistan, than encouragement, they should think again. It simply won’t work like that.”

De Hoop Scheffer reiterated longstanding appeals to EU contributors to drop caveats on

troop deployments in Afghanistan and allow for better coordination.

“I welcome the intention by the United States to send more troops to the mission,”he said of Obama’s intention to add 30,000 soldiers to the 62,000-strong NATO International Security Assistance Force mission in Afghanistan.“It will help us to hold where we couldn’t until now, block off infiltration, and let development take root. But I cannot accept that the U.S. has to do all of the extra heavy lifting. Europe, too, has to step up with more forces, and where that is not forthcoming, then with substantially more on the civilian side.

“It is not enough to lament helicopter shortfalls in Afghanistan, yet shy away from creative solutions that could help to overcome these shortfalls,”de Hoop Scheffer said.“At a time when the whole world is facing economic hardship,calling for more resources for security might seem like swimming upstream. But it remains true that security is the foundation for economic confidence. A more innovative approach on how to fund operations is necessary.”

De Hoop Scheffer reaffirmed his belief that progress is being made in Afghanistan.“I do not share the doom and gloom from which some seem to suffer about this effort,”he said.“I don’t deny the challenges.They are huge. But it has only been eight years since the Taliban was toppled.When I saw an Afghan fellow pull out his Apple iPhone in Kabul,

while I was talking on my 5year-old NATO mobile, I saw another symbol of progress.”

But more engagement with Afghanistan’s neighbouring countries is pivotal.

“We need to stop looking at Afghanistan as if it were an island,”de Hoop Scheffer said.

“Afghanistan’s problems cannot be solved by,or within,Afghanistan alone,because they are not Afghanistan’s problems alone.There is a regional network of extremists, including, yes, the Taliban and al-Qa’ida, but also many others, which respects borders no more than they respect human rights and the rule of law.

“To my mind, we need a discussion that brings in all the relevant regional players: Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, China, Russia and, yes, Iran,” he said.“If you talk about a real regional approach, you cannot … (exclude) Iran. If you look at the history of Afghanistan, you see that Afghanistan over the years has always been the sort of country where other nations played power games. Iran is a factor in Afghanistan. I know when I launch a suggestion about a regional approach, including Iran, that some people might have to swallow once or twice. But I think that at a certain stage we might have to find a formula that includes Iran.”

De Hoop Scheffer also expressed hope that the upcoming summit will be used not just for self-congratulatory statements or as a get-toknow-you session with a new U.S.president but as a platform to modernize NATO. Through a Declaration on Alliance Security, de Hoop Scheffer hopes to confirm and expand NATO’s fundamentals and core purpose.

These expanded goals would include fighting cyber-terrorism and close cooperation with Russia in combating piracy on common energy-transportation routes.“Piracy, long believed to have been eradicated, is back as a major international concern – and in more than just one essential maritime route on which our trade and oil and gas supplies depend,” he said.“This is not Johnny Depp with a parrot on his shoulder – this is (rocket-propelled grenade)wielding thugs threatening sea lanes on which our energy supplies depend.”

De Hoop Scheffer further said he hopes NATO once again will become, as it was during the Cold War, a platform for allies to conduct political consultations to ensure that everyone is on the same page, even on issues not concerning NATO proper.

– UPI

WORLD

30 January 2009

World government supporters rally at Davos Davos, Switzerland – With the headlines screaming the gloom that economic growth this year will be the worst since World War II, several leading politicians and business people discussed the future of capitalism today, with the word “values”taking centre stage.

“Capitalism cannot work unless it is based on shared values, and justice,” said former British premier Tony Blair at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos.

Blair, who said the “financial system has failed” insisted the free enterprise system was still vital, but pushed for“globalization based on values.”

Indra Nooyi, the chief of Pepsico, the soft drink and snack food manufacturer, stressed that “Capitalism is good”but that the “notion of the mighty buck won over morality and ethics,”blaming Wall Street for damaging Main Street industries.

Looking back at the causes of the crisis, former US president Bill Clinton,in a one-on-one conversation with the Forum’s founder Klaus Schwab,attacked the fiscal and spending policies of the Bush administration.

“Right now the house is on fire and we need to put it out as quickly as we can,”Clinton said, while backing the new White House under Barack Obama.

The former president also said that given the interconnectivity of the modern world, other countries, such as China, would have to buy US debt to help it get out of the crisis it started, so that American consumers could purchase those nations’ exports.

“People will still make money but not like in past decade, and that’s a good thing,”he said about the post crisis world.

Responding to a speech from the previous night by the Russian leader the night before, in which he warned against protectionism and excessive state intervention in the economy, Clinton said he was “glad to hear Prime Minister Putin has come out in favour of free enterprise.”

Blair, who said the “financial system has failed” insisted the free enterprise system was still vital, but pushed for “globalization based on values

He took a theatrical pause, moved his tongue around his mouth and added,“I hope it works out for him.”

The session on capitalism also included Israeli President Shimon Peres, who pushed for an ideology which would “create wealth” instead of spreading wealth.

Peres, who rose to political heights in his country through the Labour party, which he only left in recent years, abandoned previous ideologies and instead said advances were needed in the sciences, including alternative energies, and education.

The focus of the annual meeting was the postcrisis world and the Liberal American preacher Jim

Oil prices will rise, fast Davos, Switzerland – The drop in the price of oil is a result of the global economic downturn, energy chiefs said today, but the fall has been too great and the current amount will not leave producing countries with enough capital for investment.

“The price is low because demand has fallen, because economic growth in most part of the world has stopped,”said Tony Hayward, the head of BP. “When economic recovery returns demands will come back very fast,” he added at the World Economic Forum’s session on energy outlook for the upcoming year.

He warned that if prices remain low, and producing countries do have resources to invest in increased capacity, the world would run into supply constraints.

“We are not very happy with 40, even 50”dollars a barrel, said Abdalla Salem el Badri, the secretary general of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

“We cannot have decent income for our member countries and at the same time invest for additional

capacity. I hope price will pick up, to go a little bit higher,”said the head of the oil cartel, noting that at the next meeting of the group it would not hesitate to act to boost prices.

With crude rates standing at 42 dollars a barrel, “Investment is the name of the game,” he emphasized.

El-Badri and Hayward said they hoped that the various stimulus packages being introduced around the world, from China to the US, would create a hike in the price of oil.

The previous night Russian leader Vladimir Putin said“sharp and unpredictable fluctuations of energy prices are a colossal destabilising factor in the global economy,”and pushed for a“new international legal framework for energy security.”

Mukesh Ambani, the chairman of Reliance Industries in India, said at the energy session that there was no end to oil in the next decades, and added that the “bridge to de-carbonized world” must be built in a “sensible way.”

– DPA

“Oh, bummer!”

Greedy bankers pinged by Pres.

Washington – US President Barack Obama has slammed Wall Street bankers for awarding themselves nearly US$20 billion in bonuses last year as the US economy suffers through its worst recession in decades.

Obama called it the “height of irresponsibility” and “shameful” that financial institutions would issue large bonuses and severance packages to their employees as they pleaded for taxpayer funds to keep the industry alive.

He was reacting to a report by the NewYork State comptroller yesterday that employees of Wall Street

firms received 18.4 billion dollars in cash bonuses in 2008. The amount marked a 44-per-cent drop from 2007, yet it was still the sixth-largest bonus year on record.

“Part of what we’re going to need is for folks onWall Street who are asking for help to show some restraint and show some discipline and show some sense of responsibility,”Obama said at theWhite House,after a meeting with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said it was unclear whether any of the bonuses came from taxpayer funds. Congress approved a 700-billion-dollar pack-

age in October to rescue the financial industry from collapse.About half of the money has already been given out to banks.

Citigroup, which received a 45-billion-dollar bailout from the government in November, was forced this week to cancel its order of a new corporate jet after the Treasury Department threatened to withdraw the funds.

“We shouldn’t have to do that because they should know better. And we will continue to send that message loud and clear,”Obama said.

Obama’s administration is expected to unveil a series of new plans to stabilize the financial industry next week. The Wall Street Journal today reported those plans could cost as much as 2 trillion dollars.

– DPA

Wallis said he hoped the crisis would change people for the better.

“The question is how will this crisis change us, change the way we think, make decisions, change the habits of the heart, change how we do business,”said Wallis, a civil rights activist who is seen as standing to the left of the mainstream Evangelical movement.

He echoed, in more spiritual terms, what Stephen Green of HSBC had already noted, that“no amount of rules can enforce good behaviour”and added that “we need to get the value system right.”

“Without values within companies, regulation will not do the job for us,”Green said.

But while change was needed, the political and business participants warned against protectionism in trade and that new regulations“should not stifle entrepreneurship,innovation,”according to James Schiro,of Zurich Financial Services, the insurance group.

Blair, sticking in a final word, said the state had a role to play in getting the world out of crisis,but that it was“not the answer,”putting his faith instead in the markets, which he was far from ready to eulogize.

– DPA

WORLD

30 January 2008

Guantanamo judge defies Obama Washington – A military judge in Gutananamo Bay has denied a request by the Obama administration to suspend the proceedings against a Yemeni suspected of plotting the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole.

The Washington Post reported online that the Army judge,Colonel James Pohl,found the reasoning to suspend the proceedings for 120 days“unpersuasive.”

Pohl’s decision places a glitch in President Barack Obama’s plans to seek delays in the 21 cases before military tribunals at Guantanamo so the files can be reviewed and as Obama weighs options for closing the notorious prison camp and for trying detainees.

White House Robert Gibbs said the ruling would

not thwart the ongoing evaluation of the Guantanamo cases.“Not at all,”he said.

Shortly after taking office January 20, Obama ordered prosecutors to seek four-month suspensions of the proceedings, which were quickly granted in other cases.But Pohl ruled that moving forward with the hearing for Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri would not interfere with Obama’s review, the Post reported.

Obama could respond by ordering the charges against al-Nashiri withdrawn.Al-Nashiri is scheduled to be arraigned February 9 on charges of plotting the suicide attack in the Gulf of Aden that killed 17 US sailors.

Obama has ordered the closure of Guantanamo

within a year and has assembled a committee to review what could be done with the remaining 245 detainees and how to proceed with those who can be charged with crimes. Obama is seeking possible alternatives to the controversial military tribunals set up by predecessor George W Bush.

A judge last week agreed to suspend the cases against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September, 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and four co-defendants. The case against Canadian citizen Omar Kadr, accused of killing a US soldier in Afghanistan when he was 15 years old, was also suspended.

– DPA

Swayze slams false reports Los Angeles – A representative for actor Patrick Swayze has today denied widespread reports that the actor had halted treatment for pancreatic cancer after doctors told him there was nothing more to be done.

“The reports are not true. Patrick is continuing his treatment,”Annett Wolf, a spokeswoman for the actor told People magazine.

Swayze, 56, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last March and was in hospital earlier this month after contracting pneumonia.

The actor has vowed to fight his cancer, telling People recently,“I am alive and plan on continuing to stay that way.”

But according to the widespread reports in gossip magazines and websites, he had retreated to his Los Angeles ranch after doctors told him they had no chance of beating the spread of cancer in his body.

According to Star magazine, Swayze’s mother, Patsy, has asked for people to pray for her son.

“Pray for Patrick. I know he has a lot of fans out there thinking about him, and we all appreciate that,”she was quoted as saying.

Let them eat cake Paris – French teachers, postal employees, train conductors and other workers from the public and private sectors stayed away from their jobs overnight in a one-day general strike that disrupted transportation and shut schools across the country.

In addition, unions said that more than 2.5 million people marched through the streets in some 195 cities and towns to express their displeasure with the economic policies of President Nicolas Sarkozy and his government.

Police put the number of demonstrators at slightly more than 1 million.

Whatever the numbers were, the important fact was that bankers and other private sector employees marched shoulder to shoulder with teachers, postmen and other workers from the public sector in a rare show of solidarity.

“We workers are asked to do more and more while most of the cake goes to the executives,”said Pascal Guinet, a 42-year-old employee for the car maker Renault, who was demonstrating in Paris.

“Workers are put under pressure.... There are people who want to sell their homes because they have no idea what will happen.”

Major trade unions called the strike to demand more job security, additional state aid to small and middle-sized companies threatened by the economic crisis and a halt to parts of Sarkozy’s economic reforms.

According to Julien Pons, a 28-year-old teacher also protesting in Paris,“The government wants to impose the logic of the private sector on the public sector. So I am striking to protest the privatization of the public sector, stagnating salaries and the government’s plans to cut jobs.”

Education Minister Xavier Darcos is planning to slash 13,500 jobs from the French education system in 2009, a measure that unions say will severely impair the quality of education.

–DPA

“There is a general disdain because it is impossible to have discussions with the government,”Pons said.

The FSU trade union said that more than 60 per cent of all primary and secondary schoolteachers took part in the strike.The government’s figures were lower.

In addition, public transport in 77 cities across France was disrupted to varying degrees on Thursday, after employees of the state-owned SNCF rail network kicked off the strike.

The CGT union said 41 per cent of railway employees were striking.The SNCF said about half of all scheduled high-speed TGV and regional trains were in operation.

In the greater Paris area, more than half of scheduled trains linking the capital with its suburbs were not in service overnight, while an average of about one of two scheduled metro trains were running in the city, the RATP transport system said.

However, there was little of the usual strike-day chaos because many employees stayed away from their jobs, either out of sympathy for the strike or to avoid spending long hours in transit.

In the southern city of Marseille, however, no metro trains were operating.

The head of the CFDT trade union, Francois Chereque, called the day’s street protests“the largest workers’ demonstration in France in 20 years.”

Organizers said that up to 300,000 people marched through the streets of Marseille and Paris, while 50,000 protested in Lyon and 35,000 in Lille.

As usual, police estimates were much lower.

The extent of the strikes and the number of protesters in the streets are already being analyzed, as they represent an important test of strength between unions and Sarkozy.

Union leaders have said that a successful strike day will embolden them to increase the pressure on the government through more job actions.

– DPA

WORLD

10

30 January 2009

Pot calls kettle black Brussels – Just weeks after introducing protectionist agriculture subsidies for own their farmers, European Union officials are warning the United States will not get away with expanding its “Buy American” economic rescue plan.

“The one thing we can be absolutely certain about is that if a bill is passed which prohibits the sale or purchase of European goods on American territory, that is not something we will stand idly by and ignore,” European Commission trade spokesman Peter Power told journalists in Brussels.

On Thursday, the US House of Representatives approved an 819-billion-dollar stimulus package designed to jolt the country’s economy out of its worst recession since World War II. The package calls for investments in infrastructure, renewable energy, health, education and other sectors, together with sweeping tax cuts.

Positive business news San Francisco – Leading online retailer Amazon.com defied the poor economy in the fourth quarter, today posting a 9 per cent rise in profits and an 18 per cent spike in sales.

The Seattle, Washington-based company earned US$225 million in the quarter, or 52 cents a share, up from 207 million dollars a year earlier.

Revenue, in what the company had earlier described as its“best ever holiday season,”was $6.7 billion, easily surpassing Wall Street’s estimates of $6.44 billion in sales.Amazon said sales would have grown 24 per cent if not for an unfavourable currency exchange rate.

“We remain relentlessly focused on serving customers with low prices, great selection and free ship-

But alarm bells have rung in Europe over the bill’s plans to extend the so-called“Buy American”provision, originally enacted in 1933, to ban foreign-made iron and steel from most of the new infrastructure projects.

The legislation now moves to the US Senate and the Buy American provisions could yet be scrapped.

But a version of the text due to be discussed by the Senate next week goes further, barring all foreignmade goods from being used in all stimulus-funded initiatives.

US President Barack Obama, who has made the stimulus bill a cornerstone of his economic plans, has not commented specifically on the Buy American provisions. But he has said that its focus must be on creating more than 3 million jobs in the United States.

Power said that it was too early for the commis-

sion – the EU’s executive – to comment on the act as a whole, since it had not yet become law.

“Before we have the final shape of that particular bill it would be premature to take a stance on it,” he said.

The US and the EU are one another’s main trading partners, with trade flows topping 1.7 billion euros (US$2.25 billion) a day, according to commission figures.

However, they have regularly clashed over questions of trade barriers, with a string of cases pending in the World Trade Organization on issues ranging from a European ban on hormone-treated beef to US anti-dumping tariffs on French uranium.

According to the commission, the original Buy American act affected around 35 billion dollars’ worth of federal contracts in 2005.

– DPA

Children killed in police chase

ping offers, including Amazon Prime,”Jeff Bezos, founder and chief executive of Amazon. com, said in a statement.

The earnings report sent Amazon shares up 12 per cent to 56.70 dollars in after-hours trading.

Looking ahead, Amazon said it expects first-quarter revenue in the range of 4.52 billion dollars to 4.92 billion dollars, again above Wall Street’s expectation for sales of 4.54 billion dollars.

The boost in Amazon’s performance came in contrast to the earnings of Internet auctioneer eBay, which last week posted lower fourth- quarter sales and offered a weaker-than-expected outlook for the first quarter.

Los Angeles – Three boys, aged 14, 11 and 6, died Thursday night when they fled from police in a car chase that reached speeds of over 145 kilometres per hour, the Los Angeles Times reported today.

The car, which was being driven by the 14-year-old, ran several red lights on the streets of Fontana, some 80 kilometres east of Los Angeles,before the driver lost control and flipped over a garden wall.The driver and the 11-year-old front passenger were ejected from the car and died instantly.The 6-year-old boy was wearing a seat belt in the back seat and died later at a hospital.

The incident started when a California Highway Patrol officer pulled over the Nissan Maxima for running a red light on a Fontana street just before 9 pm Wednesday, but the driver sped off as the officer walked toward the car, the report said.

– DPA

– DPA

File

NZ$ now legal tender in Zimbabwe Johannesburg/Harare – President Robert Mugabe’s government has declared all foreign currencies to be legal tender, alongside the near-worthless Zimbabwe currency,legalising the domination of hard currency in the country’s collapsed economy.

The regime also introduced a wide range of economic reforms in an attempt to revitalise the crisis-stricken economy, where economists can only guess at the rate of hyperinflation, where the productive sector has foundered and the infrastructure is crumbling.

Acting-finance minister Patrick Chinamasa said as he delivered the national budget – delayed by two months while the country’s two main political rivals argued over the implementation of a transitional power-sharing agreement – that“it requires a paradigm shift in terms of acknowledging the reality that we cannot eat what we do not have.”

With the US dollar worth about 20 trillion Zimbabwe dollars, and prices changing often several times in a day, Zimbabwean businesses have increasingly resorted to charging in US dollars, South African Rand, Euros and Botswana Pula.

The government late last year licensed hard currency shops but individuals were still being arrested and prosecuted for dealing and possessing foreign currency.

“Government is allowing the use of multiple foreign currencies for business transactions, alongside the Zimbabwe dollar,” Chinamasa said to roars of approval in the house of assembly.

The stock exchange would be allowed to deal in any currencies, and insurance companies, local authorities, state-owned utilities and high schools would be allowed to charge in both Zimbabwe and hard currencies, he said.A range of taxes would also

be charged in foreign currency.

In an attempt to still growing industrial unrest in the civil service, Chinamasa said government employees would continue to be paid in Zimbabwe dollars, but would also receive a monthly allowance in US dollar terms – but paid in vouchers.

He said the vouchers were “an interim arrangement” and would be phased out gradually and replaced with foreign cash“in line with the improvement in foreign currency inflows.”

The budget’s estimates of state expenditure were given in Zimbabwe dollars, US dollars and South African Rand.When he detailed government expenditure for last year, MPs laughed as he gave figures in thousands of quintillions of Zimbabwe dollars.

He also announced that price controls – regarded as one of the main reasons for the rapid acceleration in the collapse of the economy last year – were scrapped with immediate effect, because of their “unintended consequences” of putting companies out of business, creating massive shortages and boosting hyperinflation.

Chinamasa also announced the end of a monopoly on the country’s grain trade by a state-owned company – which is seen as one of the main causes of decades of low grain production – and said with immediate effect milling companies could trade openly with farmers.

The controversial role of the central bank, with a declared policy of printing vast quantities of money and continually bailing out the government as it overspent, would “concentrate on its mandated policy by ensuring the stability of the financial sector.”

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SPORT

30 January 2008

11

Daniel rates limping Aussie ‘lions’

By Mark Geenty of NZPA

Sydney, Jan 30 – Captain Daniel Vettori sees a two-spin option and a batting elevation for Kyle Mills as New Zealand’s best chance of upsetting Australia after their Canberra cricketing jitters.

Depending on the pitch at Perth’s WACA ground for Sunday night’s Chappell-Hadlee Trophy opener, Vettori wants to bowl alongside offspinner Jeetan Patel and promote the big-hitting Mills to the key allrounder’s spot at No 7.

While it thins the batting,Vettori said it was the best solution to the balance headache in the crucial absence of allrounder Jacob Oram, as they look to play five frontline bowlers.

Bowling was the main focus as the tourists flew to Perth today, with Vettori and coach Andy Moles both fuming that they couldn’t defend 271 for five against Justin Langer’s Prime Minister’s 11 in Canberra.

They lost by six wickets with 13 balls to spare.

Vettori said young paceman Tim Southee would return after being rested yesterday, while Patel deserved his chance after taking two for 51 off 10 including a gem to remove test hopeful Phillip Hughes.

“I was really pleased with how Jeetan bowled

– obviously his last over went for a little bit – but he bowled well and he comes into play,”Vettori said.

“Even Perth, by all accounts it turns a little bit and sits in the wicket so we’ll look at that.

“Kyle Mills at seven hopefully works for and offers us a bit more balance with a full-strength bowling lineup.”

Senior paceman Mills conceded 36 off eight wicketless overs in Canberra but he was the most economical quick, with Iain O’Brien taking an expensive one for 48 off eight as he eyes just his second one-day international, and allrounder Grant Elliott conceding 32 off five.

Coach Moles was unimpressed by a “sub-par performance” by the bowlers and fielders, which included at least three dropped catches.

“It’s a bit of a wakeup call more than anything else.

We know we’re in for a tough tour, and we’ve spoken about it. It’s disappointing we didn’t show a little bit more fight in the field,collectively,and it’s disappointing that they need a wakeup call,”Moles said.

“We’re looking forward to getting to Perth and showing some spirit.”

Moles offered some excuse for the lethargic firstup effort due to the heat, with temperatures climbing to 37degC at a sweltering Manuka Oval.

The tourists went through a torrid three-hour session on Wednesday to acclimatise, but Moles warned it would get no easier with 35degC forecast for Perth on Sunday.

Vice-captain Brendon McCullum was Moles’ other concern despite his fighting 114 off 130 balls in Canberra. He would undergo intensive treatment on his hip flexor strain to try to pass him fit to keep wicket, otherwise backup Gareth Hopkins would come in to the top-six and either Neil Broom or Elliott would be in danger.

Vettori was also irked not to get a win in Canberra, both for the side’s confidence and momentum.They lost their opening tour match against New SouthWales last November before a heavy 0-2 test series defeat.

“Winning is such an important thing when you come to Australia. If you get off to a good start then you can ride it the whole time,”Vettori said.

“We wanted to win to go to Perth with a little bit of confidence, we didn’t get that so we’re going to have to manufacture that with our planning and our preparation.”

The final analysis on their opponents would start as soon as they landed in Perth, with the hotel televisions tuned to Australia’s fifth and final one day international against South Africa at the WACA.

CHAPPELL-HADLEE HISTORY Sydney, Jan 30 NZPA – History of the ChappellHadlee Trophy cricket series between New Zealand and Australia.

Played 11, NZ won 5, Aust won 5, no-result 1.

2004-05: NZ (247-6) won by 4 wickets, Melbourne Aust (261-7) won by 17 runs, Sydney (game three in Brisbane abandoned) 2005-06: Aust (252-8) won by 147 runs, Auckland Aust (322-5) won by 2 runs, Wellington NZ (332-8) won by 2 wickets, Christchurch 2006-07: NZ (149-0) won by 10 wickets, Wellington NZ (340-5) won by 5 wickets, Auckland NZ (350-9) won by 1 wicket, Hamilton 2007-08: Aust (255-3) won by 7 wickets, Adelaide Aust (282-6) won by 114 runs, Hobart (game two in Sydney, no-result).

– NZPA

Shield series nears climax “It’s a reflection on the qualify of surfaces we’ve been playing on, which has been excellent everyWellington, Jan 30 – The toss looms as crucial where. when a State Shield one-day cricket competition “And I’ve certainly noticed a big change in how that has been dominated by chasing teams reaches our first class cricketers go about chasing totals. its climax in Hamilton tomorrow.

“Six or seven years when I was playing, the skills Top qualifiers Northern Districts will start as of chasing were nowhere near as high.” favourites for the final against defending champions Bradburn said Twenty20 cricket’s growing influOtago, whose batting ranks have been plundered by ence meant batsmen were no longer fearful of letting the New Zealand selectors. a required run rate creep up to eight or 10 an over.

However, the odds could swing if Otago win the And the advent of power plays also meant batstoss and, almost certainly, choose to bowl first at men were thinking more about where their“hitting Seddon Park. zones”lay and making best use of them.

Of the 29 games completed this summer, 23 have Captain James Marshall has won the toss in been won by the side batting second, a record which Northern’s last seven games and if that continues is reflected in the fortunes of both finalists. he is sure to insert the visitors, even though those Northern have only batted first twice and have tactics backfired for the first time in their narrow lost both of them while they have won seven from loss to Canterbury at Hamilton last Sunday – a eight when chasing. All of Otago’s four losses have match that yielded 543 runs. come when they’ve set a target.

Northern came up five runs short despite red-hot The statistics are no surprise to Northern coach wicketkeeper Peter McGlashan and rising talent Grant Bradburn.

Kane Williamson both scoring centuries and com“It’s what we do best and chasing seems to be the piling a New Zealand domestic record sixth-wicket preferred approach right throughout the country,” stand of 192.

Bradburn told NZPA. “The pleasing thing for us this year is is that difBy Daniel Gilhooly of NZPA

ferent people have stepped up to the plate at different times,”Bradburn said.

“Everyone has worked hard and we haven’t relied solely on one or two matchwinners.

“This week we’ve tried to keep the lid on the pot so the boys don’t get too overawed by the occasion.”

Spinner Bruce Martin returns after two weeks sidelined with a knee injury while Bradburn hopes seamers Brent Arnel and Joseph Yovich continue impressive seasons in the absence of new international paceman Trent Boult.

Yovich took three wickets in both matches against Otago this season, both achieved by batting second.They won by nine wickets at Alexandra a month ago and by three wickets in Whangarei two weeks later.

Bradburn agreed Otago presented a greater threat with the ball than the bat now that the southerners’captain and prodigious runscorer Craig Cumming has been called into the New Zealand team as injury cover. Averaging more than 70 this summer, he joins provincial teammates Neil Broom and Brendon McCullum in Australia.

It leaves Greg Todd as Otago’s leading runscorer in action tomorrow with 224 runs this season – a

figure that has been eclipsed by six Northern batsmen.

“Without a doubt, Otago have relied heavily on the season Craig is having and also Neil and Brendon have chipped in,”Bradburn said.

“They’re lost a big chunk of their runs but nonetheless they’ll be a huge force on Saturday.

“They’re reigning champions so they know how to win finals and they’ve got a bowling attack full of firepower.”

Left-arm pace man Neil Wagner tops the State Shield lists for wickets and bowling averages, with 23 at 16.2.

Experienced seamer Warren McSkimming is second for both average (17.6) and economy rate (3.82), headed only by teammate Dimitri Mascarenhas (3.45) in the latter category.

The Otago attack shredded Canterbury for 86 in Wednesday’s semifinal in Christchurch, in the process sheltering their inexperienced batting lineup.

Victory for Northern tomorrow would be their first one-day title since 2004-05 and their fifth in 14 years.

Otago, who ended a 20-year drought last year, are seeking their third title.

Team NZ make winning start

By Robert Lowe of NZPA

Auckland, Jan 30 – Team New Zealand made a winning start to yachting’s Louis Vuitton Pacific Series off Auckland, getting rid of some opening day nerves as they beat Damiani Italia without too many alarms.

But the fledgling Greek Challenge, skippered

by New Zealander Gavin Brady, had a forgettable introduction to the regatta, which is being raced in America’s Cup yachts.

They went down to cup holders Alinghi by two minutes two seconds in a contest in which the crews were sailing two Team NZ boats.

Rather than getting no points, like the other race losers, the Greek Challenge were docked a point that left them at the foot of the table on minus one.

With regatta organisers wary of the disruption that would be caused by losing any of the four boats provided, the Greeks were penalised for causing “hard contact” after a collision in the pre-start manoeuvres.

Team NZ operations manager Kevin Shoebridge said there had been damage to both NZL84 and

NZL92, but not enough to prevent them from being back on the water tomorrow.

There wasn’t the same drama in Team NZ’s race with Damiani, sailed in American syndicate Oracle’s boats in winds of 12 to 18 knots and a strong current.

Skipper Dean Barker and his crew won the start, getting the favoured right-hand side of the line.

They were never headed on the way to a 22-second victory, although the Italians got a windshift on the second beat to close to a boat length,before Team NZ opened out the margin again on the run home.

Barker was pleased to get back into racing mode again.

“It’s good to get rid of a few nerves,”he said.

“When you finally get into the racing, the first day is really hard.You know you’re reasonably prepared but there’s always things you can’t control.”

Damiani skipper Vasco Vascotto drew confidence from the way his largely new crew had been able to hang in after losing the start.

“What is really nice is that we stayed in the match against what I think is the best crew in the fleet,” he said.

“We had a shift on the second beat but they just

crossed in front. Overall, they did a good job NZPA from start to finish and it was the correct result.”

Tomorrow,Team NZ face Oracle in the biggest match-up of the regatta’s first roundrobin, which runs through until the end of Tu esday.

That clash will pit Barker against compatriot Russell Coutts, who were the respective skippers when Team NZ lost the America’s Cup to Alinghi in 2003.

In other races today, Britain’s Team Origin ended up easy winners over Italian rivals Luna Rossa.

Origin, skippered by three-time Olympic gold medallist and former Team NZ member Ben Ainslie, led from start to finish.

Luna Ross made a fight of it on the second windward leg, getting a windshift to close to within a couple of boat lengths.

But Origin won the ensuing tacking duel and cleared cate making a good start, but being hit by a penalty away on the run home, crossing 1min 5sec clear. at the first rounding of the top mark.

In the regatta’s opening race, France’s K-ChalOracle and South Africa’s Team Shosholoza had lenge downed Team China, with the Chinese syndi- byes.

SPORT

12

30 January 2009

Super bowl special preview Samoa’s super bowl superstar:Troy Polamalu

ICON

defensive success; the Steelers’ability to find defensive players has been remarkable. But Polamalu is the constant, the passion behind it all, the ferocious TAMPA, Fla. – The young man speaks softly, so hitter who makes it treacherous for receivers to run softly you would not be able to hear him without the over the middle, the quick thinker who gets quartermicrophone that someone adjusts in front of him. backs to second-guess themselves, the big-play guy The young man likes to plant flowers; he finds peace who scored a touchdown in the AFC championship when he’s digging in the dirt.The young man likes to game against Baltimore. play the piano; the music grants him a few moments He plays with a force of will. People often ask him of tranquillity. He reads the Bible often. why he is so different on the field compared with off.

The young man is at the heart of a story he never It just seems impossible that this quiet young man thinks about. was the same guy who in the AFC championship Here’s the story: On April 26, 2003, the Kansas game leaped over the offensive line and pulled the City Chiefs had the 16th pick in the NFL draft.The quarterback down by Chiefs had just finished one of the oddest seasons in his neck.

ICON the history of professional football.They had led the But he doesn’t see the NFL in scoring – the whole NFL.They had scored difference. He thinks the 121 more points than the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, question is flawed.“I’m who won the Super Bowl. They had scored more very passionate with points than the Dallas Cowboys and Houston Tex- my wife and my family,” ans combined.That’s not all.They had lost only two he says.“To me, football fumbles the whole season.That’s an NFL record. is no different. If it was How many victories would you expect from a ballet, it would be the team that scores more points than any other team same thing.” and loses just two fumbles? Well, the Chiefs did He smiles: “It’s just not win that many.They won eight games and lost that football is a contact eight games. No team has ever done so little with sport. The difference so much. between a big hitter How did the Chiefs pull that off? Easy. They and a hitter is that a big played terrible defence all year long. The Chiefs’ hitter, if you tell him to offense scored 38 in New England; the defence hit a brick wall, he goes gave up 41.The offense scored 34 at San Diego; the through it. A hitter, he defence gave up 35.The Chiefs lost 37-34 to Denver just brushes against it.” at home and 39-32 up in Seattle.There were no mysteries.The Chiefs had to improve that defence.

ARIZONA CARDINALS So there they were with the 16th pick in the NFL PITTSBURGH STEELERS draft. And Chiefs general manager Carl Peterson Sunday, Feb. 1, 2009 So you’re not a football junkie, but you’re going to and his coach Dick Vermeil looked closely at the Raymond James Stadium, Tampa, Florida watch the Super Bowl anyway. Here’s a look at who’s board – and they simply did not see a defensive running around and what they’re trying to do: player worth taking in that spot. Not one.“I would OFFENSE DEFENSE have gone defence,”Vermeil said afterward.“Yeah.

But I understand the process.”

Controls the movement Tries to stop the offense from of the ball, attempts to score with scoring by tackling offensive So when the Pittsburgh Steelers called and said either touchdowns or field goals players or causing them to lose they wanted to trade up into the Chiefs’ slot – the control of the ball (called Steelers had the 29th pick overall – well, the Chiefs 1. Quarterback turnovers) Team leader; high profile, were thrilled.They could trade down and get a lit8. Defensive ends initiates most plays tle bit extra for the effort. They happily made the Two; line up on the defensive line; 2. Center responsible for containing the trade. And with the Steelers’ pick, they took runLines up over ball in the outside running game and rushing ning back Larry Johnson, who has had his great center of the offensive line; the quarterback; a successful rush moments and his awful moments but, of course, snaps ball to quarterback to results in a sack begin most plays does not play defence.

9 9. Defensive tackle The Steelers, using the Chiefs’ pick, selected the One or two; line up on the 3. Guards quiet young man who was behind the microphone. defensive line; responsible for Two; line up on each side stopping the offensive charge of the center The quiet young man, of course, is Steelers safety Troy Polamalu, the Samoan who might be the best 4 10. Linebackers 4. Tackles Line up 2 to 3 yards in back of the defensive player in the NFL. Two; line up outside the guards tackles and ends; responsible for You can always look back in the draft and find stopping the run and covering 5. Wide receivers mistakes, of course. Still, it’s hard to understand receivers on passing plays; Line up 10 to 15 yards wide why the Chiefs, who were in such desperate need of occasionally rush the quarterback of the offensive line; receive passes thrown by quarterback a big-play defender, missed Polamalu. He wasn’t 11. Cornerbacks exactly a hidden talent. He was a big-play defensive Usually two; line up opposite 6. Running backs wide receivers; responsible for back at Southern California – an All-American, the Line up behind quarterback in the covering receivers and providing backfield; run with ball, block and team MVP one year and so on. He was, the scouts support in stopping the running THE PLAYERS receive passes from quarterback said, the best safety coming out of college, the biggame 11 per team on the gest hitter, the most ferocious force.And, of course, 7. Tight end 12. Safeties field at one time Lines up just outside the tackle his intangibles – what NFL scouts call things like Usually two; line up 8 to 10 yards Kicker from line of scrimmage; attitude, leadership, intelligence, focus – were off Punter responsible for providing support the charts. Everyone who was ever around Troy SPECIAL TEAMS in pass coverage Polamalu loved the guy.

Responsible for kicking a THE GAME The Steelers’leadership saw that clearly. Polamalu ball or returning a kicked • Field-goal attempt Try to ball from the other team was the one player in the draft who they had to score 3 points by kicking the have.That’s why they traded up.They were scared • Kick returns After a kick or ball between the uprights punt, receiving team tries to to death of missing out on him. catch the ball and advance it And since Polamalu became a starter for Pitts• Extra points Points after • Goal Gain possession as far as possible toward the • Time Four touchdown; one point for of the ball, run or pass it burgh in 2004, the Steelers have led the NFL in • Organization Each opposite end zone 15-minute kicking the ball between to the end zone to score team has offensive defence three times.They have given up, on average quarters, with a uprights; two points for running • Kickoffs Start the game, a touchdown (6 points); and defensive 12-minute over those five years, just a shade more than 16 or passing into endzone the second half and play team with most points players, as well as halftime*; each after scores points per game.They have made the playoffs four wins specialists who kick • Punt Offensive team tries to pin the ball team gets three times. This is their second Super Bowl. Polamalu in defensive team’s end of the field timeouts per half © 2009 MCT Source: National Football League has made the Pro Bowl every year.

Graphic: Tim Goheen and Lee Hulteng *Halftime during Super Bowl 30 minutes Of course, Polamalu is only a part of the Steelers’

By Joe Posnanski McClatchy Newspapers

Football basics

WEEKEND

30 January 2008

13

TV & Film

Valkryie

0Cast: Tom Cruise, Tom Wilkinson, Kenneth Branagh, Terence Stamp 0Director: Bryan Singer 0Length: 120 minutes 0Rated: M ( for offensive language & sexual references )

Gran Torino

0Cast: Clint Eastwood, Bee Vang, Ahney Her 0Director: Clint Eastwood 0Length: 117 minutes 0Rated: R16 (for violence & offensive language) Harry Callahan would respect Walt Kowalski. Both men look at life through eyes narrowed in suspicion, both know their way around firearms, and both take no lip from punks. In fact, if Dirty Harry were an auto worker in Detroit rather than a cop in San Francisco, he might have wound up just like Walt, living out his widowed retirement years in a meticulously maintained home, watching the neighbourhood decay around him and snarling at the local Asian street gangs,“Get off of my lawn.”

Walt is the latest character in Clint Eastwood’s portrait gallery, a flinty, unapologetically racist Korean War vet who is not afraid to brandish his Army-issue M-1 Garand rifle or Colt .45 when the situation requires it. He enters Gran Torino as an antihero, rasping profanities at his thoughtless adult children, his parish priest, his Hmong neighbours and the modern world in general.

He’s defined by the ‘72 Ford coupe he helped build and keeps in immaculate repair in his garage. The Gran Torino is no classic, but it’s a sweet metaphor, representing a time when America was on top.The

Big Three looked at competitors from Japan with Walt begins spending time with his new neighbours, disdain for their fussy quality control and wimpy warming to them.He takes timidThao under his wing efficiency.We built things for ourselves, even if they and enjoys bantering with Sue, who bats away Walt’s were engineered for obsolescence. As Archie and racist epithets with spunk and sass. Then they are Edith Bunker used to sing,“Those were the days.” forced into a confrontation that puts to the testWalt’s In Gran Torino,Walt sits on his porch with his dog history of violence,his newfound sense of loyalty to his and a cooler of beer, glaring at a changed world. He neighbours and his sense of moral responsibility. doesn’t like the Hmong immigrants who have moved Eastwood directs the film with his usual solid, noin.Perhaps they remind him of his wartime experiences, fuss craftsmanship, sketching the characters ecowhere he won a Silver Star nomically, cranking up the for battlefield actions that dramatic urgency and also Like many latestill haunt him half a centossing off good laughs.The period Eastwood tury after the fact. Like script, by Nick Schenk, many late-period East- characters, Walt is a appears to be moving down wood characters,Walt is critique of the violent the formula assembly line a critique of the violent to a predictable conclusion, characters Eastwood characters Eastwood but there are twists in store. played in the 1960s – the played in the 1960s – the Eastwood has no patience ManWith No Name with for easy conventions. The second thoughts. He has Man With No Name with stunning payoff is one of traded blood for blood in second thoughts those inspirations that feels the past, although he has inevitable in retrospect but misgivings about what he has done. completely fresh and unexpected in the moment. If Slowly, unwillingly,Walt is drawn into the life of you see it coming, your vision is better than mine. the family next door when teenage Thao (Bee Vang) Eastwood’s second film this year is a compelling and his older sister Sue (Ahney Her) run afoul of study of anger and violence and the guilt and shame local hoodlums.Walt stands up for Sue in a sidewalk that shadow them. He has sat high in the saddle for confrontation, facing off against a gang of young decades, but rarely has he ridden so tall as in the thugs and staring them down with sheer ice-cold driver’s seat of Gran Torino. bravado. He straightens out Thao when the kid is Watch the trailer pressured by gangbangers to steal Walt’s car.

– By Colin Covert

The idea of Tom Cruise wearing an eye patch and a Nazi costume sounds like someone’s idea of a bad Halloween party joke. But one of the many surprises of the new thriller Valkyrie is that it allows the actor, whose off-screen persona tends to overshadow his on-screen efforts, to disappear a bit inside the kind of old-fashioned theatrical get-up that Laurence Olivier might have exploited to the hilt.

Cruise doesn’t quite have the gravitas to pull off this very tricky part – a German officer during World War II who leads a plot to overthrow Hitler – but he also doesn’t try to hog the spotlight or oversell the audience on his charm, the way he has in a number of recent efforts, like Tropic Thunder and Lions for Lambs. He blends into an excellently cast ensemble; and he modulates his performance to the tense, low-boil rhythms of the storytelling.

The actor plays Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, a real-life figure who was maimed and partly blinded in Tunisia in 1943. Upon his return to Germany, his disillusionment with Nazism became so pronounced that he joined forces with a number of members of the underground resistance – played here by the likes of Bill Nighy, Kenneth Branagh and Terence Stamp – to fashion an elaborate plot that will use Hitler’s reserve army to turn against the rest of the army and take control of Berlin.

The only wrinkle: In order for the plot to succeed, Hitler must be assassinated.

For its first 45 minutes, Valkyrie (the title refers to Hitler’s contingency plan in the event of a coup – a plan that Stauffenberg and company try to manipulate to their own benefit) is a bit of slog. Screenwriters Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander introduce the major players and try to keep us abreast of everyone’s shifting alliances. (Tom Wilkinson and Eddie Izzard play generals who alternately support the conspiracists and betray them.) But unless you have an advanced degree in European history, you’re likely to find yourself a bit lost.

Stick with it. Because even if you never fully understand everything that’s going on in Valkyrie, the movie reveals itself to be a taut, gripping procedural – not to mention a strangely poignant portrait of a madly quixotic group of men who refuse to go down without a fight.

Director Bryan Singer (who also collaborated with McQuarrie on The Usual Suspects) takes an unfussy, just-the-facts-ma’am approach – so that when his familiar stylistic flourishes do occasionally emerge, they take your breath away. (Watch out for a stunningly beautiful shot of an out-of-focus Carice van Houten, who plays Stauffenberg’s wife, running back into focus in order to kiss her husband goodbye.) The last section of the film is mesmerizing, especially if you don’t already know the real-life history of the coup attempt (and provided you don’t mind the filmmakers stretching the truth a little for the sake of good melodrama).

And while Cruise never fully captures what makes his tortured character tick, the movie ultimately functions as an intriguing metaphor for the star’s place in the Hollywood cosmos: Stauffenberg – much like the actor playing him – is a man so used to being in control of things that, when all starts to fall apart and his acolytes begin to turn against him, he takes it as a personal affront. He keeps on fighting, too, determined to reclaim his place at the top, even as all evidence would suggest that his future is doomed.

In the end, Cruise’s presence helps transform this history lesson into a very unique cautionary tale: It’s the tragedy of a man whose hubris was inextricable from his glory.

Watch the trailer

– By Christopher Kelly

REVIEWS

14

30 January 2009

Music

As Holly fans from around the world converge on Iowa’s Surf Ballroom to remember his death in a plane crash 50 years ago, the little-known story of the bus breakdown and the rest of the gruelling tour is worth telling to understand why Holly chartered the airplane at Mason City two nights later.

The day before the music died

By Pamela Huey Star Tribune

DULUTHa, Minnesota. – The rickety old bus pulled out of the Duluth Armoury late on Saturday, Jan. 31, 1959, and headed across St. Louis Bay into the frigid Wisconsin night.

On board were some exhausted and stinky rock ‘n’ rollers and their harried manager.The Winter Dance Party tour had just finished its ninth gig in as many days and was headed for two shows that Sunday.

But as the temperature plunged to around 30C below zero and the wind howled,fate intervened.The southbound bus creaked to a stop as it struggled up an incline on Hwy. 51 about 16 km south of Hurley.

Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, Ritchie Valens,Waylon Jennings, Dion and the others were stranded on a remote highway in the northern Wisconsin forest. They huddled under blankets and burned newspapers to try to stay warm. Buddy’s drummer nursed painful frostbitten feet.

It was the night the music almost died.

As Holly fans from around the world converge on Iowa’s Surf Ballroom to remember his death in

a plane crash 50 years ago, the little-known story of the bus breakdown and the rest of the gruelling tour is worth telling to understand why Holly chartered the airplane at Mason City two nights later.

One of the nation’s most famous rock ‘n’roll stars, Holly had reluctantly signed onto the tour because he needed the money. But after 11 days of touring, he was tired – tired of the endless miles on frozen buses, tired of performing in dirty clothes, tired of bickering with his manager in Clovis, New Mexico, and tired of sleeping sitting up.

By all accounts, the rockers gave a rousing performance in Clear Lake on Feb. 2, 1959. But rather than ride that cold bus 500 km to Moorhead,Holly,J.P. (the Big Bopper) Richardson andValens climbed into a single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza that crashed into a cornfield in a snowstorm just after take-off.

The story is legend – made more famous by Don McLean’s ‘70s song “American Pie.” Not so well known is what some call the “Tour From Hell.”

The midwinter tour was particularly difficult for Texans Holly and his reconstituted Crickets, and for Valens, a Southern California boy who hadn’t taken a winter coat.

“It was so cold on the bus that we’d have to wear all our clothes, coats and everything. ... I couldn’t believe how cold it was,”wrote Jennings, who played bass for Holly on the tour.The original Crickets were back in Texas.

General Artists Corp. had organized the tour with no thought to geographic sanity.

“They didn’t care,” says Holly historian Bill Griggs.“It was like they threw darts at a map.”

Griggs estimates they had five different buses before driving into Clear Lake – “reconditioned school buses, not good enough for school kids.”

The tour started in Milwaukee on Friday,Jan.23.It then zig-zagged acrossWisconsin,Minnesota and Iowa.

There were no roadies to set up and pack up,and only icy two-lane highways to get from town to town.

At the Jan. 27 show at the Fiesta Ballroom in Montevideo in western Minnesota, young fans excitedly crowded the stage.All the shows were drawing large, enthusiastic crowds.

Bob Bunn, who played with a local band called the Rockin’Rebels, wanted Holly to sign his guitar.

After the show, he drove to the Highway Cafe, where the singers had gone to eat. Bunn greeted Holly.

“Is it always this damn cold in Minnesota?”Holly asked.

“No,”Bunn replied.“It gets a lot colder.”

On Jan. 31, the tour made its second-longest haul – 590 km from Fort Dodge, Iowa, to Duluth. Bob Dylan,then a high schooler from Hibbing,Minn.,has told the story of making eye contact with Holly.“He was great.He was incredible.I mean,I’ll never forget the image of seeing Buddy Holly up on the bandstand,”he told Rolling Stone magazine in 1984.

The Duluth show ran until about 11 p.m. The balky bus had been kept in the Armoury basement to stay warm.Tour members packed up and headed into the brutally cold night.

Tommy Allsup, the Crickets’lead guitar, has vivid memories of that next unscheduled stop.

“We had started up this incline,it was snowing real bad, and the bus just started going slower and slower, and the lights got dimmer and dimmer, and all of a sudden the bus stopped,”Allsup recalls.“The driver said, ‘The bus is frozen.’... It was so cold, and we were just sitting there right in the middle of the road.Everybody started thinking we were about to freeze to death.”

Dion’s Belmonts started lighting newspapers to generate some warmth. Holly drummer Carl Bunch was in pain and having difficulty moving his legs.Allsup looked at Bunch’s feet; they had turned brown.

Suddenly they saw headlights in the distance. A sheriff’s deputy, alerted by a passing trucker, sized up the dire situation and got four cars to take the musicians to Hurley. He also got Bunch to the hospital, where the drummer would learn two days later about the plane crash.

Gene Calvetti, now 85, towed the bus to his dad’s garage. He recalls arriving at the scene to find the guys“complaining about the cold and scared of bears.”

He also remembers the bus engine“was shot.”

The musicians ended up at the Club Carnival in Hurley to get something to eat. Some went to a hotel to get a short night’s rest.The next day, they headed to Green Bay by train and Greyhound bus; the Appleton show was cancelled.

Monday, Feb. 2, was supposed to be an off-day. But at the last minute, Clear Lake was booked. So it was back on the bus for the 575 km trip.

Cold wasn’t the only discomfort.

“We tried to hang our wrinkled suits in the aisle, and after a while, it got kind of ripe in there. We smelled like goats,”Jennings wrote.

But the awful conditions also sparked camaraderie, story-telling and jamming on the bus.

Dion described in his autobiography how he and Holly huddled under blankets.“Through the dark hours while we waited for something to happen, we would tell each other stories. Him, about Lubbock.

Me, about the Bronx. I could always get a laugh out of him – soft and low like his drawl.”

John Mueller, who plays Holly in a travelling road show called“Winter Dance Party,”has a unique insight into what the ‘50s performers endured. In 1999, Mueller and the other musicians tried to replicate the ‘59 tour, performing at all the original venues – but travelling in warm, comfortable minivans.“By the time we got to Clear Lake, I had lost my voice, I had lost about 10 to 15 pounds, I was just physically exhausted, as was everybody in the group,”he said.

Holly historian Griggs thinks the Wisconsin bus breakdown was the last straw:“Buddy had his mind made up then. He thought,‘I don’t want to go another 400 miles on this bus.’”

As every Holly aficionado knows,Allsup and Jennings were supposed to be on the plane. But they gave up their seats to Valens (who won a coin toss with Allsup) and the Bopper (who was sick).

When Buddy learned that Jennings’seat had gone to the Bopper, he approached his bass player, who was haunted for years by their next exchange.

“Well,”Holly said with a grin.“I hope your damned bus freezes up again.”

“Well, I hope your ol’ plane crashes,” Jennings responded.

Holly headed for the plane, and the bus headed for Moorhead.

Watch Buddy Holly perform Peggy Sue live Watch Weezer’s tribute to Buddy Holly

REVIEWS

30 January 2008

NEW CD RELEASES

15

Books

Animal Collective

0Merriweather Post Pavilion 0Domino It’s the dead of winter, less than month into 2009, but the Baltimore-Brooklyn indie art-pop duo Animal Collective has already released the best summertime song of the year. OK, that’s a ridiculous thing to say, but “Summertime Clothes,”the swirling, chiming, slamming, off-kilter love song that’s a high point of“Merriweather Post Pavilion,” is ridiculously good. (The album, by the way, is named for a storied Maryland amphitheater.)

This is the ninth album by the duo of Avey Tare (Dave Portner) and Panda Bear (Noah Lennox), and it’s the best – and rarest – kind of breakthrough in that it keeps the band’s trademark laptop-generated weirdness intact while surrounding gurgling experiments like“Bluish”with delectable melodies, and bringing off Beach Boys-suffused exotica such as “Brother Sport”with a mischievous wink and a warm heart.

Three French memoirs, all wonderful Tokyo Fiancee

0By Amelie Nothomb, translated by Alison Anderson 0Europa (US$11.70 via Amazon)

– Dan DeLuca

Pat Dinizio

The Mystery Guest

0Pat Dinizio/Buddy Holly 0Koch Records

0By Gregoire Bouillier, translated by Lorin Stein; 0Farrar, Straus & Giroux (US$10.36 via Amazon)

On Feb. 3, it will be 50 years since the “day the music died,”when the airplane carrying Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens fatally crashed in Clear Lake, Iowa.

Among the countless musicians influenced by Holly’s music is Smithereens frontman Pat Dinizio, who revisits some favourites here.

It’s not a Gary Busey imitation job. Instead, Dinizio builds the arrangements around a bassguitar-drums band and lots of strings.

The combination shines on the opening “Words of Love,” with the string ensemble, twangy guitar and light percussion melding into something that’s sweet and catchy.

Even for those familiar with Holly’s music, the revelation is how powerful these simple songs remain.

That’s apparent, even in the moments when the strings sound ponderous, such as the heavy-handed “Peggy Sue.”Mostly, however, Dinizio’s tribute is a good one.

– Jim Abbott

The Bird And The Bee

0Ray Guns Are Not Just the Future 0Blue Note Records If you put a hiphop beat to Natalie Merchant’s music, it might come close to The Bird and the Bee, the LA duo of singer Inara George and keyboardist Greg Kurstin.

The 14 songs on “Ray Guns Are Not Just the Future”floats like a feather in the breeze, brushing against tropical breezes and kitschy but fun retro excursions.“Diamond Dave,” an ode to David Lee Roth, is a captivating organ-powered lounge tune.

There’s similar good humour throughout. Just add martini and enjoy.

– Jim Abbott

The Possession

0By Annie Ernaux, translated by Anna Moschovakis 0Seven Stories (US$9.56 via Amazon) Behold three French memoirs. Short, read-them-onthe-train affairs.All three also are quite wonderful, indicating current directions in literature written in French. And two have a virtue we don’t always associate with that literature: humor!

To be sure, French memoirist Annie Ernaux’s The Possession is serious, both right-now and in a traditional French-modern vein. But The Mystery Guest by Algerian-born (now Parisian) Gregoire Bouillier is a postmodern smilefest. And – discovery! – Belgian writer Nothomb’s Tokyo Fiancee is thoroughly delightful, a true find, an open-hearted comic romp.

Literature in French is full of comic masters, from Rabelais to Moliere to Voltaire and so on. But Camus and Sartre weren’t real laughmeisters, and the postmodernists (until now, at least) haven’t exactly set the house roaring.

So it’s great to find oneself sniggering at the sadsack protagonist self-portrait in The Mystery Guest as he tries and fails to make sense of, well, anything in his life.There’s an old girlfriend, a party, a bottle of champagne – each one, together and apart, bamboozles him. It’s an associational, thinking-to-himself book, but at a certain magical point you find you have been smiling for about an hour.

At the very end, he lets us know that sometimes it’s fun to be clueless:“ ... I burst out laughing. I saw stars, and it felt as though I was the one who’d been granted a special dispensation.And I no longer knew what to think. It was all beyond me.”

That feeling – that everything is always beyond us – permeates The Mystery Guest. He both knows and doesn’t know that the joke – tonight, next year, forever – is always on him. And that’s both a pain and a laugh.

Nothomb laughs a great deal in her memoir novel, infectiously. But helplessness is not the theme. Her protagonist-self is a woman who believes she can do anything, whose alter ego is Zarathustra, who climbs mountains at Mach speed and conquers Japanese language and culture with kooky aplomb.

You have to love her openness about her preju-

dices and shortcomings, as when she meets an American woman:“... though I despised simplistic anti-Americanism, I thought that to forbid myself from hating this girl because she was American would in fact constitute an unspeakable form of simplistic anti-Americanism: I indulged, therefore, in pure and simple loathing.”

True, in Japan (where Nothomb was born) she gets engaged against her will and must break it off and return to Belgium.Yet this is hardly tragic – it was all a mistake from the start.

One of the smartest, happiest, most hopeful passages I’ve read recently is Nothomb’s graceful discussion of what she felt for her Japanese boyfriend, Rinri. She decides it’s not ai (love) but koi (finding someone to your liking). While love is destructive, koi is wonderful:“I was always overjoyed to see him.

I felt friendship for him, and tenderness. But when he wasn’t there, I did not miss him.”And that, she thinks, is fabulous:“koi was ravishing, so light, fluid, fresh and devoid of seriousness. Koi was elegant, playful, funny, civilized.”

I’m excited about encountering Nothomb. She finds everything fascinating, and she takes us along an electric current of perception.

All three books ride a current very strong at the moment.What to call it? Emotional memoir? Experiential novel? Authors seek to blur borders between memoir (“true stories of what happened to me”) and imaginative literature (making the truth into “something else,” whatever that may be). Authors are exploring ways to tell tales from their own lives through imagination, not through facile truth fiction distinctions.

Ernaux does this by taking her experience – of losing her lover to another woman, with whom she becomes obsessed – absolutely, existentially, seriously. Her quest is to be exact, formulate apercus in the French tradition, encapsulate her agony and ordeal in polished sentences. The result is a prose both distanced and passionate:“That ... he would choose a woman of forty-seven was intolerable to me. I saw in this choice the clear proof that he had loved me not as the singular being I’d believed I was in his eyes. ... I realized that I was an interchangeable part in a series.”

It’s compelling; I can’t say it’s totally without self-pity, because self-pity is part of the tale and it would have been a lie to leave it out.The real drama, however, the true theatre, is the writer’s fierce search for the sum of her obsession.

Or you could laugh. Bouillier’s self-hero learns that one of the scriptwriters for the film Die Hard has been hired to help the U.S. Army create war strategy:“(I)f I understood correctly, fiction was being called to the official aid and reinforcement and rescue of real life, as if real life weren’t always fiction in the first place.”

Bouillier’s flummoxed humility, Ernaux’s austere clarity, and Nothomb’s irrepressible glee (even when it nearly gets her killed) – these suggest much that can happen in a short book, and much that’s happening right now in literature written in French.

It’s pretty great.

– By John Timpane

The brief, tormented life of Edgar Allan Poe Poe: A Life Cut Short

0By Peter Ackroyd 0Nan A. Talese/Doubleday ($21.95) Nearly 160 years after his miserable life ended, Edgar Allan Poe’s imagination is still beating strong beneath the floorboards of American culture. The NFL’s Baltimore Ravens are named for his naysaying bird, and an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants paid homage to his Tell-Tale Heart.

Poe was a literary writer ne plus ultra, a hero to Verlaine and Baudelaire, an avatar to Romantics, Symbolists and Surrealists.

But he is also a giant precursor to today’s genre writing: the acknowledged father of the detective story, thanks to his story The Murders in the Rue Morgue; the godfather of American horror writing and filmmaking (take a bow,Vincent Price); and a kindly uncle to science-fiction tradition, thanks to his hoax stories and his influence on H.G.Wells and Jules Verne.

He was also an orphan, a West Point dropout, an alcoholic and a mopey, touchy, quarrelsome hothead.

The masterful English biographer and novelist Peter Ackroyd strives to make sense of both Poe’s great work and sad existence in this succinct addition to his “Brief Lives” series. Ackroyd also acknowledges that some Poe conundrums will never be solved, including how he came to be found dazed and incoherent in a Baltimore tavern at the end of his life.

Poe’s father abandoned him, and his mother died of tuberculosis when he was two.Ackroyd quotes a prescient couplet Poe wrote as a youth:“I could not love except where Death/Was mingling his with Beauty’s breath.”

He married a young cousin, Virginia Clemm, and often lived with her and her mother, Maria, moving from house to boarding house to city as their poverty and his heavy drinking ebbed and flowed.

In a time when prestigious English writing could be appropriated here without fee or copyright concern, Poe “was one of the first truly professional writers in American literary history, but he was in a marketplace where no one came to buy,”Ackroyd writes.

Poe also hurt himself professionally and personally with intemperate letters and articles.“He was like a cuttlefish floundering in its own ink,”Ackroyd says.

Yet as messy as he made his life, he crafted one mesmerizing piece after another, including his signature poem The Raven, the terrifying The Fall of the House of Usher and the gorgeous sound-poem The Bells.

To paraphrase Ackroyd, the orphan found his true family after he died, in the enduring respect of other writers, especially in England and France.

– By Jim Higgins

HEALTH

16

30 January 2009

Plastic toxin lingers in body

By Susanne Rust and Meg Kissinger

A study released this week finds that bisphenol A, a chemical widely used to make plastic and suspected of causing cancer, stays in the body much longer than previously thought.

The findings are significant because the longer the chemical lingers in the body, the greater chance it has of doing harm, scientists say.

Researchers from the University of Rochester in New York also say the chemical may get into the body from sources such as plastic water pipes or dust from carbonless paper and not only from food containers that leach the chemical when heated.

The study results, published Thursday in Environmental Health Perspectives, have sparked a flurry of concern and renewed calls for regulation.

“The study reinforces the urgent need for stricter government oversight and regulation of this extremely toxic chemical,” said Janet Nudelman, director of program and policy at the Breast Cancer Fund, a health advocacy group.“It adds to what we already know about BPA, a chemical so powerful

that at extremely low levels – parts per billion or even parts per trillion – it can cross the placenta and alter the mammary gland of the developing fetus, increasing breast cancer risk later in life.”

BPA, used to make baby bottles, dental sealants, food storage containers and thousands of other household products, was found in 93 percent of people tested.

The new study, conducted by Richard Stahlhut at the University of Rochester, used data on humans collected by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Researchers looked at urine samples of 1,469 U.S. adults.They compared the levels of BPA based on how long the subjects had fasted.

The American Chemistry Council, which represents makers of BPA, maintains that the chemical is safe for all uses. Steven Hentges, spokesman for the trade group, dismissed the study as inherently limited.

“The authors’ conclusions are, at best, speculation,”Hentges said.“Low levels of BPA found in the data are not a risk to human health.”

BPA has been linked to spikes in breast cancer,

diabetes and heart disease, even at very low levels. It has also been found to interfere with chemotherapy in breast cancer patients.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel had 10 household products tested and found toxic levels of BPA leaching from all of them.

Canada declared BPA to be a toxin and banned its use in baby bottles last year. In the United States, 14 states are considering similar action.

Federal regulators have been divided on the issue.

A group of scientists from the National Toxicology Program expressed some concern last year about the chemical for infants and children. But the Food and Drug Administration has said BPA is safe for all use.

The newspaper found federal regulators favoured industry-financed studies in their assessments.

Entire sections of the FDA’s assessment contained identical language to reports written on behalf of

chemical-makers or others with a financial stake in BPA. The FDA safety assessment relied on two studies, both paid for by chemical-makers, and ignored hundreds of independent studies that found the chemical to cause harm in laboratory animals.

The FDA’s own science advisory board has recommended that the FDA reconsider its ruling.FDA administrators have promised to study the matter further but so far have stood by their assessment.

Stahlhut’s study is likely to reignite concerns about the chemical’s safety.

“This is bound to shake things up,”Stahlhut said.

“It is saying that our risk assessments are wrong.

Things we thought we knew aren’t necessarily so.”

The research indicates for the first time that people are either constantly being bombarded with bisphenol A from non-food sources, such as receipts and plastic water piping, or they are storing the chemical in fat cells, unable to get rid of it as quickly as scientists have believed.

And then there were eight The second live octuplets born in U.S. history were delivered to a California woman in her 30th week of pregnancy.

Types of multiple births Octuplets can be fraternal siblings or a combination of fraternal and identical siblings

Fraternal Sperm

Sperm

Egg

Egg

Ovary releases more than one egg in one month; each fertilized by separate sperm; can be the result of fertility drugs, which stimulate the release of eggs

Health of democracy in question Vienna – After a study found one fifth of Austria’s Islamic religious education teachers to have antidemocratic views,politicians are voicing concerns,and far-right parties are calling for drastic measures.

In a dissertation project on Islamic religious education in Austria, 21.9 per cent of surveyed teachers said they were opposed to democracy because it is at odds with Islam.

Some 27 cent opposed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for the same reason, said Mouhanad Khorchide, the study’s author and a religious education researcher at the University of Vienna.

“I think this gives cause for concern,”Khorchide said in a telephone interview.

The dissertation, which is to be published in the coming weeks in Germany, was made public this week by the Vienna weekly Der Falter.

The Education Ministry reacted swiftly, demanding that the Muslim community’s teaching inspectors by February 12 should explain“how the goals of the community’s Islamic education and its compliance with the goals of civic education ... are safeguarded.”

The inspectors supervise Austria’s 350 to 400 Islamic religious educators.

Staying true to their anti-Islamic stance,Austria’s far-right parties showed less patience or rhetorical restraint.

“Religious education teachers who take pride in their radical position must be immediately deported, as they are not compatible with our set of values,” said Monika Muehlwerth, education spokeswoman of Austria’s Freedom Party.

Radical Islamists should not be allowed to“slowly

Identical

Have separate placentas, amniotic sacs

poison”society, said parliamentarian Gerald Grosz of the Alliance for the Future of Austria.

But other political parties, such as the conservative People’s Party and the left-leaning Greens, also voiced concerns.

“We need a discussion that will hopefully be conducted in a fair manner,” an Islamic community spokeswoman told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Carla Amina Baghajati stressed that politics was not part of Islamic religious education and that her community had already embarked on improving quality controls for its teachers.

The Austrian Islamic Community represents some 400,000 Muslims living in the country. Many of them have their roots in Turkey or the former Yugoslavia.

Khorchide said that the Muslim community should do more to improve the education of its teachers, 37 per cent of whom have neither theological nor education training, despite teaching in public schools.

For his study, Khorchide interviewed 199 teachers. He found older teachers and those with Arabic rather than Turkish origins more likely to voice anti-democratic views.

Austrian authorities leave it to the Muslim community to decide who can teach religion to the country’s 47,000 Muslim students.

“It would be totally wrong if the discussion would continue in this direction,”Khorchide said in reaction to the rightist’s statements.“We should ask ourselves what we can do for youths, in terms of an integrated society.”

– DPA

Sperm

Egg Single egg released, fertilized by sperm; for unknown reason, the embryo splits Share one placenta; usually have separate amniotic sacs Fetuses usually delivered by cesarean section

Risks to preemies s Retinas develop abnormally s Blood vessels bleed easily s Digestive system unable to handle food s Lungs lack small air sacs and chemical that keeps them open © 2009 MCT Source: March of Dimes, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

Survival rates

8%

By weeks of gestation (full term is 40) 90% 60% 32%

Under 23 23

24

28

Birth of octuplets no cheap medical affair A woman in Bellflower, Calif., is likely facing more than US$200,000 in medical bills after giving birth to eight babies, a medical official says.

Steven M. Donn, who heads up the University of Michigan Health System’s Division of NeonatalPerinatal Medicine, said the unidentified parents of the recently delivered octuplets likely accumulated quite a hospital bill,ABC News said.

“You can think of it as an eightfold increase on a singleton birth,”Donn said in regards to the octuplets’birth, specific details of which were not reported.“By compari-

son,the mother’s care will probably be a bargain.”

The delivery costs for a normal full-term pregnancy can reach up to $25,000 depending on birthing methods.The costs for pre-term births typically surpass average birthing costs.

Donn said the additional precautions taken for the octuplets’birth likely increased the base financial tally for eight pre-term births.

“For reasons we don’t completely understand, risks with multi-fetal deliveries are greater than (normal births),”he told ABC News.

SCIENCE & TECH 17

30 January 2008

Slow river currents can generate power

By Tina Lam Detroit Free Press

DETROIT – In the eerie green glow of flashing lasers in a darkened University of Michigan lab, a cylinder on springs moves methodically up and down in a giant tank as water flows over it, simulating a stream.

Whirligigs of illuminated particles form as the water pours over and under the cylinder in rhythmic patterns.

It looks simple, but it’s revolutionary. This is VIVACE, a device to harness energy in slow-moving water currents across the globe and turn it into electricity.

VIVACE, which mimics the way fish swim in currents, is to debut next year in the Detroit River, powering the light for a new wharf between Hart Plaza and the Renaissance Center.

“Everybody is excited by this,” said Mike Bernitsas, director of the Marine Renewable Energy Laboratory at the University of Michigan and inventor of the device.

It’s one of a handful of new techniques – the first in more than 100 years – to use water to create clean, renewable energy. Since late November, the device has been filmed by Canada’s Discovery Channel and discussed in science blogs, journals and the British Sunday Telegraph.

Unlike water-driven mills, turbines or dams, VIVACE doesn’t require fast-moving water – most streams on the globe are slow-moving – and doesn’t

harm the environment.

VIVACE means“lively”on a musical score, but in this case is an acronym standing for Vortex-Induced Vibrations for Aquatic Clean Energy.

Bernitsas said he is thinking small so far, but someday an array of 1,000 cylinders offshore could produce the same energy as a large nuclear plant.A smaller grouping, as big around as a running track and as tall as a two-story building, could power 1,000 homes.

He came up with the idea four years ago and is developing it with a team of more than 30 students and researchers for commercial use. He patented it and started a company that hopes to manufacture it in Michigan in a few years.

In a stream, small eddies, or vortices, are created above and below an object the current hits. These vortices alternate, creating an up and down lift.

For example, a moored boat will bob up and down, and a stick caught underwater in a stream will quiver.Vortices in the air make your car antenna shake if you drive fast.

In air or water, the vibrations can be dangerous if not controlled.

Bernitsas, 57, has worked for two decades on ways to control these vibrations on offshore oil rigs.

“He was famous for how to kill vortex-induced vibrations,”said U-M doctoral student Jim Chang, who works on VIVACE.“Now he’ll be known for using them.”

What Bernitsas envisions is groups of cylinders in frames on the ocean bed or in streams, perpendicu-

lar to currents.As the water flow hits the cylinders, it creates vortices that cause the cylinders to move up and down.That energy drives generators to make electricity, which goes through cables to the electrical grid on land.The size, number and placement of the cylinders depends on the body of water.

In the Detroit River, he plans 21 cylinders, each about 10 inches in diameter and 16 feet long, suspended in frames mid river on the U.S. side, which will create 3 kilowatts of energy around the clock to power lights on the dock.

This electricity is clean,infinitely renewable –“as long as the sun,the Earth and the moon move as they do now,” he jokes – and doesn’t harm the environment.

The cylinders will be far enough apart that fish can swim through them and deep enough to avoid ships, boats and fishing lines.

“It’s a really creative project,” said John Kerr, director of economic development for the Detroit/ Wayne County Port Authority.

VIVACE’s electricity will be cheaper to produce than solar or wind energy – at 5.5 cents per kilowatt hour – and cheaper than coal plants if controlling their carbon emissions is accounted for, he said, because the devices are simple and require little maintenance.

The cylinders should go into the Detroit River within 12 to 14 months, followed by further testing.

Bernitsas said he can’t jump up and down until then, since challenges remain.

“Once it’s in the Detroit River, I’ll be screaming, ‘Eureka!’“ he said.

US military finally go online WASHINGTON – New software being tested by U.S. Central Command would enable military computers for the first time ever to be connected at the same time to both classified and unclassified networks – including the public Internet.

Officials say the technology, if it proves secure, could save more than $200 million for CENTCOM and eliminate the need to use workarounds like thumb drives to move data between networks at different levels of classification – which can facilitate the spread of viruses and other malware, and which may have led to this week’s security scare in New Zealand.A USB drive containing sensitive Pentagon data was found in that country after being bought from an Oklahoma store over the internet.

This new software linkage has been called the Holy Grail, Elwood Bud Jones, a program manager for multinational information sharing at CENTCOM, told United Press International.

Jones said CENTCOM is engaged in a piloting and testing process called a Joint Capabilities Technology Demonstration Project, code-named One Box, One Wire, or OB1, which would end after three years with the rollout of the software throughout CENTCOM. “Currently, the 14 different computer networks that CENTCOM uses in its operations have to be physically separate,”said Michael Liacko, executive vice president for business strategy at Integrity Global Security, the company that makes the new software.

“The way they are separating different networks (at different levels of classification) … is to literally have a physically separate connection, a separate wire and a separate computer,”he told UPI. “We have many networks that we operate on,” explained Jones,“including U.S. networks at various levels of classification, secret, top-secret and so on, and separate networks for each of the coalitions that CENTCOM is part of in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“As a result, you can have a lot of computers sitting around your desk, and it’s not very efficient for sharing information,”he said, adding,“A lot of users have two, three, four, even five computers sitting around their desk, and we have to use a switch box to switch from network to network, and we can’t use multiple networks at a single time. OB1 allows us

to reduce that infrastructure to one box, one wire; hence the name.

“Eliminating the requirement for physical separation will give us the ability to reduce our desktop infrastructure,”said Jones.“It will be more efficient; it will save us money.”

“Instead of having four computers for a user, you only need one, you only need one wire,” he continued.“When we are deploying forward, it reduces our (air-)lift (requirements), it reduces our power requirements, it reduces our staff costs.”

Jones said a back-of-the-envelope business case analysis he had developed showed the new technology could save potentially in excess of US$230 million over a three-year rollout period.

In addition to being expensive, Jones said, the requirement for physical separation is inefficient and encourages the use of potentially dangerous workarounds. “Military officials would develop plans or information on the U.S.-only networks, but if they want to share it (with foreign partners) … they have to use a thumb drive or Flash drive to move it over to the coalition networks,”he said.

“Likewise, if information comes in on (one of) the coalition network(s) and they want to share it with people who don’t have access to those networks, they have to move it up to the classified network,” Jones continued.

“With access to multiple networks from a single box,They can create information where it needs to be shared, rather than creating it someplace (else) and then trying to move it.”

Last year the U.S. military banned the use of removable media like thumb and Flash drives after a worm spread on such devices infected CENTCOM computers.

Through a Flash drive, a worm or a virus is introduced, said Liacko,“and moving data physically like that opens up the door, and once the door is open, it can propagate and the whole network can be compromised. Integrity stops that.”

Retired U.S. Air Force Gen. Eugene Habiger, a member of the company’s advisory board, is blunter.

“Had this operating system been used within the systems (that were compromised by the worm), this would not have happened.”

Habiger, a former head of cybersecurity at the

Department of Energy, said the technology on which the new software was based had been certified by the National Security Agency.

“The fact that the NSA has given this certification to Integrity and its software after, as I understand it, a very intensive, exhaustive two-plus years of analysis … that speaks volumes for its reliability and security.

This operating system is revolutionary, he concluded.The technology is revolutionary.”

The key to Integrity’s game-changing character, said Jones, is known as the separation kernel, a piece of software guaranteed to keep the different networks separate … all the way from the unclassified to the top-secret level.

The software, Liacko explained, creates “what we call security domains … in essence virtual machines or virtual servers … each one of them is impregnable. Even viruses that operate at the very deepest level of the operating system cannot get around the new software, he said.

“We sit literally on the bare metal … on the microprocessor.What we create is a secure platform, and on top of that platform you can run Windows or Linux … inside of a securely separated domain, where … your top-secret or confidential corporate data … can be protected and cannot be accessed by an intruder from any one of the other domains.”

Specialists at the NSA tested the system for three years, said Liacko.“We had to give source codes and blueprints to the NSA, and they began a multiyear process of doing mathematic and physical penetration testing. … They were not able to penetrate it.”

The technology would already be used in embedded software in new U.S. military aircraft, said Jones,“the F-22 and the F-35 have this software on board, but now the new product, and its use in the OB1 project, also has to be certified.

“The technology is developed to the point where we actually have a working model, he said.“We have to go through a process of getting that certified … so we can actually put (those networks) on the same box … on the same wire.

“We will probably not put it on our active networks until we get the certification, he said, adding, The purpose of that is to ensure that the software really does what it says it can.”

cutting edge Scientists discover honey bees can count CANBERRA, Australia, Jan. 30 (UPI) – Australian and German scientists say they have discovered honey bees can tell the difference between different numbers at a glance.

The researchers, led by Professor Shaowu Zhang of the Australian National University and Professors Hans Gross and Juergen Tautz of Wurzburg University in Germany, showed bees can discriminate between patterns containing two and three dots. With a bit of schooling, bees can learn to tell the difference between three and four dots.

However, the researchers said the honeybees couldn’t reliably tell the difference between four dots and five or six.

Zhang said the findings demonstrate bees can count up to four landmarks on their way from their hive to a food source. “This new research shows they can tell the difference between different numbers – even when we change the pattern, shape or the colour of the dots,” he added.

The study is detailed in the on-line journal PLoS One. Study: Brain chemical blocks weight gain DALLAS, Jan. 30 (UPI) – U.S. medical scientists say they’ve discovered increased levels of a natural brain chemical can block weight gain. The researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Centre found mice with increased levels of the chemical orexin don’t gain weight when fed a high-fat diet. The chemical works by increasing the body’s sensitivity to the so-called weight-loss hormone leptin, the researchers said.

Professor Masashi Yanagisawa, senior author of the study, said finding a way to boost the orexin system might prove useful as a therapy against obesity.

“Obese people are not deficient in leptin,” Yanagisawa said. “They have tons of leptin floating around. The problem is that their brain isn’t very sensitive to it.”

The researchers said they increased the levels of orexin in mice by either genetic engineering or by administering the hormone into the brain. When the mice were fed a healthy diet, the increased levels of orexin made little difference in their weights, the scientists said. But when the mice were fed a high-fat diet, the high-orexin mice remained lean while the normal animals became obese.

The research appears in the January issue of the journal Cell Metabolism.

NASA seeks moon lander concepts HOUSTON, Jan. 30 (UPI) – The U.S. space agency says it has issued a request for proposals for concept definition and requirements analysis for the Altair lunar lander.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Constellation Program will use Altair to land four astronauts on the moon. The lunar lander will provide the astronauts with life support and a base for week-long initial surface explorations of the moon, NASA said.

Altair also will also take the crew back to the orbiting spacecraft that will return them to Earth.

The concept contracts will provide resources to conduct NASA-directed engineering tasks in support of evaluating vehicle conceptual designs, maturing the vehicle design and reviewing the products for system requirements reviews and system definition reviews, NASA said, noting it anticipates making multiple awards as a result of its concept solicitation.

Proposals are due to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston by 2 p.m. CST on Feb. 27. The selections will be made this spring.

More information about the request for proposals is available at http://procurement.jsc.nasa.gov/Altair Study: Gold hardens in intense heat TORONTO, Jan. 30 (UPI) – University of Toronto scientists say they have discovered gold becomes harder when subjected to intense heat.

“It is counter-intuitive, but the gold got harder instead of softer,” said physics Professor R.J. Dwayne Miller.

“Can you imagine a blacksmith heating up gold to pound it thinner, only to find it got harder? But we heated the gold at terrific heating rates – greater than 1 billion million degrees per second – that approach the temperature of the interior of stars.”

Miller explained the gold was heated at rates too fast for the electrons absorbing the light energy to collide with surrounding atoms and lose energy. This means the electrons are on average further away from the atomic nucleus and there is less screening of the positive nuclear charge by these heated electrons. The bonds between atoms actually got stronger.

The findings appeared online in the Jan. 22 edition of the journal Science.

NEWSFOCUS

18

30 January 2009

Reforming Islam: on the front line

By Kim Barker Chicago Tribune

LAHORE, Pakistan – The Islamists lost their grip on Pakistan’s largest college campus for the first time in decades last year.Then the violence started.

Their decline had been obvious. Shops at the University of the Punjab began selling Coca-Cola,which had been banned by the Islamist students because it was an American product. Cable television, seen as immoral by the fundamentalist group, was installed inside college dormitories.Girls and boys sat together, after years of forced segregation.

For the university administration and many students, the push back against the youth wing of fundamentalist party Jamaat-e-Islami was essential for the future of the school and the country’s fight against extremism. But the resulting clashes here last month show how serious the fight over Islam is in this volatile nation.

In many ways, the battle at Punjab’s university is a microcosm of the larger battle in the country, especially with the government facing pressure to rein in Islamist militant groups after one of them was implicated by India and its Western allies in the deadly terrorist attacks in Mumbai in November.

For years, the militant groups have been supported directly or indirectly by the country’s powerful intelligence agencies and army command, and it’s unclear how much the civilian government can do – or has the will to do.

“We are sitting here in a campus which is going to define the future of Pakistan,”said Muhammad Naeem Khan, the registrar of the school of 30,000 students, in a recent interview.“Here is where we will win the war on terror. Here is where we will win the war for democracy.”

The rise of the Islamist youth group, called Islami Jamiat Talaba, over the past 30 years illustrates how forces once supported by the Pakistani establishment can be difficult to stop.

In 1984, President Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, a right-wing military ruler known for spreading Islamic fervour, banned student political groups. In University of the Punjab, the only major group left was IJT, which defined itself as a religious party.

Ul-Haq’s government, busy helping the U.S. fight the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan, allowed IJT to spread.Afghan jihad leaders such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar – now listed as a terrorist by the U.S. – spoke at University of the Punjab. Some students left to fight in Afghanistan.

Although the ban on student groups was briefly lifted in the 1990s, former President Pervez Musharraf, the military ruler who seized power in 1999, reinstated it. In the years that followed, IJT played a similar role to that of its parent group, Jamaat-eIslami, supporting Musharraf even while pretending not to, analysts say.

But Jamaat-e-Islami,the country’s oldest religious political party, also had links to militants. In 1989, it helped form a militant group to fight in India-controlled Kashmir at the prodding of Pakistan’s most powerful spy agency, analysts say. In 2003, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept.11 attacks in the U.S.,was arrested in the house of a Jamaat-e-Islami member.

Here in Lahore, leaders of the Islamic youth group say they are not violent.They say that they have no problem with Coke and no problem with male and female students talking to each other.

“We have an ideology, and everybody (at the university) is with us,” said Qaisar Sharif, 27, who is charge of the group on campus.“The ideology is of Islam, and to help the students be together, without any division.”

Over the decades, with no organized opposition, the Islamist group became so entrenched in the university that former members became teachers and now run the teacher’s association on campus.They forced the university to hire supporters as drivers, gardeners and guards. Member students took over university offices and used them to preach, teachers and administrators said.

University administrators did little against the

group – at times because they were afraid.

The group even made money from the university, setting up a book fair and banning American sodas in favour of Pakistani-made Shandy cola, which paid the group a commission, university administrators said.The group’s leaders denied this.

“This university for a long time has been the goose that laid golden eggs for these people,” said Mujahid Kamran, named university vice chancellor a year ago.

In his new job, Kamran wanted the Islamist group to obey the rules. So he paved the way for Coca-Cola’s return. He closed the school rather than allow the book fair – and then he held a university-sponsored book fair. He cleared out university offices that the group had taken over.

The new civilian government, elected last February, again lifted the ban on student unions.A loose group of liberal students, the United Students Federation, started recruiting and eventually took control of dorms 15 and 16.

But there were ominous signs. In September, a suitcase of rusted Kalashnikovs, grenades and bullets was unearthed near the Islamist youth group’s headquarters, Kamran said.The next day, another gun was found.

Over the decades, with no organized opposition, the Islamist group became so entrenched in the university that former members became teachers and now run the teacher’s association on campus.

They forced the university to hire supporters as drivers, gardeners and guards. Member students took over university offices and used them to preach A leader of the liberal student group was then beaten up in the middle of the night. And in the early hours of Dec. 3, after hours of protests by both student groups and a fist fight, Islamist youths broke into dorm 16 and shot two liberal students, wounding both, police said.

Mazhar Qayyum,24,a law student,was in the hospital for more than two weeks after being shot in the left thigh and hit over the head with a metal rod. He has left the university and is now recovering at home.

“I am very much fearful about my life,”Qayyum said.

“Not only my life, but my family, my friends.”

Although police initially held one Islamist youth group member in the shooting, no one has yet been

charged.The liberal youth group’s leaders say they have been threatened to withdraw their cases against the Islamists.

The liberal youth group’s leaders also blame the university for encouraging them to recruit and rally against the Islamists but doing nothing to protect them.

Some moderate teachers, weary of a long fight against the Islamist group, worried that the recent changes were only cosmetic.

“It’s like dispersing little mosquitoes when you put a mosquito coil in the room,”said Shaista Sirajuddin, head of the English department.“When the coil is gone, they come right back. ... It’s not a question of could they come back.They will come back.”

TRAVEL

30 January 2008

19

Tamarindo, a fragile balance

By Chris Welsch Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

TAMARINDO, Costa Rica – I was on my back in the sand staring at the sky, listening to the waves collapse lazily onto the Pacific shore of Costa Rica.

I’d been waiting for turtles for three hours.

The half moon edged the passing clouds with silver filigree.

Our guide kept looking at his watch. For him, this was work. He’d spent more than 100 nights in a row waiting for leatherback turtles at the Baulas National Park ranger station. It was mid-February and this was the second-to-last turtle tour of the season.“I think we’re going to call it, guys,”he said at about 11 p.m. to the group of 30 sleepy tourists.

“No turtles tonight.”

So, we began the hourlong walk back to the condos, hotels and vacation homes that make up the jumble of civilization known as Tamarindo. After about 10 minutes, the guide’s radio squawked with a message from the rangers:A turtle had come ashore five kilometres up the coast.

“We go back, guys,”the guide said. So we turned heel and with renewed vigour headed north in the soft sand.

The leatherback turtle, which can weigh 900kg and be up to 3 metres long, had come from as far as 10,000 km away to lay her eggs – swimming perhaps all the way from the Galapagos.The leatherback is part of a turtle family that survived the extinction of the dinosaurs.They’ve been around for 100 million years, and there are only a few thousand left in the world.

To forgo a little sleep, to walk a few hours in the sand – small sacrifices to make to meet such a traveller.

I did not go to Tamarindo because of the leatherbacks; when I’d made my plans, I had no idea they laid eggs on the beach just north of town. I went to Tamarindo for the simple reason that it’s the nearest resort town to the international airport at Liberia, where, until last year, Northwest Airlines had sent a planeload of tourists on a direct flight every Saturday during the winter vacation season.

I spent four days in Costa Rica’s interior,exploring the cloud forest and watching the Arenal volcano rumble and spit fire.And then I went to Tamarindo to enjoy the beach for a few days before flying home.

Costa Rica’s national parks and preserves are often cited as sterling examples of what responsible tourism can be. Regulated eco-tourism provides an incentive to preserve wild habitat. It brings tourists who stay for a few days or a week or more, and who want to learn about the people and the place

The turtle tour started at 6:30 p.m., shortly after sunset.The group gathered at a shack by the shore just a 20-minute walk from the busiest part of the city; this is the gateway to Parque Nacional Marino Las Baulas de Guanacaste – Leatherback National Park. We loaded into long wooden launches and motored across the mouth of the Tamarindo estuary to get to the beach on the other side.

The leatherback is the biggest turtle in the world, and the most endangered of the sea turtles. Our lead guide, Miguel Mora, said Baulas was established in 1990 to preserve their nesting area. At that time, about 1,400 turtles came ashore to lay eggs; last year, 73 were spotted, he said. Human predation, incidental death in commercial fishing operations, habitat loss and light pollution that interferes with hatchlings all take a toll.

Mora told us that cameras, with or without flash, were forbidden; flashes disorient the turtles.

From October through February, the turtles will lay eggs as many as eight times, he said. That assumes that the conditions are right. The turtles – extremely vulnerable on land – dig a large hole for their bodies, then carve out a smaller nest for the eggs with their hind legs.

The process is fragile, Mora said.The sand has to be wet enough to hold its shape – if the sand is too dry, the nest keeps collapsing, and the turtle will abandon the attempt.“It hasn’t rained much,” he said.“The conditions are rough for the nest.” they’re visiting. They need guides, they need food, I was on the pay phone in the town square in they need places to stay. In interior towns such as the morning, talking with my wife, when the drug Monteverde, small family-run hotels and cafes are dealer approached.“Something for your brain?”he the norm. The money brought by tourists stays in asked in English. the communities.

“I’m on the phone, and my brain is fine, thanks,” Tamarindo is another story. Thirty years ago, it I said. was a quiet fishing village. Now it’s a booming tourIt was the fifth time I’d been approached by drug ist town with malls, fast-food franchises and urban dealers in central Tamarindo, and I hadn’t been in problems.The traffic was backed up 3km outside the town a full day. city limits when I arrived.“It gets worse every year,” I picked up a copy of the English-language paper groused my driver.“It didn’t used to be like this.” of Costa Rica’s Pacific Coast, the Beach Times, and The town is a 3km strip of businesses along the headed to Walter’s Place, an open-sided restaurant shore, with condos and hotels rapidly colonizing the a few steps from the shore, for breakfast. The lead green hills beyond the beach. It was a swelteringly story, about wrangling over taxes to build a new hot noontime; clouds of dust from road construction sewage plant, contained this gem:“In Tamarindo, hung in the humid air. I checked into the massive one of the most popular beach towns in the (GuaTamarindo Diria Resort, which occupies the central nacaste) province, hotel reservations were cancelled swath of the town’s broad, beautiful beach.A bored and the community expressed outrage after water clerk sealed a neon green plastic band on my wrist tests last year found extremely elevated levels of – similar to an I.D. bracelet given at a hospital – and fecal matter in 13 streams feeding the internationhanded me my room keys. ally famous beach.”

“Have a nice stay.”

As I reconsidered the idea of going surfing later,

I overheard this conversation between two elderly American men at the table behind me, pertaining to the same topic: The first man said,“More taxes will kill the municipality.What happens to the jobs of the maids and gardeners?”

The other man replied,“I’m happy to be in the idiot faction. ... I don’t mind more restaurants and I don’t mind more people. But more people means more (expletive for human waste).And what are you going to do with the (expletive)?”

Good question.

Mora told us some things as we walked. One of them is that the life of the leatherback, outside of its nesting practices, is largely a mystery. He said leatherbacks are thought to live on jellyfish, mainly.That the males never come back to shore after hatching.

The turtles can dive to as deep as 1,200 metres and stay underwater an hour.

He said that a variety of limits had been put on construction in Tamarindo, partly to protect the turtles from artificial lights that disorient hatchlings and partly to preserve the environment. But he said those regulations had been ignored, pointing to brightly lit high-rise condos that far exceed the zoning laws.

“You will see signs and petitions all over town protesting those buildings and what’s going on,”he said.“Costa Ricans don’t like to argue, but when we get together, it counts, because we vote.”

Our long walk came to an end when we spotted the turtle, flinging loose sand away from her blueblack body in the moonlight. Mora split the group into three sets of 10, and each of us had a chance to see the turtle from a few feet away.

A set of rough tracks from the sea led to her nesting site;it must have been a severe labour dragging nearly 300kg of bulk 100 metres under the burden of gravity.

I could hear her breathing, heavy and hoarse.

Seven longitudinal ridges gave her carapace a beautiful, symmetrical form, which also happens to be aquadynamic. Her awkward flailing on land said nothing of the grace with which she could fly underwater, where she would be weightless.

For an hour, we took turns watching. The sides of the nest kept collapsing; she moved to a new site, which also collapsed, and then she slowly, awkwardly returned to the sea. I felt defeated on her behalf.All that work for nothing.

Someone asked Mora what she’d do.“Maybe she goes back to Ecuador, maybe she comes back to try again tomorrow night. I don’t know,”he said.

IF YOU GO

The town is a 3km strip of businesses along the shore, with condos and hotels rapidly colonizing the green hills beyond the beach

TAMARINDO Tamarindo is like Cancun, Acapulco or any one of dozens of tropical destinations that started out as nothing more than a village on a pretty beach.

Unlike Cancun or Acapulco, there’s still a fight going on over its soul. Should Tamarindo, a town of about 2,000 people, become a major resort destination or try to retain its small-town charm? Rapid condo development has outpaced infrastructure, leading to wastewater contamination that affects Tamarindo’s most important asset for tourism: its broad, beautiful beach. The Tamarindo News (www.tamarindonews.com) and the Beach Times (www.thebeachtimes. com) cover the continuing story; the letters to the editor in both papers feature the arguments of locals over what to do. The choices aren’t easy.

For tourists, Tamarindo remains an appealing destination, especially for surfers and sun worshipers, turtle fans and bird watchers. You can help preserve the nature of the area by choosing small, locally owned hotels and bedand-breakfasts and not staying at the big hotels (they’re not as interesting or even necessarily as comfortable, as I found out in Tamarindo).

WHERE TO STAY Were I to do it over, I’d stay at Cabinas Marielos (www.cabinasmarieloscr.com), a comfortable, affordable hotel with a shared kitchen and a beautiful garden; it’s right across the street from the beach. Doubles are about US$35 a night with air conditioning and $25 a night without it.

NZ CLASSIC

20

30 January 2009

Volcanic fury

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.

All the savages had risen,howling under the pain inflicted by the burning lava, which was bubbling and foaming in the midst of their camp.

Those whom the liquid fire had not touched fled to the surrounding hills; then turned, and gazed in terror at this fearful phenomenon, this volcano in which the anger of their deity would swallow up the profane intruders on the sacred mountain. Now and then, when the roar of the eruption became less violent, their cry was heard: “Taboo! taboo! taboo!”

An enormous quantity of vapours, heated stones and lava was escaping by this crater of Maunganamu. It was not a mere geyser like those that girdle round Mount Hecla, in Iceland, it was itself a Hecla.All this volcanic commotion was confined till then in the envelope of the cone, because the safety valve of Tongariro was enough for its expansion; but when this new issue was afforded, it rushed forth fiercely, and by the laws of equilibrium, the other eruptions in the island must on that night have lost their usual intensity.

An hour after this volcano burst upon the world, broad streams of lava were running down its sides. Legions of rats came out of their holes, and fled from the scene.

All night long, and fanned by the tempest in the upper sky, the crater never ceased to pour forth its torrents with a violence that alarmed Glenarvan.The eruption was breaking away the edges of the opening.

The prisoners. hidden behind the enclosure of stakes, watched the fearful progress of the phenomenon.

Morning came. The fury of the volcano had not slackened. Thick yellowish fumes were mixed with the flames; the lava torrents wound their serpentine course in every direction.

Glenarvan watched with a beating heart, looking from all the interstices of the palisaded enclosure, and observed the movements in the native camp.

The Maoris had fled to the neighbouring ledges, out of the reach of the volcano. Some corpses which lay at the foot of the cone, were charred by the fire. Further off toward the“pah,”the lava had reached a group of twenty huts, which were still smoking.The Maoris, forming here and there groups, contemplated the canopied summit of Maunganamu with religious awe.

Kai-Koumou approached in the midst of his warriors, and Glenarvan recognized him.The chief advanced to the foot of the hill, on the side untouched by the lava, but he did not ascend the first ledge.

Standing there, with his arms stretched out like an exorciser, he made some grimaces, whose meaning was obvious to the prisoners.

As Paganel had foreseen, Kai-Koumou launched on the avenging mountain a more rigorous taboo.

Soon after the natives left their positions and followed the winding paths that led toward the pah.

“They are going!”exclaimed Glenarvan.“They have left their posts!

God be praised! Our stratagem has succeeded! My dear Lady Helena, my brave friends, we are all dead and buried! But this evening when night comes, we shall rise and leave our tomb, and fly these barbarous tribes!”

It would be difficult to conceive of the joy that pervaded the urupa.

Hope had regained the mastery in all hearts.The intrepid travellers forgot the past, forgot the future, to enjoy the present delight! And yet the task before them was not an easy one--to gain some European outpost in the midst of this unknown country. But Kai-Koumou once off their track, they thought themselves safe from all the savages in New Zealand.

A whole day had to elapse before they could make a start, and they employed it in arranging a plan of flight. Paganel had treasured up his map of New Zealand, and on it could trace out the best roads.

After discussion, the fugitives resolved to make for the Bay of Plenty, towards the east. The region was unknown, but apparently desert.The travellers, who from their past experience, had learned to make light of physical difficulties, feared nothing but meeting Maoris.

At any cost they wanted to avoid them and gain the east coast, where the missionaries had several stations. That part of the country had hitherto escaped the horrors of war, and the natives were not in the habit of scouring the country.

As to the distance that separated Lake Taupo from the Bay of Plenty, they calculated it about a hundred miles.Ten days’march at ten miles a day, could be done, not without fatigue, but none of the party gave that a thought. If they could only reach the mission stations they could rest there while waiting for a favourable opportunity to get to Auckland, for that was the point they desired to reach.

This question settled, they resumed their watch of the native proceedings, and continued so doing till evening fell. Not a solitary native remained at the foot of the mountain, and when darkness set in over

Soon they perceived the shadowy outline of the wood showing faintly through the darkness. A few steps more and they were hid from sight in the thick foliage of the trees

the Taupo valleys, not a fire indicated the presence of the Maoris at to Maunganamu, but to the mountain system of the eastern side of the base.The road was free.

Lake Taupo, so that they had not only pistol shots, but hand-to-hand At nine o’clock, the night being unusually dark, Glenarvan gave fighting to fear. For ten minutes, the little band ascended by insensible the order to start. His companions and he, armed and equipped at degrees toward the higher table-land. John could not discern the dark the expense of Kara-Tete, began cautiously to descend the slopes of wood, but he knew it ought to be within two hundred feet. Suddenly Maunganamu, John Mangles and Wilson leading the way, eyes and he stopped; almost retreated. He fancied he heard something in the ears on the alert. They stopped at the slightest sound, they started darkness; his stoppage interrupted the march of those behind. at every passing cloud. They slid rather than walked down the spur, He remained motionless long enough to alarm his companions.They that their figures might be lost in the dark mass of the mountain.At waited with unspeakable anxiety, wondering if they were doomed to two hundred feet below the summit, John Mangles and his sailors retrace their steps, and return to the summit of Maunganamu. reached the dangerous ridge that had been so obstinately defended by But John,finding that the noise was not repeated,resumed the ascent the natives. If by ill luck the Maoris, more cunning than the fugitives, of the narrow path of the ridge.Soon they perceived the shadowy outline had only pretended to retreat; if they were not really duped by the of the wood showing faintly through the darkness.A few steps more and volcanic phenomenon, this was the spot where their presence would they were hid from sight in the thick foliage of the trees. be betrayed. Glenarvan could not but shudder, in spite of his confidence, and in spite of the jokes of Paganel.The fate of the whole party would hang in the balance for the ten minutes required to pass along that ridge. He felt the beating of Lady Helena’s heart, as she clung to his arm.

He had no thought of turning back. Neither had John. The young captain, followed closely by the whole party, and protected by the intense darkness, crept along the ridge, stopping when some loose stone rolled to the bottom. If the savages were still in the ambush below, these unusual sounds might provoke from both sides a dangerous fusillade.

But speed was impossible in their serpent-like progress down this sloping crest.When John Mangles had reached the lowest point, he was scarcely twenty-five feet from the plateau,where the natives were encamped the night before, and then the ridge rose again pretty steeply toward a wood for about a quarter of a mile.

All this lower part was crossed without molestation, and they commenced the ascent in silence.

The clump of bush was invisible, though they knew it was there, Mollies Invites You to a Distinctive Dining Experience Nestled in St Mary's Bay, the “Dining Room” at Mollies is now open to the public for a relaxed, and but for the possibility of an gourmet dining experience. With elegant cuisine and a selection of the finest wines, the a la carte ambush, Glenarvan counted on and degustation menus feature the best of local produce, prepared by Mollies talented and creative young team of Kiwi chefs. being safe when the party arrived at that point. But he observed Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner are available and reservations are recommended. that after this point, they were no longer protected by the taboo.

6 Tweed St, St Mary’s Bay, Auckland Phone: (09) 376 3489 Email: reservations@mollies.co.nz www.mollies.co.nz The ascending ridge belonged not