Letter from India - A Roadway From Hope to Sorrow - NYTimes.com

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By AKASH KAPUR

PERUNTHURAI, INDIA — E. Vinayagam remembers when the country road outside his village ran through a forest. When Vinayagam, born in 1947, was a boy, he and his friends were scared to go to the road at night; the forest was thick, and it was rumored to be haunted.

Vinayagam remembers when the road became a highway. A group of surveyors showed up one morning with their equipment. They were marking what would become the East Coast Road — an ambitious highway project, financed in part by the Asian Development Bank, that runs nearly 800 kilometers, about 500 miles, along the southeast coast of India.

The East Coast Road, or ECR, was built in the late ’90s. Vinayagam was an impoverished agricultural laborer at the time. The highway changed his life. He set up a thatch tea shop by the side of the road. It was a humble establishment, but traffic was picking up, and the thatch hut was soon a two-story concrete structure that served branded cold drinks and fresh fruit juices.

Land prices were picking up, too. Vinayagam got interested in real estate. He started small, helping some of his customers at the tea shop find plots for beach homes. He closed a few big deals for doctors and movie stars in Chennai, just over an hour’s drive from his village of Perunthurai. He built a new house; he bought some land of his own.

Today, Vinayagam exudes the easy confidence of a self-made man. The person who introduced us said of him: “This is a guy who 15 years ago didn’t even know how to open a car door; now he drives his own fancy car.” Vinayagam parks his red Scorpio jeep outside his tea shop. It gleams in the harsh coastal sun.

Amid the reams of policy documents and prescriptions on the Indian economy, there is one common refrain: The country needs better infrastructure. India’s airports and electricity lines and roads are woefully inadequate. The government is seeking $70 billion of investment for roads alone in the next three years. It argues that better infrastructure could help promote economic development in the same way that technology has done.

A drive along the ECR, which runs a short distance from my house, would appear to confirm this premise. The road is lined with commercial activity, restaurants and mechanic shops and beach resorts that have dramatically altered the horizons of local villagers — men like Vinayagam, who at one time seemed destined for nothing more than agricultural work, or women like A. Uma, who I met in the village of Venangapattam, where she had recently set up a small provisions store.

She is a 37-year-old widow, a mother of three, who used to get by with part-time work on her neighbors’ farms. But the farms dried up, she told me, and times were tough. Her store, built opposite a new marriage hall that attracts customers from as far as Chennai, promises a fresh start.

Down the road from Uma’s store, a boating center draws busloads of noisy tourists. They paddle in rowboats and picnic along the edge of stunningly beautiful backwaters; they sustain a thriving economy that has only recently come into existence.

The tourists also leave behind plastic bags and paper cups and plates. This is the detritus of development, spread along the coast like an insidious confetti. A decade ago, when the ECR was being built, many activists objected. They protested the trees that would be cut, and the social and environmental disruption that they said would inevitably ensue. Today, the backwaters, home to delicate mangroves that protect the shore, are choking. Water tables are declining, and village ponds are silting up. The ECR has brought too much development. The land can’t bear it.

A little farther on from the boating center, in the village of Panichamedu, farmers talk about abandoning agricultural work, selling their property, moving to the city. They complain about wells that have become empty, and rising salinity in those that still have water. Large tracts of land that once would have been green with rice are fallow.

Fishermen in the village bemoan the prawn hatcheries that dot the coast. The owners of these hatcheries extol the ECR, crediting it with cutting travel times to their markets and boosting business. But their success comes at a price: The chemicals and antibiotics they use are polluting the groundwater and even, some fishermen claim, the ocean.

Not too long ago, when development was a colder, more technocratic enterprise, the types of harm caused by the ECR would have been dismissed as necessary collateral damage. Imbued with a missionary zeal, the development establishment threw around phrases like: “You have to break some eggs to make an omelet.”

Development is a more sensitive field these days. Most infrastructure projects are preceded by environmental impact assessment reports intended to help minimize collateral damage. But whenever I drive along the coast, I can’t help feeling that the omelet analogy is alive and well — that ecologies and livelihoods are still being broken, and that the price of progress is often paid in human lives.

In Perunthurai, Vinayagam told me about all the people he knew who had been killed by traffic on the ECR. At least 50 people have died in the area since the road was built; he’s lost five relatives. His uncle’s son died six months ago, his cousin died a year and a half ago, and his nephew also died recently, when his motorcycle was squeezed between a truck and a bus.

We were sitting under a banyan tree by the side of the road when Vinayagam told me about all this destruction. The sun was high and his car was shining. He shrugged his shoulders. He said: “When a road comes, high speed will come naturally. No one can do anything about it. This road has changed my life. Without it, I would still be just a farmer.”

Estrada Begins Unlikely Comeback in Philippines - NYTimes.com

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By CARLOS H. CONDE

QUEZON CITY, PHILIPPINES — It was an improbable sight: a slightly hunched man, with a gait that suggested either his age (72) or infirmity (a bad back and knees that required replacement surgery), beating up a taller opponent no older than 30.

The older man ducked as the younger one tried to bang him with a piece of wood. He cut him down with a right to the abdomen and a left hook to the face, sending his adversary stumbling to the ground. Then another opponent got smacked in the face and kicked in the midsection with one of those bad knees. Yet another came along, and he, too, went down, crashing into a table.

“I missed doing this,” the older man, Joseph Estrada — longtime actor and onetime president of the Philippines — said moments after the director cried “Cut!” Mr. Estrada then walked toward the gate of the bus terminal where the movie was being shot and waved at the gawking crowd, which delightedly waved back. He moved closer to his fans, who giggled, hugged and kissed him, some whipping out cellphone cameras.

“Don’t forget me, okay? We will take back Malacanang!” he hollered as he clambered up the hood of a jeepney, the ubiquitous Philippine minibus. The crowd responded by chanting his moniker: “Erap! Erap! Erap!”

Malacanang is the presidential palace, and Mr. Estrada managed to stay there for less than half of his six-year term. He was driven from office in 2001, during what is now known as People Power 2, after a Senate impeachment trial on allegations of corruption — including accusations he took kickbacks from gambling lords — was cut short by attempts by Mr. Estrada’s allies to suppress evidence, sending Filipinos to the streets in protest.

Last week, Mr. Estrada announced during his party’s convention that he would run again for president in the election next year, calling it his “final, final performance.” The announcement, needless to say, flummoxed his political opponents and upset the Philippines’ already rambunctious politics.

Mr. Estrada, returning to movies after a break of more than two decades — which includes the six years he spent in prison for plunder and corruption — satisfies a lifelong passion. “I love making movies. Without the movies, there would not be a Joseph Estrada,” he said in between takes on the set of the comedy “One and Only Family.”

And returning to politics — despite his promise to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo when she pardoned him in 2007 that he would never again seek elective office — is a chance to take care of unfinished political business. In an interview on the movie set, Mr. Estrada said his decision to run again was important to him “so I can clean up my name and prove to those who removed me that they were wrong.”

Whether he can accomplish this is not clear. The Philippine Constitution prohibits a president from seeking another term. Mr. Estrada insists, however, that he was never given a chance to finish his term, so this doesn’t apply.

“I am not running for re-election,” he said. “I am running for election.”

His opponents, particularly within the Arroyo administration, vow to take the issue to the Supreme Court.

More than settling old scores, however, Mr. Estrada insists that he is acting in the interests of the nation. “I want to continue what I started,” he said.

He promised, for instance, to resume his “all-out war” against Islamic separatists and Communist insurgents. And, he added, with no hint of irony, “There is so much corruption going on now that we have to have change.”

Saddled with the corruption charges, which he continues to deny, and a legacy of misrule, which he continues to challenge, Mr. Estrada hopes to endear himself once again to Filipinos — through the movies, at least for now.

Many still adore him, but many, too, are offended not just by his audacity but also by his insistence that what happened in 2001 was an illegal coup staged by the country’s elite.

“It is only in the Philippines where a disgraced president who was ousted by a people’s uprising would dare run for the presidency again, without atoning for his past mistakes and even insisting that he did nothing wrong,” wrote Benjie Oliveros, a political columnist.

Indeed, Mr. Estrada’s assistants have been distributing a flier featuring some of the world’s most influential publications criticizing People Power 2.

“Gloria Macapagal Arroyo took over the presidency in constitutional circumstances that do not stand up well to scrutiny,” says The Economist. “People Power has become an acceptable term for a troubling phenomenon, one that used to be known as mob rule,” says Time magazine.

“They hated me so much that they never stopped demonizing me,” Mr. Estrada said, puffing on a cigarette that he tried to hide each time a photographer snapped his picture. (“I don’t want young people to see me smoking,” he said.) “They threw at me not just the kitchen sink but also the toilet bowl,” he said, chuckling, evidently pleased with his play of words. “But I never stopped being the president of this country.”

That appears true, at least on this movie set in Quezon City. He arrived with the trappings of power: in a shiny, black Lincoln Navigator, escorted by two police officers on motorcycles. The umbrella his assistant held over him bore the presidential seal. People addressed him as “presidente.” The set was Mr. Estrada’s domain, just as Malacanang had been.

In the 1950s, show business provided an escape for Mr. Estrada, who had dropped out of an engineering course. Of the 10 children in the family, Joseph Marcelo Ejercito — as he was known before he adopted the screen name Joseph Estrada — was the only one who did not graduate from college.

But, he says, he made up for it by excelling in the movies. He made more than 100 films in a career spanning three decades and won countless acting awards.

In many of these films, Mr. Estrada portrayed poor men seeking justice. Although he was never really poor, he said he “identified with these roles” and tried to plumb the depths of his characters. “I researched my roles so I understand how it is to be poor,” he said. “I have been a jeepney driver, a labor leader, a Communist guerrilla.”

These roles endeared him to Filipino voters, Mr. Estrada said, enough for them to elect him first as mayor — for 17 years — of San Juan, a suburb in Metro Manila, then as senator, vice president and finally president. He impressed nationalists when he produced and starred in “In the Claws of the Eagle,” a 1991 film that was highly critical of U.S. military bases. “I am proud to say that that movie helped in kicking out the bases,” he said.

That the movie he is making now is a comedy about a jeepney driver who gives his daughter’s boyfriend a hard time — in other words, a movie with no obvious political significance — is hardly an issue with Mr. Estrada. “I enjoy doing this, and I missed doing this,” he said. Besides, the movie, with its use of the iconic jeepney, could advance his political agenda; a movement he created, “Jeep ni Erap,” continues to recruit supporters.

After a makeup artist retouched his face, Mr. Estrada stood up and positioned himself beside a jeepney to rehearse another fight scene. With a brio that seemed somewhat at odds with his hunched figure and sagging features, he lunged at a thug, grabbed his head and slammed it on the hood of the vehicle. The director yelled “Cut!” — and Mr. Estrada, ever so slightly, pumped his fist.

Oil and Gas Price Increases Meet Opposition in Philippines - NYTimes.com

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By CARLOS CONDE

MANILA — When the three largest oil companies in the Philippines increased the pump prices of diesel, gasoline and kerosene on Oct. 20, they set off more than the usual grumbling from consumers and transport groups. With millions of Filipinos still reeling from the effects of successive typhoons, the corporations were criticized as greedy, insensitive, callous and predatory.

The companies — Royal Dutch Shell, Petron and Chevron (known here under the brand Caltex) — increased the per-liter prices of diesel by 2 pesos, or 4 cents, an increase of about 6.7 percent. Gasoline prices went up 1.25 pesos a liter, or a 4.74 pesos a gallon, and kerosene by 1.50 pesos. According to the Ibon Foundation, an independent economic research group, the increases were the biggest of the year. The companies insist the increases reflect world oil prices; crude has risen from as low as $32.40 in December to about $79 this week.

Changes in the price of fuel have been a touchy subject here since 1998, when the government passed the Oil Deregulation Law. In addition to taking away government control of pricing and opening the industry to foreign investment, the law removed longstanding government subsidies of oil products. Although the deregulation has been unpopular with voters, the government has not backtracked — until now.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo issued Executive Order 839 in the past week, demanding that the oil companies reduce their prices on the main island, Luzon, or face penalties.

Many consumers praised the decision and her “political will” and said the decree could help millions of Filipinos recover from the recent calamities. But economists, business groups and industry analysts said the unprecedented intervention could scare investors away from the country, and create fuel shortages and a new black market.

“This government seems to have lost its sense of what it should be doing,” said Peter Wallace, founder of the Wallace Business Forum, a consulting group that advises some of the largest multinational companies in the Philippines. The country, he said, “is attracting the lowest level of foreign investments among major countries in Asia. So you have to ask the question why it issued the executive order.”

Mr. Wallace said if the government wanted to reduce the cost of fuel for consumers, it could have given out discount coupons to those directly affected by the typhoons. As it is, he said, “those with S.U.V.’s are the ones that will benefit from the price controls, not the poor people.”

Except for Shell and Petron, which refine oil in the Philippines, all oil companies here import their finished products. Because the prices of these refined products are tied to world markets, the companies now might think twice about importing more, given the possibility of losses, said Benjamin Diokno, an economist and former budget secretary.

“The wisdom of E.O. 839 will come to its severest test once oil product supply is disrupted,” Mr. Diokno wrote in BusinessWorld, a Manila newspaper. “For the oil firms who were enticed by the downstream oil industry deregulation law, this recent E.O. is a nightmare.”

The oil companies have complied with the order, and rolled back prices. But they warned that the order might have grave consequences, among them “supply disruptions and negative impact on the investment climate in our country,” according to Roberto Kanapi, a Shell spokesman.

Even now, just days after the order was announced, the oil companies are saying that their losses stemming from the directive will be large, with Petron alone estimating a 1.5 billion-peso loss in the fourth quarter. The government has not indicated when it might lift the executive order.

Oil consumers, meanwhile, have welcomed the decree. Raul Concepcion, a Filipino industrialist who heads the nonprofit Consumer and Oil Price Watch, said the oil companies had it coming. The companies’ “predatory pricing” in the years since the Oil Deregulation Law was passed created the conditions that prompted the reimposition of price controls, he said.

“If there was total transparency in the pricing of oil products, then the oil companies would not be suspected of predatory pricing,” Mr. Concepcion said. Ralph Recto, Ms. Arroyo’s economic planning secretary, had accused the oil companies of overpricing by as much as 8 pesos per liter of gasoline, a charge the companies denied.

The companies have insisted, now and in the past, that their prices are dictated by the market. None have been prosecuted for predatory pricing, despite allegations from groups including Mr. Concepcion’s. But because prices at the pump tend to move all at once, and because the companies have refused to open their books to scrutiny, suspicion has grown among the public.

Some people are urging the government to expand the price freezes nationwide. “Why impose the price controls only in Luzon? The other islands should also be covered, especially because the price of oil in the Visayas and Mindanao are 5 to 7 pesos more expensive compared to Luzon,” said George San Mateo, secretary general of Piston, the country’s largest group of public-transport operators and drivers. Visayas and Mindanao are the two other main island groups in the archipelago.

Mr. San Mateo said he was worried that the oil companies would try to offset their losses in Luzon by overpricing in other areas — a concern shared by Mr. Recto, who recently resigned as Ms. Arroyo’s economic adviser. He said the order would “penalize” consumers in other places.

The executive order may have helped shift the political atmosphere and opened up new opportunities for opponents of deregulation. Already, there are resolutions pending in Congress seeking to repeal the 1998 law.

Satur Ocampo, a congressman, said the law “is a mistake and a burden to poor Filipinos.” It has made the oil companies abusive, he said.

“Even without the administration admitting it, and despite its adherence to deregulation, the recent price hikes have shown that the deregulation policy is a failure,” said Renato Reyes Jr., secretary general of the New Patriotic Alliance, an umbrella group of grass-roots organizations that has pushed for the repeal. “An alternative to deregulation is now in order,” he said.

East Timor May Use Its Struggle as Tourist Lure - NYTimes.com

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DILI, EAST TIMOR — East Timor’s struggle against Indonesian occupation may soon become a money maker. The government is considering plans to promote major sites of the 25-year fight for independence as part of a tourism campaign.

East Timor, a former Portuguese colony, was invaded in 1975 by Indonesia, but a secessionist movement soon emerged, led by Xanana Gusmão, who is now the country’s prime minister, and José Ramos-Horta, its president.

Mr. Gusmão spent much of the occupation either in jail or on the run, often hiding with guerrilla fighters in East Timor’s mountainous terrain; Mr. Ramos-Horta lived in exile, campaigning for independence.

An estimated 180,000 people died during the occupation, including 1,000 the U.N. said were killed during a 1999 vote for independence.

But tourists regard East Timor’s turbulent past as an attraction, a Japanese tour guide, Noriko Inaba, said as she escorted a Japanese tour group to Dili’s Santa Cruz cemetery. More than 200 East Timorese were killed there in 1991, when Indonesian troops fired on mourners, an event known as the Dili massacre.

“It’s an historical place because of the tragedy,” she said. “This is one of the things we came to see here.”

The cemetery’s caretaker, João da Costa, said tourists often visited the site and took photos.

“If more people came from overseas, maybe we could develop faster,” he said.

East Timor’s tourism minister, Gil da Costa Alves, said the government wanted tourism to contribute more to economic growth in a country that is one of the poorest in Asia and dependent on oil and natural gas revenues for the bulk of state finances.

While there are serious obstacles, including poor infrastructure and a shortage of hotel rooms, he sees an opportunity to promote the historic sites, beaches and wildlife.

“We have this opportunity for historical tourism, for people who are interested in those sites that are part of our history,” he said.

“Even the cave where Xanana was in hiding — this is a place we can promote, and other places around the country where our leaders were hiding up in the hills.”

About 19,000 people visited East Timor last year, up from about 12,000 in 2006, when tourists stayed away because of political strife.

Mr. Alves said he hopes that East Timor can attract as many as 200,000 tourists a year within five years.

However, Loro Horta, an East Timor analyst based at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, was skeptical.

“The entire country has less than 700 rooms. Right now it’s already difficult to get rooms in Dili,” said Mr. Horta, who is also the son of the president.

“So 200,000 a year — that’s something like 700 a day. How exactly are they flying there and where are they going to stay?”

Mr. Horta said more affordable flights to Dili, a bigger airport and a more reliable power supply were also needed before East Timor could compete with Bali in Indonesia as a tourist destination.

“I really hope I’m wrong, but we will be lucky if we can get 50,000 a year by 2014,” he said.

Mr. Alves said a new infrastructure plan — including a $600 million redevelopment of the airport, the construction of boutique hotels and the improvement of basic infrastructure like roads — would increase tourism.

He said a broader tourism campaign would be aimed at the Australian and Japanese markets and would involve advertising and competitions like a recently opened fishing tournament and the Tour de Timor bicycle race, which took place earlier this year.

Last year, the government opened the Nino Konis Santana National Park in an effort to protect many of its animal and plant species while providing a new attraction for tourists.

“Our strategy is to focus on the things that make East Timor different to surrounding destinations,” Mr. Alves said.

Reuters

South Korea Struggles With Attitudes Toward Race - NYTimes.com

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By CHOE SANG-HUN

SEOUL — On the evening of July 10, Bonogit Hussain, a 29-year-old Indian man, and Hahn Ji-seon, a female Korean friend, were riding a bus near Seoul when a man in the back began hurling racial and sexist slurs at them.

The situation would be a familiar one to many Korean women who have dated or even — as in Ms. Hahn’s case — simply traveled in the company of a foreign man.

What was different this time, however, was that, once it was reported in the South Korean media, prosecutors sprang into action, charging the man they have identified only as a 31-year-old Mr. Park with contempt, the first time such charges had been applied to an alleged racist offense. Spurred by the case, which is pending in court, rival political parties in Parliament have begun drafting legislation that for the first time would provide a detailed definition of discrimination by race and ethnicity and impose criminal penalties.

For Mr. Hussain, subtle discrimination has been part of daily life for the two and half years he has lived here as a student and then research professor at Sungkonghoe University in Seoul. He says that, even in crowded subways, people tend not sit next to him. In June, he said, he fell asleep on a bus and when it reached the terminal, the driver woke him up by poking him in the thigh with his foot, an extremely offensive gesture in South Korea.

“Things got worse for me this time, because I was with a Korean woman,” Mr. Hussain said in an interview. “Whenever I’ve walked with Ms. Hahn or other Korean women, most of the time I felt hostilities, especially from middle-aged men.”

South Korea, a country where until recently people were taught to take pride in their nation’s “ethnic homogeneity” and where the words “skin color” and “peach” are synonymous, is struggling to embrace a new reality. In just the past seven years, the number of foreign residents has doubled, to 1.2 million, even as the country’s population of 48.7 million is expected to drop sharply in coming decades because of its low birth rate.

Many of the foreigners come here to toil at sea or on farms or in factories, providing cheap labor in jobs shunned by South Koreans. Southeast Asian women marry rural farmers who cannot find South Korean brides. People from English-speaking countries find jobs teaching English in a society obsessed with learning the language from native speakers.

For most South Koreans, globalization has largely meant increasing exports or going abroad to study. But now that it is also bringing an influx of foreigners into a society where 42 percent of respondents in a 2008 survey said they had never once spoken with a foreigner, South Koreans are learning to adjust — often uncomfortably.

In a report issued Oct. 21, Amnesty International criticized discrimination in South Korea against migrant workers, who mostly are from poor Asian countries, citing sexual abuse, racial slurs, inadequate safety training and the mandatory disclosure of H.I.V. status, a requirement not imposed on South Koreans in the same jobs. Citing local news media and rights advocates, it said that following last year’s financial downturn, “incidents of xenophobia are on the rise.”

Ms. Hahn said, “Even a friend of mine confided to me that when he sees a Korean woman walking with a foreign man, he feels as if his own mother betrayed him.”

In South Korea, a country repeatedly invaded and subjugated by its bigger neighbors, people’s racial outlooks have been colored by “pure-blood” nationalism as well as traditional patriarchal mores, said Seol Dong-hoon, a sociologist at Chonbuk National University.

Centuries ago, when Korean women who had been taken to China as war prizes and forced into sexual slavery managed to return home, their communities ostracized them as tainted. In the last century, Korean “comfort women,” who worked as sex slaves for the Japanese Imperial Army, faced a similar stigma. Later, women who sold sex to American G.I.’s in the years following the 1950-53 Korean War were despised even more. Their children were shunned as “twigi,” a term once reserved for animal hybrids, said Bae Gee-cheol, 53, whose mother was expelled from her family after she gave birth to him following her rape by an American soldier.

Even today, the North Korean authorities often force abortion on women who return home pregnant after going to China to find food, according to defectors and human rights groups.

“When I travel with my husband, we avoid buses and subways,” said Jung Hye-sil, 42, who married a Pakistani man in 1994. “They glance at me as if I have done something incredible. There is a tendency here to control women and who they can date or marry, in the name of the nation.”

For many Koreans, the first encounter with non-Asians came during the Korean War, when American troops fought on the South Korean side. That experience has complicated South Koreans’ racial perceptions, Mr. Seol said. Today, the mix of envy and loathing of the West, especially of white Americans, is apparent in daily life.

The government and media obsess over each new report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, to see how the country ranks against other developed economies. A hugely popular television program is “Chit Chat of Beautiful Ladies” — a show where young, attractive, mostly Caucasian women who are fluent in Korean discuss South Korea. Yet, when South Koreans refer to Americans in private conversations, they nearly always attach the same suffix as when they talk about the Japanese and Chinese, their historical masters: “nom,” which means “bastards.” Tammy Chu, 34, a Korean-born film director who was adopted by Americans and grew up in New York State, said she had been “scolded and yelled at” in Seoul subways for speaking in English and thus “not being Korean enough.” Then, she said, her applications for a job as an English teacher were rejected on the grounds that she was “not white enough.”

Ms. Hahn said that after the incident in the bus last July, her family was “turned upside down.” Her father and other relatives grilled her as to whether she was dating Mr. Hussain. But when a cousin recently married a German, “all my relatives envied her, as if her marriage was a boon to our family,” she said.

The Foreign Ministry supports an anti-discrimination law, said Kim Se-won, a ministry official. In 2007, the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination recommended that South Korea adopt such a law, deploring the widespread use of terms like “pure blood” and “mixed blood.” It urged public education to overcome the notion that South Korea was “ethnically homogenous,” which, it said, “no longer corresponds to the actual situation.”

But a recent forum to discuss proposed legislation against racial discrimination turned into a shouting match when several critics who had networked through the Internet showed up. They charged that such a law would only encourage even more migrant workers to come to South Korea, pushing native workers out of jobs and creating crime-infested slums. They also said it was too difficult to define what was racially or culturally offensive.

“Our ethnic homogeneity is a blessing,” said one of the critics, Lee Sung-bok, a bricklayer who said his job was threatened by migrant workers. “If they keep flooding in, who can guarantee our country won’t be torn apart by ethnic war as in Sri Lanka?”

Kosovo Unveils Clinton Statue - NYTimes.com

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PRISTINA (Reuters) - Kosovo's Albanian majority unveiled a statue of former U.S. president Bill Clinton on Sunday to thank him for saving them by stopping a wave of ethnic cleansing by Serbia.

As the U.S. President in 1999, Clinton launched NATO air strikes to halt the killing of ethnic Albanians by Serbian troops.

Clinton's speech was interrupted several times by Kosovo Albanians wildly cheering his name and U.S.A., and waving U.S., Albanian and Kosovo flags.

"I am profoundly grateful that I had a chance to be a part of ending the horrible things that were happening to you 10 years ago giving you a chance to build a better future for yourself," Clinton told the crowd.

The crowd chanted Clinton's name when the former president started shaking hands with people along a boulevard named after him.

"I never expected ... anywhere someone will make such a big statue of me," Clinton said after his 3-metre (10 foot) statue was unveiled.

He urged Kosovars to build a multi-ethnic country with the minority Serbs and other minorities and said the United States would always help Kosovo's people.

"You have to build something good and we should help," he added.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia last year and was recognised by the United States and major European Union powers -- a total of 62 countries worldwide but not by its former ruler Serbia, Russia and China.

Grateful Kosovo Albanians also named a central street in central Pristina after former U.S. president George W. Bush.

Kosovo Albanians regard Clinton, former British prime minister Tony Blair and Clinton's state secretary Madeleine Albright as their saviours and have named their babies after them.

Ismail Neziri had travelled 60 km (37 miles) to see the president again after they met in a refugee camp in Macedonia where Neziri's family had fled to escape the forces of late Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic.

Around 10,000 Albanians were killed as Serb forces moved to wipe out an ethnic Albanian guerrilla force and 800,000 were expelled to neighbouring Macedonia, Albania and Montenegro.

"I was only eight years in a refugee camp in Macedonia when Clinton took me in his hands and today he is the same big and young man," said Neziri, 18, holding a U.S. flag.

"In 1996 everybody was speaking that Clinton is a good man and he will help us and then my father named me after him," said 13-year-old Klinton Krasniqi.

(Editing by Richard Williams)

How to prevent getting swine flu and what to do if you have it - washingtonpost.com

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Sunday, November 1, 2009

Andrew Pekosz, an associate professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, answers questions about H1N1 swine flu.

How can I tell if I have swine flu? And does it matter if it's that flu or the seasonal one?

Virtually all the cases of influenza occurring at this time are caused by 2009 H1N1. While individuals with severe flu-like illness are being tested to determine for certain which virus is causing the disease, there is no need for most people to get tested.

How do I know if I or someone in my family should go to the hospital?

Some key symptoms to watch for include rapid but shallow breathing, difficulty in breathing and lethargy or extreme weakness. A complete list of symptoms can be found at http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/sick.htm#3.

What is the best source of information about the H1N1 virus?

There are couple of Web sites that provide good general information on the H1N1 virus; the one I like for information to the general public is http://www.flu.gov, but be sure to check with your state or county public health department.

Who should get vaccinated? What are the priority groups?

There are several priority groups being targeted for vaccination while the vaccine is in short supply. The complete list is at http://www.flu.gov/individualfamily/vaccination/vprioritygroups.html but includes pregnant women, health-care and emergency medical personnel, household contacts or caregivers of children under the age of 6 months, anyone between the ages of 6 months and 24 years of age, and people age 25 to 64 who have underlying medical conditions.

What's the difference between nasal spray and injection? Who should get what kind?

The nasal-spray vaccine is a weakened form of the virus that does not cause influenza but does generate a good immune response. The injectable vaccine is an inactivated or "killed" form of the virus which is injected into the muscle of your arm. The nasal spray is only available to healthy individuals age 2 to 49, while the injectable vaccine is available to a wider range of the population. More information is available at http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/vaccination/general.htm.

If I can't get the vaccine right away, is it still worth getting it later?

Yes. . . . We are not certain how long the flu season will last, or if we will have several flu seasons or "waves" this year, so when vaccine becomes available, everyone should take advantage of it.

How quickly does the vaccination take effect? Is it possible to come down with the flu soon after getting vaccinated?

After three weeks, most people have an immune response that will protect them from infection with 2009 H1N1. The immune response begins to be detected seven to seven to 10 days after vaccination. The vaccines cannot cause the flu, but you certainly could catch influenza during the time after vaccination when your body hasn't developed a strong anti-influenza immune response.

Should everyone who comes down with the flu take Tamiflu or Relenza?

No. The CDC guidelines recommend that only individuals who are in high-risk groups should receive Tamiflu or Relenza at the first sign of symptoms. If you develop symptoms of severe influenza, then you should seek out medical treatment and begin to take Tamiflu and Relenza. For most people who will come down with the mild form of the disease, the use of Tamiflu or Relenza is not recommended in order to ensure enough of the drugs are available.

OnLove - Digital Love: Looking for love on virtual-reality Web sites - washingtonpost.com

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Uncertainty over election puts life in Kabul on hold - washingtonpost.com

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By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, November 1, 2009

KABUL -- Traffic in Afghanistan's congested capital is worse than ever this month, with carloads of religious pilgrims arriving from the provinces to take flights to Saudi Arabia for hajj, and wedding parties scheduled back-to-back in ornate halls to beat the approaching winter weather.

But beyond family and religious obligations, this is a capital on hold. Economic activities, from office-building projects to sidewalk shoeshines, are being held hostage to a messy and uncertain presidential election process that has dragged on since early August.

An electoral runoff has been scheduled for Nov. 7, but the crisis may deepen because the major challenger to President Hamid Karzai is threatening to pull out of the race on Sunday.

A solution can't come too soon for Abdul Manan, 38. He sells PVC pipe for residential and commercial construction -- or used to sell it before his business crashed to a halt two months ago.

"Everything has stopped -- the investment from the donor countries, which affects government and private projects, which affects the big contractors and the small suppliers like me," Manan said as he watched TV in his warehouse, surrounded by piles of dusty white pipe. "Everyone says they are waiting to see what happens in the elections."

It is the same story in shops and offices across this crowded city of about 4 million. Until spring, Kabul was a rapidly if unevenly developing metropolis where muddy, unpaved streets were lined with new glass offices, supermarkets, mansions, neon-lighted wedding halls, and banks with ATMs.

Now, supermarket managers whose shelves once burst with imported goods say they are running out of canned peas from Europe and scrub brushes from China. Store owners have withheld new orders, and cargo-truck shipments via neighboring Pakistan have been suspended while a Taliban insurgency rages on both sides of the border.

Academics say some international conferences and foreign-funded research projects have been postponed or canceled until a new government is installed. Fewer visitors are coming from abroad, and more-affluent Afghans are starting to send their families and their capital overseas.

On the city streets, where veiled widows beg for handouts, small boys swing incense burners for alms and scavengers with donkey carts search through garbage heaps, the trickle-down effect is palpable.

"A lot of the wealthy people with nice shoes have left, because they're afraid there is going to be fighting over the elections," said Mohammed Bashir, 26, who has been shining shoes outside a mosque in Kabul's Shar-I-Nau district since he was a teenager. "I don't care who wins," he said. "I just want things to be secure and settled again."

The fear of political chaos has grown with each passing week. The presidential election, already delayed since May, was finally held Aug. 20 but was found invalid because of widespread fraud.

The crisis has set off a protracted dispute involving Karzai, his leading challenger, U.N. officials and Western governments. The country is in political limbo, and Afghans are worried that ethnic violence will tear the capital apart, especially if challenger Abdullah Abdullah pulls out of the contest.

Making matters worse, Taliban insurgents have targeted the election process. They rocketed polling stations and cut off voters' fingers during the first round; now they are attempting to sabotage the runoff, which some analysts say may be canceled at the last minute.

On Wednesday, a Taliban suicide squad stormed a Kabul guesthouse where more than 20 election workers were staying. The assault left 12 people dead and residents bracing for an escalation in urban warfare.

Diplomats, journalists and the Afghan political elite are obsessed with every nuance of the electoral drama. Rumors fly daily of secret meetings, deals and threats between the main political actors. But most people here have more personal worries, demands and hopes on their minds.

"Tomorrow is my wedding party, and it will happen to me only once in my life. Nothing could matter more," said Zarla, 18, a bride who was getting a facial massage in a noisy salon crowded with women, children, teacups and fashion magazines. "I'm going to vote because we need peace in our country, but right now I only want to look beautiful."

But even the wedding business is suffering from election jitters. Javed Hamid, who sells expensive satin and sequined gowns, said many families were opting to rent bridal dresses this season, in case they need the money for emergencies.

"People don't want to plan a lot of parties and have a good time, because there is too much tension over the elections and what the next government will be," Hamid said, standing in his shop next to a glass case full of rhinestone tiaras. "It is affecting everyone and everything."

One ritual has remained impervious to the political crisis. Over the next several weeks, more than 30,000 Afghans will travel to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, to perform hajj. The trip is a highlight of any Muslim's life; it often requires saving money for years but is believed to reward pilgrims with health, prosperity and forgiveness of sins.

Every day, long lines of hajjis, mostly elderly men, form outside Kabul's vast Eid Gah mosque, lugging satchels and bundles. They have come from all across the country and paid up to $7,000 each for the trip. Policemen with loudspeakers call them one by one, and relatives crowd around with farewell hugs.

"Hajj is our religious duty and the most important thing in Islam. It is much more important than elections," said Qari Yacoub, an animal-skin trader from the city of Jalalabad who said he had saved for six years to afford the trip.

Among the crowd of waiting pilgrims and their families wandered ragged boys with wares to sell the travelers: cupcakes in plastic bags, bottles of water and packets of toilet paper.

Above the scene, on the pink-streaked urban horizon, stood the steel skeletons of several half-built offices -- begun months ago at a time of promise for democracy and development, but now, like the hopes of the nation, suspended in midair.

1,600 are suggested daily for FBI's list - washingtonpost.com

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By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 1, 2009

Newly released FBI data offer evidence of the broad scope and complexity of the nation's terrorist watch list, documenting a daily flood of names nominated for inclusion to the controversial list.

During a 12-month period ended in March this year, for example, the U.S. intelligence community suggested on a daily basis that 1,600 people qualified for the list because they presented a "reasonable suspicion," according to data provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee by the FBI in September and made public last week.

FBI officials cautioned that each nomination "does not necessarily represent a new individual, but may instead involve an alias or name variant for a previously watchlisted person."

The ever-churning list is said to contain more than 400,000 unique names and over 1 million entries. The committee was told that over that same period, officials asked each day that 600 names be removed and 4,800 records be modified. Fewer than 5 percent of the people on the list are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents. Nine percent of those on the terrorism list, the FBI said, are also on the government's "no fly" list.

This information, and more about the FBI's wide-ranging effort against terrorists, came in answers from FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III to Senate Judiciary Committee members' questions. The answers were first made public last week in Steven Aftergood's Secrecy News.

Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.), who has shown concern over some of the FBI's relatively new investigative techniques assessing possible terrorist, criminal or foreign intelligence activities, drew new information from the agency. Before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the FBI needed initial information that a person or group was engaged in wrongdoing before it could open a preliminary investigation.

Under current practice, no such information is needed. That led Feingold to ask how many "assessments" had been initiated and how many had led to investigations since new guidelines were put into effect in December 2008. The FBI said the answer was "sensitive" and would be provided only in classified form.

Feingold was given brief descriptions of the types of assessments that can be undertaken: The inquiries can be opened by individual agents "proactively," meaning on his or her own or in response to a lead about a threat. Other assessments are undertaken to identify or gather information about potential targets or terrorists, to gather information to aid intelligence gathering and related to matters of foreign intelligence interest.

Feingold pointed to a November 2008 Justice Department inspector general audit showing that in 2006, approximately 219,000 tips from the public led to the FBI's determination that there were 2,800 counterterrorism threats and suspicious incidents that year. "Regardless of the reporting source, FBI policy requires that each threat or suspicious incident should receive some level of review and assessment to determine the potential nexus to terrorism," the audit said.

In a different vein, the FBI was asked why it is losing new recruits as special agents and support personnel at a time when terrorist investigations are increasing. The FBI responded that failed polygraph tests rather than other factors, such as the length of time for getting security clearances, are the main reason recruits are ending their efforts to join the bureau. In the past year, polygraphs were the cause of roughly 40 percent of special-agent applicants dropping out, the records showed.

Karzai Rival Steps Aside but Challenges Electoral Fraud - NYTimes.com

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By CARLOTTA GALL and ALISSA RUBIN

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan’s last presidential challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, stepped aside on Sunday, leaving the field clear for President Hamid Karzai to serve another five-year term but challenging the legitimacy of the government in an emotional speech before thousands of opposition supporters here.

Mr. Abdullah said he was quitting to protest the behavior of the government and the Independent Election Commission, which, he said, were planning even more extensive fraud in the scheduled runoff vote on Nov. 7 than in the badly tainted first round in August. He also said he took into account the dangerous security situation in the country and the risks voters and the security forces faced in holding a runoff election.

“I hoped there would be a better process,” he said. “But it is final. I will not participate in the Nov. 7 elections.”

Mr. Abdullah made it clear he was not seeking confrontation with Mr. Karzai’s government: he did not call for protests or a nationwide boycott of the election process, and he said he would not tell his supporters they should not vote.

Still, his withdrawal immediately called into question how the Afghan democratic process could proceed at all. Even though Mr. Karzai’s aides insisted that the Nov. 7 vote would go on, American and other Western officials said they would push for a legal decision to make Mr. Karzai president rather than holding a new vote with just one candidate in a country actively engaged in a war with Taliban and Qaeda militants.

Obama administration officials on Sunday rallied around Mr. Karzai, saying that Mr. Abdullah’s actions were in line with the Afghan constitution and that a decision on troop levels in Afghanistan was moving forward with the matter of Mr. Karzai’s re-election now essentially settled.

“The president wanted an election that proceeded in the constitutional way, a runoff was called, and Abdullah exercised his rights as a candidate,” said David Axelrod, President Obama’s senior adviser, on the CBS News program “Face the Nation.”

Mr. Axelrod added that polling suggested that Mr. Abdullah “would have been defeated anyway.”

Mr. Axelrod and another close Obama adviser, Valerie Jarrett, both said Sunday that a decision on whether to send more troops to Afghanistan was still weeks away. And they pointedly noted that the chief American goal now in Afghanistan was to make sure Al Qaeda would not re-establish bases in Afghanistan, omitting any discussion of political and economic stability in Afghanistan itself.

Whether Mr. Karzai will be accepted as a legitimate leader will largely depend on his conduct in the coming days and weeks, one Western official in Afghanistan said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the political nature of the remarks. Western leaders will be looking to his choice of cabinet for his willingness to reach out to his opponents across the ethnic and factional divisions, but also his selection of competent ministers who will tackle corruption and weak government, the official said.

“He can try and rehabilitate himself by actions that he means business, or he can continue as he has and see the international support slowly drain away,” the official said.

Mr. Abdullah’s supporters, who traveled from all over the country to hear his decision in Kabul, were unanimous in calling Mr. Karzai an illegitimate leader.

“Look at the government. No one feels governance in the whole country,” said Azizullah Wasefi, who served as a provincial governor under Mr. Karzai but supported Mr. Abdullah for president.

Yet the decision was clearly a hard one for Mr. Adbullah. He choked up at the moment of announcing it before his supporters and had to pause to drink water before speaking.

“It did not come easily,” he told the crowd, which began cheering at his announcement. He said people had died in the cause of establishing a democracy and a transparent electoral system had been one of the main aims of the last eight years since the Taliban was ousted.

Mr. Abdullah clearly signaled that he was positioning himself as a future player in Afghan politics. In a news briefing later at his home, he said:

“I did it with a lot of pain, but at the same time with a lot of hopes towards the future. Because this will not be the end of anything, this will be a new beginning.”

He continued: “Hopefully democracy will survive in this country, and I can assure our people that I will be at the service of the people and will promote the ideas of reform and change for the betterment of the lives of the people of Afghanistan.”

Mr. Abdullah has been under intense pressure from Western officials to avoid confrontation and end a two-month dispute over the election results.

The head of the United Nations mission in Afghanistan, Kay Eide, who unsuccessfully attempted to broker an agreement between Mr. Karzai and Mr. Abdullah at a meeting on Wednesday, praised Mr. Abdullah as showing a statesmanlike and dignified manner, and he called for a legal and timely end to the electoral process.

That call was echoed by other Western officials in Afghanistan, some of whom said that it was most likely that the Independent Election Commission or Supreme Court would declare Mr. Karzai the winner in coming days.

In a radio interview after Mr. Abdullah’s announcement, Mr. Karzai said he still believed the runoff vote would go forward. “I hope that the election will be held so our people can choose their president,” he said, but he added that he would respect any decision made by the election commission.

Mr. Abdullah’s supporters were mostly subdued after the announcement. But most of those interviewed said they supported the decision to withdraw in view of the joint threats of repeated government fraud and insecurity.

Still, some Afghans from the more stable areas of the country where his support base has been strong said they thought he could have won a second round. “The people want Dr. Abdullah!” said Habibullah Azimi, 19, a student from Ghor Province.

“This was a black and bitter decision, but we swallowed this bitter decision in the interest of future generations,” said Faizullah Mojadeddi, a member of Parliament from Logar Province just south of Kabul. “They want a democratic process, not a fraudulent one. Few people would vote if Mr. Karzai went ahead with the election,” he added.

Some warned that the general situation in the country would further deteriorate under another term with Mr. Karzai as president. “There will be more misery in Afghanistan,” said Najibullah Majidi, 37, a farmer from northwestern Afghanistan.

“Karzai has not won and if the international community does not prosecute the thief, what will happen?” asked Abdul Majid, 75, a tribal elder from a district of Mr. Karzai’s home province, Kandahar, where he said no one could vote because of Taliban threats. “This fire will spread,” he warned.

Against a backdrop of bargaining and diplomatic activity, Mr. Karzai stayed silent publicly. Only last month, Mr. Karzai succumbed to pressure from American and other Western officials, agreeing to accept the verdict of a United Nations-backed commission that put his vote total at under 50 percent.

To the horror of American officials here, Mr. Karzai had strongly considered overriding the Election Complaint Commission, a United Nations-backed body that found that nearly a million ballots had been forged for Mr. Karzai, and declaring himself the winner. Mr. Karzai still held a commanding lead over Mr. Abdullah — 48 to 27 percent — but the commission had pulled the president below 50 percent. That made a runoff necessary.

Only the forceful intervention of Senator John Kerry, who was visiting in Kabul, averted a full-blown political crisis.

But Mr. Abdullah concluded that without major changes to the election system, a second round would be as fraudulent as the first. His demands included the firing of the chief of the Independent Electoral Commission, which collected and counted the ballots, and the closing of hundreds of suspected “ghost” polling centers — fictional voting sites that were instrumental in allowing Mr. Karzai’s supporters to manufacture fake ballots. Mr. Karzai refused.

Those close to Mr. Karzai said there was a simple explanation for Mr. Abdullah’s withdrawal. Muhammad Ismail Yoon, a university professor close to Mr. Karzai, said Mr. Abdullah knew that if he went through with a second round, the Afghans would desert him. “No one invests in a loser in Afghanistan,” he said.

Joseph Berger contributed reporting from New York.

BBC - Guantanamo Uighurs sent to Palau

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Six Chinese Uighur prisoners from the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay have been transferred to the Pacific island nation of Palau, officials say.

Lawyers for three of them said they had "arrived to freedom" early on Sunday.

Palau agreed in June to take up to a dozen Uighurs who were captured during the US-led war in Afghanistan but not later classified as "enemy combatants".

China wants them to be returned there, but the US says it cannot repatriate them due to the risk of mistreatment.

Beijing has frequently cracked down on Uighur dissidents, who it accuses of seeking an independent homeland in the western province of Xinjiang.

Four other Uighur detainees were resettled in Bermuda earlier this year, and another five went to Albania in 2006.

'Safe from oppression'

A law firm representing three of the six Uighurs released from Guantanamo on Saturday confirmed that they had arrived safely at their new home in the main town of Koror.

“ The men are happy at long last to be free ”
Eric Tirschwell Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel

"These men want nothing more than to live peaceful, productive lives in a free, democratic nation safe from oppression by the Chinese," Eric Tirschwell of Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel told the Associated Press.

"Thanks to Palau, which has graciously offered them a temporary home, they now have that chance," he added.

Mr Tirschwell said the men had already begun learning English and looked forward to become productive members of the community.

The men will live in a three-storey building which is a five-minute walk from Koror's only mosque, one of two on the island.

The President of Palau, Johnson Toribiong, told the BBC that the Uighers would be given a temporary home for as long as two years.

"Initially, they will be attending a crash course in the English language and of our culture and history for a couple of months. We'll interview them to find out about their skills, and then try to place them where they'll be gainfully employed," he said.

Palau has a Muslim population of about 500, mostly migrant workers from Bangladesh. Many face being deported due to lapsed work permits.

In addition to the six Uighurs who arrived on Sunday, the island nation has offered to take six of the seven others still being held at Guantanamo. One did not receive an invitation because of concerns about his mental health.

The American defence department decided last year that the Uighur detainees were not enemy combatants, but they were refused the right to settle in the US. China has demanded that the men be extradited but the US says they would face persecution.

Palau, a former US trust territory, is an archipelago of eight main islands plus more than 250 islets that is best known for diving and tourism and is located some 800km (500 miles) east of the Philippines.

The tiny nation has retained close ties with Washington since independence in 1994 when it signed a Compact of Free Association with the US. It relies heavily on the US for aid and defence, and does not have diplomatic relations with China.

The latest departures from Guantanamo occurred after the US Supreme Court, rejecting the government's position, said it would hear an appeal by the Uighurs, who have argued that they should be released onto US soil.

There are now 215 detainees remaining at the prison camp, which President Barack Obama has pledged to close by 22 January.