Struggling for the Rule of Law: The Pakistani Lawyers’ Movement

Daud Munir

(Daud Munir is a doctoral candidate in politics at Princeton University.)

Lawyers protest against the establishment of anti-terrorist courts headed by civil-military judges, February 2, 2002, Lahore. (K. M. Chaudary/AP Photo)

In March 2007, when President (and General) Pervez Musharraf suspended Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, Pakistani lawyers took to the streets in large numbers. It was a dangerous street where they were met with batons, barbed wire, tear gas, bullets and bombs. If their immediate demand was Chaudhry’s return to the bench, the incipient goal of their movement was restoration and respect for the rule of law. Over the last two years, protesting lawyers fundamentally transformed the political landscape in Pakistan.

Lawyers—at least in their capacity as lawyers—rarely enter the fray of contentious politics by employing disruptive techniques to press for changes in government policy. While lawyers are agents and advocates of political liberalism and the rule of law in most countries, their favored arena of contestation usually has been courts, and their preferred tactics of resistance have been writs and petitions. If we define a “lawyers’ movement” as a coherent nationwide struggle by legal professionals, sustained over time and fought primarily in the streets, Pakistan would emerge as the only case.

The lawyers’ bold challenge to Musharraf presented a unique historical opportunity for meaningful political reform in Pakistan. It certainly presented a counter-image of the idea that Pakistan is a “failed state,” as some US policymakers have claimed, and a contrast to the parallel undemocratic impulse in Pakistan’s politics, led by militant movements of tribal Pashtuns seeking to install a radical version of Islam in the country’s northwest regions. The broader effects of the lawyers’ struggle depend on whether this indigenous democratic impulse can flourish and endure in the post-Musharraf era. The problem is that while western policymakers are ready to extend billions of dollars in military aid to subdue the extremist impulse, they seem unwilling to engage with—or even to adequately acknowledge—the secular, reformist impulse in Pakistani society that is represented by the lawyers’ movement.

A Tale of Two Judges

Following Pakistan’s creation as an independent state in 1947, the project of establishing constitutional governance had an unpromising beginning. In 1954, the Constituent Assembly finally agreed on the governing legal framework. Later that year, as legal experts were busy drafting the text of the constitution, Governor-General Ghulam Muhammad dissolved the Assembly, silencing what he referred to as its “parliamentary bickering.” Proclaiming in an emergency proclamation that the Assembly had “lost the confidence of the people,” what really troubled Muhammad was the imminent curtailment of his powers through new legislation.

The executive enlisted the support of the military in its bid to preserve its power. In a breach of rules barring members of the military from holding political office, General Ayub Khan, the army chief, was appointed as a minister in the newly formed cabinet. This extra-constitutional action formally paved the way for the military’s entry into Pakistan’s politics.

How did the judiciary respond? The Chief Court of Sindh accepted a petition submitted by the president of the Assembly and invalidated the actions of the governor-general. On appeal, however, the Federal Court upheld the legality of the Assembly’s dissolution. A constitutional crisis ensued, which the court resolved by relying on the “doctrine of necessity.” According to this controversial principle, extra-constitutional actions can be legally justified under special circumstances. The man behind this legal maneuver was Chief Justice Muhammad Munir, a brilliant legal mind. His majority opinion which, in essence, validated Pakistan’s first extra-constitutional coup, was a skillful attempt at bending the law in support of the executive. Munir’s ruling endorsing the usurpation of power would prove costly for Pakistan.

In 1958, when General Khan suspended the constitution and imposed the first martial law, Justice Munir authored the leading judgment validating this military coup d’état. This time the legal maneuver involved mislabeling the coup a “revolution” by invoking the speculative theory of “revolutionary legality” developed by the Austrian jurist Hans Kelsen. The court argued that since the “revolution” satisfied “the test of efficacy,” it could thereby be deemed legitimate. In other words, the success of the military coup d’état automatically furnished the justification for its legality.

The jurisprudence of the Munir court set the tone for constitutional reasoning in Pakistan. The doctrine of necessity, in particular, was used repeatedly to legitimate extralegal usurpations of power. Both Generals Zia ul-Haq’s and Pervez Musharraf’s military takeovers, in 1977 and 1999, respectively, were validated using this doctrine. One of the members of the bench who reviewed and endorsed the legality of Musharraf’s military coup d’état in May 2000 was Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.

When Chaudhry became chief justice in 2005, however, his judicial philosophy underwent a fundamental metamorphosis. Rather than acting as an agent of the power elite, Chaudhry sought to become a guarantor of the fundamental rights of Pakistani citizens. Soon after being sworn in, he established a “human rights cell” in the Supreme Court. Through this forum, Chaudhry started accepting petitions from the public against infringements of constitutionally guaranteed rights. The cases taken up by the court incrementally tightened the noose of legality around the Musharraf regime.

In the first few cases, the court held local town officials accountable for failing to oversee and enforce safety regulations in construction projects. Decisions in another set of cases annulled the leases of two public parks that were handed over to private parties for the development of a mini-golf course and a parking complex. Next in line were cases against corrupt federal ministers involved in illegally controlling the prices of commodities. By successively implicating more powerful state officials, it seemed that Chaudhry was testing the regime’s willingness to tolerate his judicial activism.

There was a paradigmatic shift in the core function of Pakistan’s Supreme Court when decisions started going against senior members of the executive. One of these decisions directly challenged the administrative practices of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, who privatized Pakistan Steel Mills, one of the country’s largest public sector enterprises, generating considerable controversy. It was alleged that Aziz, who was also the chair of the Cabinet Committee on Privatization, had agreed to the sale of the corporation at an unduly low price to a consortium he favored. In a landmark judgment, the Chaudhry Court annulled the sale agreement on the grounds that the deal had been done in “indecent haste.”

Soon afterwards, the court shocked the military regime by taking up cases addressing “missing persons.” Under the pretext of the “war on terror,” Musharraf’s security apparatus had forcibly disappeared a large number of political opponents. In an astoundingly bold move, Chief Justice Chaudhry accepted a case involving 41 missing persons. The court upheld the right to due process for extrajudicially detained individuals and ordered the state agencies to produce them in court. This was an extraordinary contra-authoritarian step in the judicial history of Pakistan. Chaudhry’s activism generated immense respect among lawyers and the human rights community, and was widely reported in the burgeoning independent Pakistani media. Emboldened by the positive feedback, Chaudhry accepted another case involving over a hundred forced disappearances on March 8, 2007. The next day would prove fateful for both Chaudhry and the military regime in Pakistan.

Chaudhry’s Suspension

Lawyers of Lahore protest military rule, February 27, 2001, in Lahore. (K. M. Choudary/AP Photo)

Musharraf invited Chaudhry to his official residence. Dressed in military uniform and accompanied by the prime minster and intelligence chiefs, he sought to pressure the chief justice to resign. Chaudhry refused. An infuriated Musharraf forcibly detained Chaudhry for several hours and then suspended him through a presidential order with immediate effect. An acting chief justice was sworn in.

After Chaudhry’s suspension, bar associations in several parts of the country began protesting Musharraf’s action. Three days after the suspension, as the deposed chief justice left his residence to face the Supreme Court bench hearing his case, a police car was waiting to transport him. Chaudhry, however, believed that he was still the rightful chief justice of Pakistan—and certainly not a criminal—and so decided to walk to court rather than ride in the police car. At this point, the security forces pulled him by the hair and forced him into the car. Their actions were captured on film and widely circulated on news channels and reported in the print media.

The insult to one of the highest symbols of the legal profession galvanized even habitually apathetic lawyers. Wearing their black coats, lawyers took to the streets in protests across the country demanding Chaudhry’s reinstatement. Thus began the lawyers’ movement, which continued with a boycott of courts and ongoing demonstrations against the regime. Chaudhry traveled around the country, addressing bar associations in order to help keep the movement animated. The media played a critical role by giving live coverage to the events and by debating the legality of Musharraf’s action.

In July 2007, in the context of public opinion strongly mobilized in favor of the deposed chief justice, the Supreme Court passed a landmark judgment annulling the presidential order and restoring Chaudhry. This was the first judicial ruling in the country’s history directly challenging the action of a military dictator.

The Struggle Continued

The chief justice—restored to his post as a result of countrywide popular mobilization—felt emboldened to take up the case of Musharraf’s eligibility to run for reelection as president while in military uniform. Sensing an imminent court decision against the constitutionality of his bid for reelection, Musharraf imposed emergency rule in November 2007. He suspended sixty judges of the higher courts in Pakistan, including Chief Justice Chaudhry.

Over the next few months, Musharraf’s security apparatus launched an offensive against Pakistan’s civil society, with special vehemence directed at the rebellious legal community. Although many individuals were brutally attacked, the lawyers’ movement continued to press the government for the restoration of the judiciary. The boycott of courts and the climate of instability most likely contributed to a rift within the military over how best to respond and control the mobilization. It certainly was a factor in Musharraf’s decision to extend his hand to Benazir Bhutto, leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), to stave the erosion of his own legitimacy. Under an agreement with Musharraf that granted her blanket immunity for pending corruption charges, Bhutto returned to Pakistan in October 2007. In the buildup to a January 2008 parliamentary election, Bhutto, the leading opposition candidate, was assassinated at a rally in Rawalpindi on December 27, 2007.

After being sworn in as president for another five years, Musharraf maintained his refusal to restore the deposed judges. In July 2008, the lawyers’ movement organized the first “long march.” Around 50,000 protesters from around the country converged on the capital. Given the erosion of his power during the last year and mounting opposition to his policies, Musharraf resigned in August.

A few weeks later, Asif Zardari, Bhutto’s widower and co-chair of the PPP, was elected president. One of his campaign promises was to restore the deposed judges. However, several months into his presidency Zardari not only refused to reinstate the judges, but appointed PPP loyalists as judges in higher courts, presumably motivated in part by a desire to curtail corruption cases against him.

The lawyers’ movement had not abated with the end of Musharraf’s rule, and new pressure was directed at Zardari to reinstate the judiciary. The lawyers organized a second long march in March 2009, in which opposition parties officially joined. This time, before the hundreds of thousands of protestors reached the capital, the prime minister announced the restoration of the deposed judges. Chief Justice Chaudhry once again resumed office on March 22, 2009.

Undermining Authoritarianism

Even though “Go Musharraf Go!” had been one of the main slogans of the lawyers, it would be erroneous to think that the movement’s goal was regime change. In retrospect, the single-issue clarity of the movement’s campaign to reinstate the deposed judges arguably made their activism so successful. But the lawyers’ struggle did prove to be a critical factor in undermining Musharraf’s military regime and forcing his resignation. Unlike most other transitions to democracy in which the principal agents of change have been a country’s political elites, in Pakistan it was mobilization by the legal community that paved the way.

To understand how middle class professionals could upend a military regime as powerful as Musharraf’s, it is important to specify the nature of the Pakistan lawyers’ movement. For one thing, it was not confined to any particular geographical region; lawyers from across the country were actively involved, with Lahore and Karachi registering the highest turnouts at protests. The movement was not dominated by any single ethnic or sectarian group, thus giving it a truly national complexion. And it was not a façade for political party activism, although parties occasionally participated—especially at key events. This movement was initiated, organized and sustained by Pakistani legal professionals who waged their struggle mainly in the streets.

Lawyers put their safety and freedom at risk, given Pakistan’s history of political violence and regime repression. Thousands were arrested, illegally detained, beaten up and tear-gassed. There were at least two violent events during which more than 50 died. The Musharraf regime had used the draconian Anti-Terrorism Act to detain several lawyers, and amended the Army Act of 1952 to allow civilians to be tried in military courts for vague offenses such as “giving statements conducive to public mischief.”

The erosion of regime legitimacy is rarely sufficient to oust a dictator. What is needed—and what the Pakistani lawyers’ movement provided—was the infliction of tangible costs. By acting as a judicial support network, lawyers propelled the regime into constitutional crises. In many countries, authoritarian regime destabilization is the result of an economic crisis. In Pakistan, the crisis of governability arose first in the legal realm. The mobilization of public opinion in support of the deposed judges, arguably, was critical in the decision of the Supreme Court to annul the presidential order. After the judiciary was restored, the lawyers pressed them to take up the case of Musharraf’s eligibility to run for reelection, propelling the regime into a second crisis.

Lawyers’ boycotts of normal court proceedings threatened the workings of the entire judicial system. The public did not blame the lawyers, but rather the regime, for the consequences of the boycott. And since the lawyers mobilized in the streets rather than merely staying home, they baited the regime, which responded with violent repression. This exacted immense reputational costs both at home and internationally, given the extensive live coverage of protest events by the media. The regime’s destruction of media company offices and passage of censorship laws backfired, further inflaming anti-regime sentiment. The regime also used tactics such as arranging counter-demonstrations by fake lawyers and organizing a national rally in support of Musharraf. Such obvious desperation both exacerbated and illustrated the regime’s loss of power.

Finally, the event that most forcefully proved the cost inflicted by the lawyers’ movement was the regime’s imposition of emergency rule. This was a clear instance of the diversion of the regime’s energies to fighting civil society rather than focusing on important policy issues or confronting the growing threat of Islamist militancy in Pakistan.

A New Vocabulary of Politics

Beyond achieving the restoration of the judges to the bench and eroding the jurisprudential foundations of authoritarianism, the lawyers’ movement has had a deeper structural impact on democratic politics in Pakistan. Historically, party politics has relied on three kinds of allegiances to mobilize people: ethnic, religious and clientelistic. Even a relatively populist leader like Zulfiqar Bhutto, who claimed to champion the dispossessed, offered (clientelistic) “bread, cloth and shelter.” Until the lawyers’ movement, no one had offered “rule of law” to the people.

The political dynamic between Pakistan’s political parties and the lawyers’ movement presents a fascinating example of the potential of civil society in newly democratizing countries. Rather than engaging in partisan politics, the lawyers chose to engage in direct mobilization through the bar. This professional autonomy prevented the movement from being subsumed or manipulated by party politics. Conversely, the political parties tried hard to forge an association with the lawyers’ movement, given its success at mobilization and broad-based legitimacy.

The lawyers’ movement became the principal conduit for democratic change in the political arena. Parties that sought to gain leverage by aligning with the movement had to pay the price of structuring their platforms according to lawyers’ demands for rule of law. The case of the PPP is illustrative. It initially appropriated the movement to gain access to the political space in Pakistan by promising to restore the judges. But after Zardari failed to honor this PPP campaign promise, the strong public opinion mobilized by the lawyers’ movement began adversely affecting his party. Realizing this, Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League threw its force behind the movement, gaining considerable legitimacy as a result.

The lawyers’ movement had an impact not only on traditionally clientelistic parties, but also on Islamist parties that historically have mobilized supporters for the implementation of shari‘a law in Pakistan. The Jamaat-e-Islami was one of the parties most actively engaged with the lawyers’ movement, despite the latter’s aim of strengthening the secular legal system in the country. (For Jamaat, siding with the lawyers was a means of expressing opposition to Musharraf.) As political parties appropriated the movement, they were forced to employ a variant of universalistic liberal legal rhetoric that cut across ethnic, religious or clientelistic claims.

Building the Rule of Law

In Pakistan, interludes of democratic rule have brought only nominal improvements in the lives of citizens. As in other emerging democracies, hopes that courts would protect citizens’ fundamental rights are often derailed when the judiciary proves unable or unwilling to check the power of the regime or elites. Recent events in Pakistan, however, provide an interesting case of courts’ efforts to protect rights and build the rule of law at the expense of power elites.

Support for domestic legal reform from multilateral and foreign institutions such as the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and USAID typically envisions a formalistic legal environment and espouses a model divorced from—or at least not tailored to—the social and political forces in the target country. The international record of trying to transplant a one-size-fits-all model of legal reform is unimpressive, not least because it ignores the fact that law is inherently and fundamentally political. The most successful examples of rule of law-building are found in countries where local actors and institutions direct the reforms in ways that accommodate local norms of legal legitimacy.

The two-year struggle of the legal community for upholding the rule of law in Pakistan can be thought of as a political project aimed at legal reform. In contrast to legal reform programs of multilateral institutions, this project was not implemented in a top-down manner. Rather, it was an indigenous project, deeply embedded in the country’s social and political context. Rather than focusing on strengthening the judicial machinery, the lawyers’ movement engaged in rule of law-supporting activism through street protests and court boycotts. In the end, it accomplished something that formalistic legal development by multilateral institutions arguably cannot: the widespread legitimacy of judicial institutions among the citizens of Pakistan.

Given this strong impulse for reform in Pakistan, it seems odd that the country has often been labeled as the “most dangerous place in the world” in the western press. This characterization builds on an exclusive focus on radical movements in Pakistan’s northwest. Given its scope and breadth, however, the lawyers’ movement is arguably more representative of the political aspirations of Pakistanis than is Talibanization. An exclusive focus on the latter, however, by the international community may tilt the balance in the opposite direction.

Mumbai Gunman Enters Plea Of Guilty

By Rama Lakshmi
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, July 21, 2009

NEW DELHI, July 20 -- The lone surviving gunman in last year's Mumbai attacks stunned a courtroom audience Monday by confessing his involvement in the deadly carnage that killed more than 170 people.

Ajmal Amir Kasab, one of the 10 gunmen who laid siege to India's financial capital for three days last November, stood as he narrated chilling details of his training in Pakistan, named the individuals who conceived the plan and outlined the journey the gunmen undertook by sea.

Upon reaching Mumbai, the gunmen attacked several sites, including two five-star hotels, a train station and a Jewish outreach center.

Kasab, 22, was captured in a police ambush on the night of the attacks while he was trying to escape in a stolen car. He confessed his involvement while being interrogated but then retracted his statement when the trial began April 1, alleging that police had coerced and tortured him to extract an admission of guilt.

In Mumbai on Monday, the prosecution in Kasab's case was calling a witness when the defendant announced that he wanted to make a confession.

Kasab, who for months had professed his innocence, said the outlawed, Pakistan-based group Lashkar-i-Taiba was behind the attacks, and he revealed the names of the leaders from the group who trained him.

He said one of the suspects who has been arrested, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, was the mastermind behind the attack, along with others who engineered it and dispatched the gunmen to travel by ship from Karachi, Pakistan, through the Arabian Sea to Mumbai. The attackers had to change boats four times to reach their destination.

Kasab did not accuse Hafiz Sayeed, the founder of Lashkar-i-Taiba, of involvement.

"We were surprised when he abruptly took the stand and pleaded guilty," Ujjwal Nikam, the prosecuting lawyer in the high-profile trial, said in an interview. "The cat is now out of the bag."

Kasab's attorney, Abbas Kazmi, said he was unaware of his client's plans to plead guilty. "It was shocking for everybody, including me," Kazmi told reporters outside the court.

Noting that Kasab was formally charged in a Pakistani court last week with participating in the attack, Kazmi said his client might have decided to confess after concluding he had no real chance of avoiding conviction. In addition to accusing Kasab, Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency charged Lakhvi and several others and said they would be tried in a court in Rawalpindi.

"It is obvious that someone has told Kasab of this," Kazmi said. "Some of his guards who were manning him in jail must have leaked the information to him."

In court Monday, Kasab recounted the start of the siege the night of Nov. 26, saying that he and an accomplice, Abu Ismail, went to a train station restroom and assembled a bomb by installing a timer in it.

"I have confessed. The trial should end now. Sentence me soon," Kasab is reported to have told the judge, according to the Press Trust of India.

A transcript of his courtroom statement is to be sent to the prosecution for review on Tuesday, after which the judge will decide whether to accept the confession and how to proceed.

Kasab's case has moved through India's court system with unusual speed. The daily trial sessions are being held in a fortress-like, makeshift courtroom inside the Mumbai jail compound where Kasab has been held in solitary confinement since November.

Nikam, the prosecutor, said Kasab has "confessed, but also very intelligently."

"He disclosed some information and hid a lot of other crucial information," he said. "Why did he do this and why all of a sudden? Perhaps the events in Pakistan left him feeling that he has no other option anymore."

The prosecutor recalled that Kasab initially told authorities he was underage when he was arrested, apparently hoping for leniency. "He had been trying different tactics all this while to wriggle out of the case," Nikam said. "I feel this is another trick that he is playing to get a lesser sentence."

Mehsuds in Pakistan Held Responsible for Taliban Leader's Actions

By Joshua Partlow and Haq Nawaz Khan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, July 21, 2009

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- The Sina Diagnostic Center and Trust does not appear to be a menacing enterprise. The clinical pathology laboratory's 15 staff members conduct ultrasounds, X-rays and CAT scans and run free hepatitis and HIV tests for poor people and refugees in this teeming northwestern city.

That did not stop about a dozen Pakistani government revenue officers and police from marching up to the lab's second-story office this month to demand that the owner, Noor Zaman Mehsud, shut it down. They ushered patients and staff members outside, pulled down the metal gates and wrapped white cloth around the padlocks. Within 15 minutes, they were gone.

"They just said, 'You are a member of the Mehsud tribe, and we are going to seal up this business,' " Mehsud recalled. "My crime is that I belong to the Mehsuds."

Beyond the frustration of closing a business he ran for nine years and the sting of losing an income averaging $1,400 a week, the most vexing part of Mehsud's situation is that he is on the wrong side of the law. The Pakistani government has declared war on Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud and his network of several thousand fighters in the nearby tribal district of South Waziristan. And under regulations formulated a century ago by British colonial rulers, Pakistan's tribes are still bound by a legal concept known as "collective responsibility," under which any tribal member can be punished for the crimes of another.

The crackdown on the Mehsuds was spelled out in an order from the top political official in South Waziristan, Shahab Ali Shah, on June 14. Because the Mehsud tribesmen had not handed over Taliban fighters, Shah wrote, he was satisfied that they had acted "in an unfriendly and hostile manner toward the state" and that the tribe's "people and their activities are prejudicial to peace and public tranquillity."

Senior government officials have said repeatedly that their target is Baitullah Mehsud and his followers, not his entire tribe, but Shah's wording was broader. He ordered the "seizure, where they may be found, of all members of the Mehsud tribe and confiscation of movable/immovable property belonging to them in the North-West Frontier Province and the arrest and taking into custody of any person of the tribe wherever he is found."

That sweeping order has led to the closure of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of businesses in towns such as Dera Ismail Khan, Tank and Peshawar in North-West Frontier Province, according to lawyers, human rights officials and residents. One South Waziristan political official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said 25 Mehsuds have been arrested in Dera Ismail Khan and Tank.

"This is the law of the jungle, not for civilized people. They are treating people like animals," said Noor Zaman Mehsud, the 39-year-old lab owner, who denied he had any connection to the Taliban. "If I am a criminal, they should arrest me. But they are giving other people's punishments to me."

A few hundred thousand people in Pakistan belong to the Mehsud tribe, a Pashtun network divided into three major clans: the Manzai, the Bahlolzai and the Shaman Khel. Although they are scattered across the country, their home territory is South Waziristan, which borders Afghanistan and is a refuge for fighters operating in both countries. For a civilian, it is not a welcoming place, caught as it is between the repressive rule of the Taliban and the military's preparations for a ground invasion. From the skies, Pakistani fighter jets and U.S. unmanned aircraft regularly bombard Taliban targets.

The violence has pushed tens of thousands of Mehsuds out of South Waziristan. But there is little respite wherever they turn.

"They are asking the people who are besieged, the people who have left their homes, 'Why you are not tackling the terrorists?' " said Said Alam Mehsud, a doctor from the same sub-tribe as Baitullah Mehsud. "Just imagine, what a demand. It's like if America asked me: 'Why are you practicing as a pediatrician? Why have you not captured Osama bin Laden?' "

The move to arrest and seize property of "hostile or unfriendly" tribal people is allowed under Section 21 of the 1901 Frontier Crimes Regulations, a legal framework developed to help the British Raj control rebellious Pashtuns. The regulations, which tribal leaders have tried to repeal or amend for years, give vast powers to the top official in each tribal district, known as the political agent. Aimal Khan, a tribal areas specialist with Sungi, a Pakistani humanitarian organization, said political agents are popularly referred to as "kings without crowns."

In the past, the regulations have been used to block tribal movements, recover hostages and punish those who attack government installations. Latif Afridi, a lawyer and expert on tribal laws, compared Shah's order to economic sanctions against a hostile country. The current pursuit of Mehsuds is not particularly widespread, but it remains an affront to human rights, he said.

"This is an order which is a remnant of the colonial days. Mehsuds should be treated as Pakistanis, their fundamental human rights respected," Afridi said. "It is a very cruel law, but so long as it is a law, I would definitely concede that the political agent has this power."

Habibullah Khan, a senior government official for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, of which South Waziristan is a part, said the collective punishment policy does not mean the government will make "blanket arrests" of Mehsud tribesmen, but rather allows authorities to capture criminals. Another senior FATA official said five close supporters and financiers of Baitullah Mehsud had been arrested.

"We will be very choosy in our activities against the tribesmen in South Waziristan agency, as we know all of them are not terrorists," Khan said.

In June, Abdul Karim Mehsud, a lawyer, filed a petition with the Peshawar High Court asking for Shah's order to be repealed on the grounds that it is discriminatory and that taking such action in North-West Frontier Province is outside the jurisdiction of the tribal area political agent.

The FATA's Khan argued that arrest warrants for Mehsud tribesmen from South Waziristan are applicable outside that region. Lawyers familiar with tribal regulations said the Supreme Court has been divided on the issue. Lawyer Mehsud said last week that his petition had been denied.

"The actions by the government against the Mehsud people are pushing them back toward the Taliban," said Saleh Shah Qureshi, a senator from South Waziristan. "People are going back to Waziristan."

Bilal Mehsud, 24, is not sure where to turn. His father's cement business, Madina Traders in Peshawar, was shuttered last week by a South Waziristan official and tribal police. He lives in Saudi Arabia but is home on vacation. Now police have issued arrest warrants for him and his father, he said, adding, "I'm not sure what crime we have committed."

Noor Khan Mehsud, who along with other tribesmen formed a volunteer committee to help displaced Mehsud families in Dera Ismail Khan, said local authorities have been slow to register the refugees.

"There is no government support," he said. "Officials have closed doors for us, and we are considered militants. Where should we go?"

Special correspondent Shaiq Hussain in Islamabad contributed to this report.

Harvard Scholar Henry Louis Gates Arrested

By Krissah Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Henry Louis Gates Jr., one of the nation's most prominent African American scholars, was arrested last week at his home near Harvard University after trying to force open the locked front door.

According to a report by the police department in Cambridge, Mass., Gates accused police officers at the scene of being racist and said repeatedly, "This is what happens to black men in America." The incident was first reported by the Harvard Crimson.

Gates, the director of the W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African and African American Studies, has been away from his home much of the summer while working on a documentary called "Faces of America," said Charles Ogletree, a Harvard law professor and friend of Gates who is working as his lawyer. Gates returned from China last week and had trouble opening the front door with his key.

Gates, 58, was arrested Thursday by police looking into a possible break-in for disorderly conduct "after exhibiting loud and tumultuous behavior" at his home, according to the police report. Officers said they tried to calm down Gates, who responded, "You don't know who you're messing with," according to the police report.

Ogletree said Gates was ordered to step out of his home. He refused and was followed inside by a police officer. After showing the officer his driver's license, which includes his address, Ogletree said Gates asked: "Why are you doing this? Is it because I'm a black man and you're a white officer? I don't understand why you don't believe this is my house." Ogletree said Gates was then arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and racial harassment.

Gates did not return calls to his office Monday, and the police department would provide no further details on the arrest. He was released four hours later, and arraignment has been scheduled for Aug. 26, but Ogletree said they hope to resolve the case sooner.

Gates is resting on Martha's Vineyard, according to Ogletree, and will soon resume traveling. He is scheduled to interview cellist Yo-Yo Ma, whose genealogy he was researching in China.

Gates, is a founder of the Root (http://www.theroot.com), a Web site owned by The Washington Post Co. He is also host and co-producer of "African American Lives," a Public Broadcasting Service show in which he uses genealogical resources and DNA testing to trace the family lineages of prominent black Americans. He was named a MacArthur Fellow in 1981 and was among Time magazine's "25 Most Influential Americans" in 1997.

Gates's arrest points to broader racial disparities in the criminal justice system, said Ryan S. King, a policy analyst at the Sentencing Project, a think tank that researches incarceration rates.

"If you look at every stage of the criminal justice system from initial police contact all the way through sentencing and incarceration, you see that African Americans are disproportionately impacted by each stage," King said. "What we ultimately see as disparate incarceration rates are contributed to by all of these factors."

As news of the arrest spread Monday from Harvard into broader academic circles, one professor who follows Gates's work said the arrest was both "not surprising" and "disheartening."

"I felt bad that I would hear about something like this happening, especially to someone as recognizable and distinguished as [Gates], but in the academy we still sometimes encounter that. I've been in situations where I encounter people who don't believe I'm a college professor," said Jelani Cobb, an associate professor of history at Spelman College in Atlanta. "We have obvious signs of progress, but we're not there."

In One Afghan Province, Votes for President Could Turn on Loss of Poppy Income

By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, July 21, 2009

FAIZABAD, Afghanistan -- The economic fortunes of Badakhshan province, a remote and wildly beautiful corner of far northeastern Afghanistan, have risen and fallen over the past seven years with the production of opium poppies.

Not long ago, emerald fields with nodding pink poppy flowers were everywhere, and Badakhshan was one of the country's fastest-growing poppy producers. Today, its golden hills are dotted with freshly harvested wheat stacks, and its 95 percent drop in opium production last year has been hailed as a model by international anti-drug officials.

For many communities, however, the loss of poppy income has meant a return to desperate rural poverty. As national elections approach on Aug. 20, with President Hamid Karzai seeking reelection against a field of 40 challengers, the decision among Badakhshan's voters rests partly on whether they give his government and its international backers credit or blame for the end of the poppy boom.

"The authorities promised our people jobs and projects if they stopped growing poppy, but that never happened," said a teacher here in the provincial capital, who gave her name as Aria. "We know that opium is un-Islamic and makes people addicted, but what about the farmers and their families? When we grew poppy, the people were doing well. Now they are suffering."

Aria was one of several thousand people at a recent campaign rally for Karzai's most prominent challenger, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah. He spent a weekend this month barnstorming Badakhshan in a battered, Soviet-built military helicopter that crossed the snowcapped Hindu Kush mountains, swooped into narrow valleys and landed in wheat fields across the vertiginous province.

In speeches in village mosques, soccer stadiums and shady groves beside rushing mountain streams, Abdullah made vague promises to bring jobs, economic development and better government. But his major selling point was his role in Afghanistan's "holy war" against the Soviet Union during the 1980s, when he was an aide to the now-deceased mujaheddin leader Ahmed Shah Massoud.

"The people here know me, because I used to come on horseback and bring medical supplies in the early days of jihad," said Abdullah, 50, an ophthalmologist who graduated from medical school in Kabul in 1983 and became an adviser to Massoud two years later. Karzai named him foreign minister in 2002, but he was abruptly removed from the cabinet in 2006. Though fond of finely tailored Western suits during his run as foreign minister, Abdullah dresses in the locally popular salwar-kameez -- a tunic with baggy trousers -- when he is out on the campaign trail.

In each community where the green helicopter touched down -- it was provided by the central government in accord with official election policy -- crowds hoisted posters of Abdullah with Massoud, who was killed in 2001. His remarks included tributes to local martyred comrades and sentimental stories from the long-ago war, and he was constantly interrupted by impassioned shouts of "Long live jihad!" from men and boys in the crowd.

"We believe in jihad, and we do not want our Islamic values to be destroyed by the foreigners," said an elder named Rahim in the town of Jurm, who introduced the candidate and referred to his wool cap, traditionally worn by northern Islamic fighters. "As long as the pakul is on his head, he will follow the way of jihad and stand up for all the mujaheddin."

Yet despite their emotional identification with Abdullah, many people interviewed after or outside the rallies said they planned to vote for Karzai, who has ruled the country with strong international backing since early 2002. They said that the president has not visited their province in a long time but that he is a proven national leader with access to large amounts of foreign assistance.

"I would say 80 percent of the people in this district support Karzai," said Mohammed Issah, 36, a mullah in Baharak, a town surrounded by wheat fields and fruit orchards. "His government has brought us roads and security. Our people are living in harmony, and there is no more poppy, which we know is the enemy of our religion. It is our tradition to be hospitable to all guests, but that does not say how we will vote."

In Faizabad, a sleepy town that is largely inaccessible in winter, opinions were mixed. Some inhabitants bitterly blamed Karzai's government for the lack of economic development, noting that the local airstrip is still a Soviet-made metal platform, the main road is only now being paved and donkeys remain the principal form of transportation.

Several women here said that the state of provincial health care is a disgrace and that many pregnant patients die in childbirth because it is so difficult to reach hospitals. For years, according to U.N. reports, the levels of infant and maternal mortality in Badakhshan have been the highest in Afghanistan and on a par with those in many sub-Saharan African countries.

Other residents disputed the criticisms, saying that conditions have improved noticeably during the Karzai era and that international charities have been able to operate safely because the region is more secure than many other parts of the country.

"In the past, we had no roads or cars, and now we have a lot of them. In the past, we had a lot of poppy, and now it's gone," said Abdul Haq, 43, a shopkeeper who had pasted a campaign poster of Karzai to his wooden shutters. "We hear there is fighting in other places, but here we have 100 percent security. That is enough for me."

In some ways, Badakhshan's unusual geography has created a political anomaly. Its remoteness has made it both virtually impervious to the predations of Taliban insurgents based in the distant south and exceptionally devoted to its local leaders.

The governor, a Badakhshan tribal elder named Abdul Majid, has been credited with spearheading the anti-poppy drive by personally appealing to farmers across the province. The campaign in Badakhshan has proved more successful than in many other parts of Afghanistan, a country that produces more than 90 percent of the world's illicit opium.

Although Majid was appointed by Karzai, he has said he received little help from the central government in fighting drugs. Roadside signs in several towns touted the U.S. government's "alternative livelihoods" program for poppy farmers, but community elders complained that they had received scant assistance to develop legal crops.

"We have no work here, and all our young men go to Iran to find jobs," said Abdul Samad, an elder in Kesham district who hosted a picnic for Abdullah in a thriving grove of poplar, pear and pine trees. But Samad said that the grove had been funded by a Norwegian charity and that local farmers had neither the seeds nor the irrigation to replicate it. "We need a strong Muslim leader, a real mujahed, to bring us jobs and justice," he said.

Can Community Colleges Save the U.S. Economy?

by Laura Fitzpatrick / Austin

Community colleges are deeply unsexy. This fact tends to make even the biggest advocates of these two-year schools — which educate nearly half of U.S. undergraduates — sound defensive, almost a tad whiny. "We don't have the bands. We don't have the football teams that everybody wants to boost," says Stephen Kinslow, president of Texas' Austin Community College (ACC). "Most people don't understand community colleges very well at all." And by "most people," he means the graduates of fancy four-year schools who get elected and set budget priorities.

Many politicians and their well-heeled constituents may be under the impression that a community college — as described in a promo for NBC's upcoming comedy Community — is a "loser college for remedial teens, 20-something dropouts, middle-aged divorcées and old people keeping their minds active as they circle the drain of eternity." But there's at least one Ivy Leaguer who is trying to help Americans get past the stereotypes and start thinking about community college not as a dumping ground but as one of the best tools the U.S. has to dig itself out of the current economic hole. His name: Barack Obama. (See pictures of Barack Obama's college years.)

The President hasn't forgotten about the 30 or so community colleges he visited during the 2008 campaign. These institutions are our nation's trade schools, training 59% of our new nurses as well as cranking out wind-farm technicians and video-game designers — jobs that, despite ballooning unemployment overall, abound for adequately skilled workers. Community-college graduates earn up to 30% more than high school grads, a boon that helps state and local governments reap a 16% return on every dollar they invest in community colleges. But our failure to improve graduation rates at these schools is a big part of the achievement gap between the U.S. and other countries. As unfilled jobs continue to head overseas, Obama points to the "national-security implication" of the widening gap. Closing it, according to an April report from McKinsey & Co., would have added as much as $2.3 trillion, or 16%, to our 2008 GDP.

Those lost jobs are why Education Secretary Arne Duncan declared in March that two-year schools "will play a big role in getting America back on its feet again." Obama tapped two former community-college officials for top posts in the Education Department and in May announced a p.r. campaign — headed by Jill Biden, the Vice President's wife and a longtime community-college professor — to raise awareness about the power of these schools to train new and laid-off workers. (See pictures of the college dorm's evolution.)

But as record numbers of students clamor to enroll, community colleges are struggling with shrinking resources or, at best, trying to maintain the status quo. Even the school where Biden teaches, Northern Virginia Community College, has lost more than 10% of its funding in the past two years and has let go of dozens of full-time professors as it braces for more possible cutbacks. Elsewhere, state budget cuts have led to enrollment caps at some community colleges. And if there aren't enough seats in classrooms, students can't get certificates or degrees, and skilled jobs remain unfilled. In short, as the Center for American Progress concluded in a February report, "America's future economic success may well depend on how we invest in two-year institutions."

Getting Students Ready to Work
The 1,200 community colleges in the U.S. are especially suited to helping students adapt to a changing labor market. While four-year universities have the financial resources to lure top professors and students, they are by nature slow-moving. Community colleges, on the other hand, are smaller and able to tack quickly in changing winds. They often partner with local businesses and can gin up continuing-education courses midsemester in response to industry needs, getting students in and out and ready to work — fast.

See TIME's special report on paying for college.

See 10 perfect jobs for the recession -- and after.

For example, when Austin's semiconductor industry started tanking in 2000, ACC quickly stripped down its chip-development courses and soon repurposed clean rooms for emerging green technologies. These days, it generally takes about six months of weekend classes to get qualified to be a solar installer, a job that can pay up to $16 an hour. But starting in August, a compressed weekday program — catering to the recently unemployed — will allow students to cram the same courses into just two months. To earn an associate degree focusing on renewable energy — enough prep for a job as a solar-installation-team leader, which can pay up to $28 an hour — an ACC student has to take a total of 69 credit hours of courses, including solar photovoltaic systems, programming, physics, algebra, English composition and lab work. Average cost per credit hour for most students at ACC: $54.

Meanwhile, the building that houses ACC's renewable-energy program is chockablock with bulletin boards touting jobs. A city ordinance that kicked in on June 1 requires presale energy audits for many commercial buildings, apartment complexes and single-family homes, creating the need for more trained inspectors. Also, one of the nation's largest solar-power plants is slated to be completed next year a mere 20 miles from Austin's downtown. (See 10 ways your job will change.)

Of course, the future of the labor market is hard to predict. Hence a 2008 Labor Department study that found federal job-training programs may produce "small" benefits at best. But the outlook is promising so far at ACC: members of its Renewable Energy Students Association routinely field calls from prospective employers. "I'm well aware of how much money is going to be available from this education," says Duane Nembhard, 34, who dropped out of college but found his way to ACC last year.

To make that money, however, students like Nembhard need to get their degrees — and the statistics are disheartening. Only 31% of community-college students who set out to get a degree complete it within six years, whereas 58% of students at four-year schools graduate within that time frame. Students from middle-class or wealthy families are nearly five times more likely to earn a college degree as their poorer peers are. In 2007, 66% of white Americans ages 25 to 29 had completed at least some college, compared with 50% of African Americans and 34% of Hispanics.

While the U.S. ranks a respectable second (after Norway) in producing adult workers with bachelor's degrees, it has slipped to ninth in producing working-age "sub-bachelor's" degree holders, which is one reason Obama is working on a plan to help every American get at least one year of college or vocational training. "If you're going to increase the population that has some college, it isn't going to be among upper-middle-class white people," says Thomas Bailey, director of Columbia University's Community College Research Center. "Community colleges will have to play a central role."

That is, if they have enough resources to handle all the students. Chronically cash-starved, two-year schools pull in an average of just 30% of the federal funding per student allocated to state universities — though they educate nearly the same number of undergraduates. (Even after you account for the academic research that goes on at four-year schools, experts say community colleges still get shafted.) Two-year schools have been growing faster than four-year institutions, with the number of students they educate increasing more than sevenfold since 1963, compared with a near tripling at four-year schools. Yet federal funding has held virtually steady over the past 20 years for community colleges, while four-year schools' funding has increased.

See how Americans are spending now.

See pictures of college mascots.

Saving Cash, Living at Home
Community colleges are used to doing more with less. But this recession has led to record enrollment surges at many two-year schools, in part because of the influx of laid-off workers but also because more members of the middle class are looking to save money on the first couple of years of their children's higher education. Among them is Bruce Anderson, an Austin attorney who has lost nearly a third of his savings since the recession began and doesn't want to sideline his kid while waiting for the market to come back. His son Tyler will start at ACC this fall and, as long as he lives at home, will save the family about 90% of the annual tab at a four-year residential college. "He can get his basic core courses out of the way at ACC and then do his focus for his major at a four-year institution," Anderson says. (See pictures of a college for Native Americans.)

But as more students like Tyler enroll, classes are maxing out. Community colleges, which pride themselves on being open to all, rarely cap enrollment outright, as state universities in places like Arizona and California will do this fall. Miami Dade College, the country's largest community college, admitted on May 28 that state budget cuts will force it to forgo adding hundreds of class sections. As many as 5,000 students will be unable to enroll, and 30,000 may be unable to take the classes they need in order to graduate. In California, where Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger remains a champion of community colleges, having studied at one, as many as 200,000 would-be students may get squeezed out of higher education next year.

Taken together, skyrocketing enrollment and shrinking budgets could mean that just as record numbers of students seek out a community college, earning a degree from one may be harder than ever. Says Melissa Roderick, a professor at the University of Chicago who studies school transitions: "This group of kids will pay a high economic price if we don't step up as a nation."

What would stepping up look like? For starters, Congress needs to double the federal funding for these schools, according to a May report from the Brookings Institution. But, the report argues, to truly "transform our community colleges into engines of opportunity and prosperity," funding needs to be tied to performance in areas like degree completion — a model some states, including Indiana and Ohio, are already trying. The City University of New York has rigged up an experimental program that requires its community-college students to take intensive remedial courses if they aren't prepared to do college-level work. Begun in 2007 with the goal of getting at least half of the study's 1,000 participants to graduate from college in three years, it's showing initial signs of success. Other colleges are redoubling their retention efforts. And last fall, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced up to $500 million in grants, aiming to double college-completion rates by 2025. As Sara Goldrick-Rab, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and co-author of the Brookings report, puts it, "Money speaks louder than anything."

Ultimately, community-college administrators hope their schools will emerge stronger from the downturn as it highlights their potential for juicing the economy. "In some ways, the terrible nature of the economic recession will actually help people understand [community college]," says Kinslow. "People are going to be forced into looking at it more carefully."

The Most Misunderstood Man in America

Michael Hirsh

NEWSWEEK

From the magazine issue dated Jul 27, 2009

Anya Stiglitz was in the middle of a Pilates class in Central Park on an April morning when her cell phone rang. Glancing down, she saw "202" pop up—no number attached—and knew it was the White House. An aide to Larry Summers was on the line, looking for her husband, the Nobel Prize–winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. Anya said she'd pass on the message to Joe—then went back to work on her abs. No big deal, she thought. People often call her when they want to talk to Joe, because even though he's spent four decades figuring out how the global economy works, he hasn't quite gotten the hang of voice mail. "He doesn't listen to his messages, so if you want to talk to him, keep calling," Anya says on his cell-phone recording.

Anya figured Summers, Obama's chief economic adviser, was probably just calling to gripe about Joe's latest op-ed in The New York Times. Joe Stiglitz and Larry Summers, two towering intellects with egos to match, are not each other's favorite economist. "They respect each other, but they hate each other like poison," says Bruce Greenwald, Stiglitz's friend and academic collaborator at Columbia. ("I've got huge admiration for Joe as an economic thinker," Summers told NEWSWEEK.) Stiglitz had been hammering at Obama's economic team for its handling of the financial crisis. He wrote that the stimulus program was too small to be effective—a criticism that has since swelled into a chorus, though Obama says he's not adding more money. Stiglitz also had called the administration's bailout plan a giveaway to Wall Street, an "ersatz capitalism" that would save the banks' investors and creditors and screw the taxpayers. "I thought, Larry—he's just going to yell at Joe," Anya recalls.

But Summers's aide soon called back, and this time he said it was urgent: could Professor Stiglitz come to Washington for a dinner hosted by the president—that same night? Anya patched him through to Joe's office at Columbia University; Stiglitz accepted, and jumped on an early train. He was a little miffed: the other eminent economists attending the dinner, like Princeton's Alan Blinder and Harvard's Kenneth Rogoff, had been invited the week before. Stiglitz, a former chairman of Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers, had supported Barack Obama as a candidate as early as 2007. But until that day, four months into the administration, he had heard barely a word from the White House. Even now, when the president was making an effort to hear a range of economic voices, Stiglitz seemed to be an afterthought. (A White House spokesman said only that the president wished to include Stiglitz.)

Such is the lot of Joe Stiglitz. Even in the contentious world of economics, he is considered somewhat prickly. And while he may be a Nobel laureate, in Washington he's seen as just another economic critic—and not always a welcome one. Few Americans recognize his name, and fewer still would recognize the man, who is short and stocky and bears a faint resemblance to Mel Brooks. Yet Stiglitz's work is cited by more economists than anyone else's in the world, according to data compiled by the University of Connecticut. And when he goes abroad—to Europe, Asia, and Latin America—he is received like a superstar, a modern-day oracle. "In Asia they treat him like a god," says Robert Johnson, a former chief economist for the Senate banking committee who has traveled with him. "People walk up to him on the streets."

Stiglitz has won fans in China and other emerging G20 nations by arguing that the global economic system is stacked against poor nations, and by standing up to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. He is also the most prominent American economist to propose a long-term solution to the imbalances in capital flows that have wreaked havoc, from the Asian contagion of the late '90s to the subprime-investment craze. Beijing has more or less endorsed Stiglitz's idea for a new global reserve system to replace the U.S. dollar as the world currency. Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has been influenced by Stiglitz's work, especially when "he talks about the economics of poor people," says Fang Xinghai, the head of Shanghai's financial-services office. But his stature is huge in Europe as well: French President Nicolas Sarkozy recently featured him at a conference on rethinking globalization. And earlier this month, while traveling to Europe and South Africa, Stiglitz received a call from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's office: could he return through London and help the P.M. get ready for the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh?

Stiglitz is perhaps best known for his unrelenting assault on an idea that has dominated the global landscape since Ronald Reagan: that markets work well on their own and governments should stay out of the way. Since the days of Adam Smith, classical economic theory has held that free markets are always efficient, with rare exceptions. Stiglitz is the leader of a school of economics that, for the past 30 years, has developed complex mathematical models to disprove that idea. The subprime-mortgage disaster was almost tailor-made evidence that financial markets often fail without rigorous government supervision, Stiglitz and his allies say. The work that won Stiglitz the Nobel in 2001 showed how "imperfect" information that is unequally shared by participants in a transaction can make markets go haywire, giving unfair advantage to one party. The subprime scandal was all about people who knew a lot—like mortgage lenders and Wall Street derivatives traders—exploiting people who had less information, like global investors who bought up subprime- mortgage-backed securities. As Stiglitz puts it: "Globalization opened up opportunities to find new people to exploit their ignorance. And we found them."

Stiglitz's empathy for the little guy—and economically backward nations—comes to him naturally. The son of a schoolteacher and an insurance salesman, he grew up in one of America's grittiest industrial cities—Gary, Ind.—and was shaped by the social inequalities and labor strife he observed there. Stiglitz remembers realizing as a small boy that something was wrong with our system. The Stiglitzes, like many middle-class families, had an African-American maid. She was from the South and had little education. "I remember thinking, why do we still have people in America who have a sixth-grade education?" he says.

Those early experiences in Gary gave Stiglitz a social conscience—as a college student, he attended Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech—and led him to probe the reasons why markets failed. While studying at MIT, he says he realized that if Smith's "invisible hand" always guided behavior correctly, the kind of unemployment and poverty he had witnessed in Gary shouldn't exist. "I was struck by the incongruity between the models that I was taught and the world that I had seen growing up," Stiglitz said in his Nobel Prize lecture in 2001. In the same speech he declared that the invisible hand "might not exist at all." The solution, Stiglitz says, is to move beyond ideology and to develop a balance between market-driven economies—which he favors—and government oversight.

Stiglitz has warned for years that pro-market zeal would cause a global financial meltdown very much like the one that gripped the world last year. In the early '90s, as a member of Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers, Stiglitz argued (unsuccessfully) against opening up capital flows too rapidly to developing countries, saying those markets weren't ready to handle "hot money" from Wall Street. Later in the decade, he spoke out (without results) against repealing the Glass-Steagall Act, which regulated financial institutions and separated commercial from investment banking. Since at least 1990, Stiglitz has talked about the risks of securitizing mortgages, questioning whether markets and authorities would grow careless "about the importance of screening loan applicants." Malaysian economist Andrew Sheng says, "I think Stiglitz is the nearest thing there is to Keynes in this crisis."

That would be John Maynard Keynes, the great 20th-century economist who rocketed to international renown in late 1919 when he published The Economic Consequences of the Peace. In his book, Keynes warned that the draconian penalties imposed on Germany after World War I would lead to political disaster. No one listened. The disaster he predicted turned out to be World War II. Like Stiglitz, Keynes was not a favorite at the White House. Keynes also believed that markets were imperfect: he invented modern macroeconomics—which calls for major government intervention to help ailing economies—in response to the Great Depression. But after meeting Keynes for the first time in 1934, FDR dismissed him as too abstract and intellectual, according to Robert Skidelsky, Keynes's biographer. Keynes himself fretted that Roosevelt was not spending enough.

To his critics—and there are many—Stiglitz is a self-aggrandizing rock-thrower. Even some of his intellectual allies note that while Stiglitz is often right on the substance of issues, he tends to leap to the conclusion that government can make things better. Harvard economist Rogoff has called him intolerably arrogant—though he added that Stiglitz is a "towering genius." In a letter to -Stiglitz published in 2002, Rogoff recalled a moment when the two of them were teaching at Princeton and former Fed chairman Paul Volcker's name came up for tenure. "You turned to me and said, 'Ken, you used to work for Volcker at the Fed. Tell me, is he really smart?' I responded something to the effect of 'Well, he was arguably the greatest Federal Reserve chairman of the 20th century.' To which you replied, 'But is he smart like us?'" (Stiglitz says he can't remember the comment, but adds that he might have been referring to whether Volcker was an abstract thinker.)

Stiglitz's defenders say one possible explanation for his outsider status in Washington is his ongoing rivalry with Summers. While they are both devotees of Keynes, Summers often has supported deregulation of financial markets—or at least he did before last year—while Stiglitz has made a career of mistrusting markets. Since the early '90s, when Summers was a senior Treasury official and Stiglitz was on the Council of Economic Advisers, the two have engaged in fierce policy debates. The first fight was over the Clinton admin-is-tration's efforts to pry open emerging financial markets, such as South Korea's. Stiglitz argued there wasn't good evidence that liberalizing poorly regulated Third World markets would make any one more prosperous; Summers wanted them open to U.S. firms.

The differences between them grew bitter in the late 1990s, when Stiglitz was chief economist for the World Bank and took issue with the way Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, and Summers, who was then deputy secretary, were handling the Asian "contagion" financial collapse. After World Bank president James Wolfensohn declined to reappoint him in 1999, Stiglitz became convinced that Summers was behind the slight. Summers denies this, and maintains that no rivalry exists between them. Summers's deputy Jason Furman says that Summers now "talks to [Stiglitz] a lot." "A lot" is an exaggeration, Stiglitz responds. "We've talked one or two times," he says.

Despite the Obama team's occasional efforts to reach out to him, Stiglitz remains deeply unhappy about the administration's approach to the financial crisis. Rather than breaking up or restructuring the big banks that failed, "the Obama administration has actually expanded the notion of 'too big to fail,' " he says. In a veiled poke at his dubious standing in Washington, Stiglitz adds: "In Britain there is a more open discussion of these issues." A senior White House official, responding to this critique, says that the Obama administration is most often criticized these days for intervening too much in the economy, not too little.

In other respects, Obama is embracing some of Stiglitz's views, suggests Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget—and a former Stiglitz protégé (he worked for Stiglitz during the Clinton administration). One example: Obama's new idea for reforming health care by creating a government-run program to compete with private-sector insurers. "There is an intellectual paradigm in health care that says you should move to purely private markets," says Orszag. "Joe's perspective would suggest major difficulties [with that]. That led to the thought that we need a mix: there is an important government role."

Today, settled as a professor at Columbia, Stiglitz occasionally finds himself welcomed in the nation's capital, though usually at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, to testify before Congress. While he had no great desire to go back into government, friends say he was deeply disappointed when an offer didn't come from Obama last fall. Not surprisingly, Stiglitz believes his old rival was behind it, though Summers denies this. As for the invitation to dinner at the White House, there were a few theories kicked around the spacious Stiglitz household on Manhattan's Upper West Side as to why it came at the last minute: one was that Obama, in an interview posted online that week by The New York Times, had cited Stiglitz as one of the critics he listens to, so it would have seemed strange if he hadn't been invited to the dinner. While Stiglitz was flattered by the discussion over a dinner of roast beef and Michelle Obama's homegrown lettuce, he can't stop himself from complaining that an occasional meal with dissidents is not the best way for the president to formulate policy. "Some of the most difficult debates and judgments can't really be hammered out in an hour-and-a-half meeting covering lots of topics," he says. Stiglitz may a prophet without much honor in Washington, but he seems to be determined to keep the prophecies coming.

Israeli Settlers Versus the Palestinians

by Nine Burleigh /Efrat

In a hilltop suburb South of Jerusalem called Efrat, Sharon Katz serves a neat plate of sliced cake inside her five-bedroom house, surrounded by pomegranate, olive and citrus trees that she planted herself. She glances out the window at the hills where, she believes, David and Abraham once walked. "We are living in the biblical heartland," she sighs.

It is a heartland the prophets would not recognize, replete as it is with pizza parlor, jazz nights at the coffee shop, grocery store and yellow electronic gate with machine-gun-wielding guards. Efrat is one of 17 settlements that make up a bloc called Gush Etzion, located not in Israel but in the occupied West Bank. The Katzes (Sharon, husband Israel and five children) consider themselves law-abiding citizens. They publish a small community magazine and take part in civic projects. Sharon raises money for charity by putting on tap-dancing and theater shows. And yet to much of the outside world, the Katzes are participating in an illegal land grab forbidden by the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit an occupying power from settling its own civilians on militarily controlled land. Some Israelis have admitted as much. While Benjamin Netanyahu, then as now Prime Minister, was negotiating with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in 1998, Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon got on Israeli radio and urged Israelis to settle more land fast. "Grab the hilltops, and stake your claim," he said. "Everything we don't grab will go to them." (See pictures of life in the West Bank settlements.)

The Palestinians ("them") hate the settlements as a reminder of occupation, proof that if and when any agreement with Israel is forged, they will never get back the land they call theirs. The settlements have joined other intractable issues — like the desire of Palestinian refugees to return to villages their families left 60 years ago — that have stymied every effort to find peace in the Middle East for a generation. The Obama Administration says negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis can only proceed if Israel agrees to stop settling occupied land. "The settlements have to be stopped in order for us to move forward," said Barack Obama when he met with Netanyahu in May. But for Israeli politicians on both the left and the right, even agreeing to freeze the settlements — much less dismantling them — is easier said than done. And the Katzes are one of the reasons why. (Read "Despite Jewish Concerns, Obama Keeps Up Pressure on Israel.")

It wasn't always so. After the Six-Day War in 1967, two groups of then rare (now commonplace) religious nationalists settled one small site each in the Galilee and Efrat. At the time, the Israeli government had no intention of settling seized Arab land and sheepishly described the settlements as military bases. Over the years, though, Israeli governments of all political persuasions have supported colonizing the West Bank — providing money, building permits and water and sewage services, as well as constructing special settlers-only roads. The number of settlers has grown fast in the past 15 years, as Israeli troops have pulled out of Arab cities and moved into the countryside, where they protect the Jewish population centers. In 1995, according to Israeli census figures, 138,000 settlers lived in the West Bank and Gaza. Now in the West Bank alone (no settlers remain in Gaza), there are nearly 300,000, mostly nestled together in heavily guarded blocs, living among 2.5 million unwelcoming Arabs. An additional 200,000 Israelis live in East Jerusalem, which Israel "annexed" in 1967.

A Gathering of the Exiles
Over the years, the Israeli government has paid lip service to the idea of opposing settlements, mainly by evacuating small outposts while supporting the large, suburban-style blocs. In 2005, Israel turned Gaza over to Palestinian control, ceding major settlements for the first time in 30 years. For the settlers, who frequently justify their presence as sanctioned by God, that act was a benchmark provocation and — in the view of religious nationalists — a divine repudiation of Israel's failure to settle yet more land. The government compensated each of the Gaza families with up to $400,000, but the money is of little interest to Sharon Katz and others in Efrat. They intend to stay put.

Watch TIME's video "Protesting Gaza, Carefully, in the West Bank."

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The Katz family moved to Efrat from Woodmere, N.Y., in 1985, after a family visit to Israel during which Sharon had an epiphany while her children played with some newly arrived Ethiopians. "I looked at my sons in their Izod shirts next to these children from Africa, and I saw black, white, black," she says. "The Bible talks about the ingathering of the exiles, and here were these children all together." The Katzes don't think their town is an obstacle to peace. They can sometimes see Palestinian Arabs on the green flats far below but have no interaction with them. Most people in Efrat take bulletproof buses to Jerusalem, 15 minutes away, via a "bypass road" — one of a vast network Israel has built in the West Bank. The Katzes believe Arabs arrived in the area only in the 1970s. "People tried to build here many times and failed because the conditions were very harsh, rocky, no water," Israel Katz explains. "Jews are very stubborn people. If they want something, they won't stop. Jews started coming here and to talk of a community. That's when Arabs started coming here." (See pictures of 60 years of Israel.)

The Netanyahu government, like its predecessors, makes a distinction between what it calls "legal" settlements like the Gush Etzion bloc (pop. 75,000) and "illegal" outposts deeper in the West Bank. Within sight of the Arab city of Nablus, settler Itay Zar, 33, lives in a two-room shanty with his wife and their five children, above a stretch of road at risk from Palestinian snipers. Zar's father, Moshe Zar, is one of the biggest — and therefore most despised by Palestinians — Jewish buyers of Arab land in the West Bank. Zar grew up in the West Bank. His outpost — named Havat Gilad after an elder brother killed by Palestinians — consists of a dozen shabby metal shacks and trailers inhabited by 20 families, with 40 to 50 children among them. A plastic slide and swing set stand on a weedy corner of the arid hilltop. Havat Gilad gets electricity from generators and water from a hilltop tank. The Israeli government evacuated the settlement five years ago but recently agreed to transport its children to school. "We are on a mission," Zar tells TIME. "We didn't come here for fun, although we have fun sometimes. When we came here, this land was deserted. Since the Jews came back, it has started to flourish."

To reinforce the spiritual mission, Zar erected a yeshiva that houses 35 young men. Their families pay about $250 a month for room, board and religious instruction centered on their role in God's plan to populate the occupied area with Jews. The settlement's spiritual leader, Arie Lipo, 35, sporting a 9-inch ginger beard and an ankle-length white gown, tells TIME he battled Israeli solders during the last evacuation, but he talks softly of a kind of peace. "We build small heavens here," he says. "We are the people of the Bible. If Obama fights what God has done in bringing the people of the Bible here from the four corners of the earth, he will fall. Now the question is, Who is the boss? God? Or Obama?"

In the absence of divine intervention, resolution of the settlement conflict will have to depend on human effort. Itay Zar and Sharon Katz are profoundly unlike each other, but Palestinians revile them equally. To the Arabs, Israeli settlements have sliced and diced up territory that once belonged to them, taking scarce resources like water and requiring special checkpoints that make their daily lives a misery. Down the hillside a few miles from the Katz home, Naim Sarras, 49, a Christian Palestinian farmer, vehemently disputes the claim that Arabs arrived only in the 1970s. He displays a long row of grapevines with thick trunks, and papers from the Ottoman era that he says prove his family has farmed the land for 150 years. He can no longer sell much of his produce because the Israeli government requires him to label it PRODUCT OF ISRAEL and the Palestinian Authority forbids that. But he can't afford to leave the fields fallow — and open to Israeli confiscation. Three Sarras brothers and a cousin tend the fields under the constant surveillance of video cameras at the edge of a nearby settlement. They complain that settlers from the Gush Etzion bloc have come in the night and uprooted or poisoned olive trees. "I am willing to live with Israelis," Sarras says. "But they will not live with us." Shaul Goldstein, mayor of the Gush Etzion regional council, defends his community's dealings with local Arabs. "We have the right to have cameras to protect our communities," says Goldstein, 49, a builder who constructed many of the Etzion homes. He insists he has Palestinian friends and says, "When I saw someone had uprooted trees, we condemned it very, very dramatically. I don't accept any kind of violence."

See pictures of heartbreak in the Middle East.

Watch a video about Israel's lonesome doves.

Plumbing and Powerful Men
For every Itay Zar (there are at least 100 hilltop settlements like his in the West Bank), there are thousands of Sharon Katzes in communities with plumbing and Little League. These suburban settlers make up the established West Bank colonies that Israel does not want to relinquish — in fact, would like to expand. So far, Netanyahu has not directly challenged Obama on the settlements, other than to say he won't stop "natural growth" (that is, houses for expanding families). Since the Israeli army is always skirmishing with radicals like Zar, giving up the occasional outpost is politically feasible, even popular. But challenging powerful men like Goldstein ("He has a lot of friends in America," former President Jimmy Carter told TIME on his way into a meeting with the mayor) and law-abiding citizens like Sharon Katz is another matter. Politically, it is not easy for Netanyahu to face down the settlers. But if he does nothing, Obama will have to confront the Israelis more directly than has any other President since George H.W. Bush, who threatened to refuse granting Israel $10 million in loan guarantees as long as the expansion of settlements continued.

In Israel, settlers from suburban towns to hilltop outposts alike express contempt for Obama. The U.S. gave $2.4 billion in aid to Israel last year, but Israel Katz says the cash does not entitle a U.S. President to "tell us how to live." He adds, "He is butting into another country's interests. I don't think Israel tells Obama what to do."

In the end, even if Obama continues to apply pressure, the solution to the settlement question will have to come from inside Israel. For many Israelis, the settlements are not a matter of ideology — they simply offer a cheap place to live for a growing population. Still others see no need for settlements at all. Two opinion polls in June had very different results. In one, 56% supported Obama's position; in the other, 56% opposed it. As the settlers build, tacitly assisted by the state, activists often campaign against them. "This is about the borders of morality. Do we want to rape 3 million people to obtain a national narrative?" says Dror Etkes, who works for an Israeli human-rights organization, Yesh Din, that challenges settlements in court. "The settlers are a small minority of strong militants. I don't think they will provoke a civil war, but I think disengagement will be the hardest trauma in Israel's history."

Sitting around their kitchen table, with grandchildren's plastic toys scattered on a deck beyond sliding-glass doors, the Katz family doesn't look or sound militant. Indeed, to American ears, their version of the national narrative sounds rather familiar. "I would love it that the little outposts someday have their own playgrounds and Little League," Sharon Katz says. "Israel shouldn't leave any hilltop! How did communities start out in the American West? With one log cabin. When we bought this land, it was a rocky hillside. Look what it looks like today."

— With reporting by Aaron J. Klein and Jamil Hamad/Jerusalem

Differences in Prevalence of Obesity Among Black, White, and Hispanic Adults — United States, 2006–2008

Differences in Prevalence of Obesity Among Black, White, and Hispanic Adults — United States, 2006–2008
Source: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (CDC)

The prevalence of obesity in the United States has more than doubled in the past three decades, and certain racial/ethnic populations have been affected disproportionally. Data from the 2003?2004 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), for which height and weight of adults aged ?20 years are measured by survey staff members, indicated the prevalence of obesity was 45.0% among non-Hispanic blacks, 36.8% among Mexican-Americans, and 30.6% among non-Hispanic whites. This report found smaller prevalences, using height and weight data that were self-reported to BRFSS and, therefore, likely to produce underestimates. However, differences among non-Hispanic blacks, non-Hispanic whites, and Hispanics in this report were similar to those found in the NHANES study: non-Hispanic blacks had the greatest prevalence of obesity, followed by Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites.

At least three reasons might account for the differences in the prevalence of obesity among the study populations observed in this and other studies. First, racial/ethnic populations differ in behaviors that contribute to weight gain. For example, compared with non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic blacks and Hispanics are less likely to engage in regular (nonoccupational) physical activity. In addition, differences exist in attitudes and cultural norms regarding body weight. For example, according to one study, both non-Hispanic black and Hispanic women are more satisfied with their body size than non-Hispanic white women; persons who are satisfied with their body size are less likely to try to lose weight. Finally, certain populations have less access to affordable, healthful foods and safe locations for physical activity. Evidence suggests that neighborhoods with large minority populations have fewer chain supermarkets and produce stores and that healthful foods are relatively more expensive than energy-dense foods, especially in minority and low-income communities. Evidence also indicates that minority and low-income populations have less access to physical activity facilities and resources and that traffic and neighborhood safety might inhibit walking.

Sixteen Percent Of High-Impact, High-Tech Firms Founded By Immigrant Entrepreneurs

Source: U.S. Small Business Administration

Sixteen percent of high-impact, high-tech firms have at least one immigrant founder, according to a study released today by the Office of Advocacy of the U.S. Small Business Administration. Although these firms are concentrated in states with large immigrant populations, in most other respects they resemble high-impact, high-tech firms founded by native-born entrepreneurs.

Moreover, these immigrant entrepreneurs are highly educated and appear to be strongly rooted in the United States. Roughly 55 percent of the foreign-born founders hold a masters degree or a doctorate. In addition, they are more than twice as likely as native-born founders to hold a doctorate. Furthermore, 77 percent of the foreign-born high-tech entrepreneurs are American citizens and, on average, they have lived over 25 years in the United States. Two-thirds of them received their college degrees here, as well.

“Immigrant entrepreneurs clearly contribute a significant amount to our country’s cutting edge high-tech firms,” said Shawne McGibbon, acting Chief Counsel for Advocacy. “This report outlines these contributions and delivers important new data about immigrant entrepreneurs.”

High-tech Immigrant Entrepreneurship in the United States, written by David Hart, Zoltan Acs, and Spencer Tracy, Jr. with funding from Advocacy, defines high-impact firms as those with sales that have at least doubled over the 2002-2006 period and which have significant employment growth during that time. The authors defined high-tech industries using research and development employment as a share of total employment as the key criterion.

+ Research Summary (PDF; 36 KB)
+ Full Report (PDF; 391 KB)

Racial Disparities in Unemployment Vary Widely by State

By Algernon Austin

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This supplement, State Unemployment Trends by Race, Ethnicity and Gender, includes a national overview and takes a closer look at three hard-hit states: New York, Alabama, and Illinois

The United States is suffering its most severe economic crisis in decades. In each of the past 18 months, the economy has shed hundreds of thousands of jobs—an average of about 564,000 per month just in 2009—as the unemployment rate climbed to a 26-year high in June.

This economic hardship is not shared equally, however, and unemployment rates in many states are far worse than the national figures would suggest. In the first quarter of 2009, state unemployment rates ranged from 4.0% in Wyoming to 12.1% in Michigan. Eighteen states had unemployment higher than the national rate of 8.1% for the first quarter of 2009, with six of them (Calif., Mich., N.C., Ore., R.I., and S.C.) already experiencing double-digit unemployment.

Furthermore, the differences between states mask sometimes greater gaps within them—gaps defined by wide, sometimes growing disparities in unemployment rates by race and ethnicity. The United States has consistently had racial and ethnic disparities in unemployment rates. Nationally, the black unemployment rate tends to be about twice as high as the white rate; the Hispanic rate tends to be about 1.5 times the white rate. This means that within states with high unemployment rates overall, Hispanics and blacks tend to have even higher rates of unemployment.

From the last quarter of 2007 (when the recession began) to the first quarter of 2009, the national white¹ unemployment rate increased 2.8 percentage points, rising from 4.0% to 6.8%. During that same period, the rates for Hispanics and blacks increased by 4.8 and 4.3 percentage points, respectively. At 13% in the first quarter of this year, blacks have the highest national unemployment rate of any major racial or ethnic group. Hispanics have the second highest rate (10.8%), but have had the largest increase in unemployment since the start of the recession, a rise of 4.8 percentage points overall.

Unemployment rates among racial and ethnic groups vary significantly from state to state. In 11 states (Ariz., Calif., Col., Conn., Fla., Md., N.J., N.M., Nev., N.Y., and Texas) the Hispanic population is large enough for the data to be reliable. In the first quarter of 2009 Hispanic unemployment in these states ranged from 7.7% to 14.5%. The states with the highest Hispanic unemployment rates in the first quarter of 2009 are Connecticut (14.5%) and California (14.3%). Hispanics in Connecticut were 2.5 times as likely to be unemployed as non-Hispanic whites. In California, the Hispanic-white ratio was 1.7 times.

Black unemployment, among the 17 states with reliable data, ranges from a low of 7.6% (Md.) to a high of 19.5% in Michigan (Mich.). The highest black-white unemployment ratio was in Louisiana, where blacks were three times as likely to be unemployed as whites. In Alabama, New York, Mississippi, and Texas blacks were more than twice as likely to be unemployed as whites.

Although the recession has caused widespread economic hardship, Hispanics and blacks have been hurt disproportionately in most states. Hispanics have lost a very large number of jobs in construction. Black job loss has not been concentrated in any one sector of the economy. Black workers in manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade, transportation and utilities, and finance, insurance and real estate have all experienced significant job losses.

It is clear that the country is in a very deep recession. However, not all states are suffering equally and not all racial and ethnic groups are experiencing the same degree of economic hardship. In developing policies to address the economic crisis, the nation should devote extra resources to those states and groups that are hardest hit.

Endnotes
1. The racial categories “white” and “black/African American” exclude Hispanics.

Download a print-friendly version of this Issue Brief

This supplement, State Unemployment Trends by Race, Ethnicity and Gender, includes a national overview and takes a closer look at three hard-hit states: New York, Alabama, and Illinois

Natalya Estemirova - Fighting for Human Rights with Life

2:06

July 18, 2009

Malay Prince Sues Indonesian Wife

A Malaysian prince is suing his Indonesian wife and her mother over their claims he tortured his teenage bride during their year-long marriage.

Tengku Temenggong Tengku Mohammad Fakhry, has filed a defamation suit in Malaysia's High Court.

He is seeking $30m (£18m) in damages from Manohara Odelia Pinot and her mother, the prince's lawyer said.

Ms Pinot returned to Indonesia in May and said Mr Fakhry had slashed her with razor blades and sexually abused her.

The 17-year-old alleged she had been held captive in her room and drugged whenever she complained.

She told Indonesian media that she escaped while accompanying the state royal family on a trip to Singapore and filed a police report in Indonesia shortly afterward.

The scandal has captured widespread media attention in both Malaysia and Indonesia.

'Reputation tarnished'

Mr Fakhry's lawsuit accuses Ms Pinot and her mother, Daisy Fajarina, of concocting the allegations "out of spite... motivated by a desire of financial gains," the prince's lawyer, Mohamad Haaziq Pillay, said.

"They have made my client out to be a monster and his reputation has been tarnished. My client is keen to get to the truth of the matter and clear his name," he told the Associated Press.

"Anyone can say anything but do they have proof? This is the time for them to come forward and prove their allegations," Malaysian state news agency Bernama quoted Mr Pillay as saying.

The two women, who are in Indonesia, have 21 days to respond to the suit, or the case could go on in their absence.

The prince married the teenager last year after she turned 16, but her mother has said Ms Manohara was kidnapped.

The prince has since petitioned for a divorce.

Story from BBC NEWS

Indonesia says Burma Must Release Democracy Leader for Elections to Be Credible

By Daniel Schearf Phuket, Thailand 21 July 2009

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Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi (file photo)

Indonesia's foreign minister has said Burma must release democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi if its 2010 elections are to be credible. Indonesia has been pushing for tougher action against human rights violators during meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations this week in Thailand.

Indonesians Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda on Tuesday gave a clear message to Burma's military government.

He said Burma's elections next year will not be free and fair if anyone is restricted from participating, including Burma's detained democracy leader.

"We have been saying to them (Myanmar) directly that the process must be inclusive for all groups in society … including Aung San Suu Kyi," he said.

Wirayuda made the comments on the second day of meetings of foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which includes Burma.

Indonesia has been pushing for a stronger human rights body to deal with situations like Burma, where more than 2,000 political prisoners are behind bars.

Indonesia is considered a successful Asian model for its transition from military dictatorship to democracy, and has become outspoken about rights violators.

Burma's military government is under intense pressure to release Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for 13 years. She is now on trial for breaking the terms of her house arrest, and faces five years in jail.

Rights groups and Western governments have called the trial a sham designed to keep Aung San Suu Kyi locked up while the military rigs next year's elections. Her National League for Democracy party won Burma's last elections in 1990, but the military refused to give up power.

The situation in Burma has prompted some ASEAN members to break from the group's tradition of not commenting on the internal affairs of other members.

ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan told journalists Monday as long as Burma's political problems are not resolved, ASEAN will continue to have a burden on its lap to explain to the world. He said ASEAN members are trying to convince Burma's generals that now is the time to open up while governments, such as the United States, are reassessing their policies.

"I think this is a good opportunity and it will take some convincing from ASEAN for Myanmar to take a look at that kind of opening, that kind of opportunity," Surin said. "And, I think we have been able to impress upon them that this is a good time to try to accommodate an international offer, international expectation, and ASEAN desire to help to engage."

Washington evaluating its policy on Burma, saying neither sanctions nor engagement have worked.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Thailand Tuesday and will meet with ASEAN foreign ministers in Phuket.

She is expected to discuss a range of issues from problem states Burma and North Korea to concerns about terrorism and pollution.

Burma is expected to dominate discussions. Thailand's Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya says resolving Burma's political problems is key to ASEAN's future.

Human Rights Groups Give Cautious Backing to New ASEAN Rights Commission

By Ron Corben Bangkok 21 July 2009

Corben report - Download (MP3)
Corben report - Listen (MP3)

Rights groups have given cautious backing to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' new human rights commission. Civic groups hope to take a greater role in the wider human rights debate across the region.

Rights groups say Southeast Asia has entered a new era in promoting human rights after the foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations endorsed a new rights commission.

"There is a point of no return for ASEAN," said Rafendi Djamin, the coordinator for Indonesia's Coalition for International Human Rights Advocacy. "The charter is already there, adopted ratified and charter's deep roots principles of human roots. Any member state of that charter cannot run away from this obligation. They will have to deal with this - they will have to talk about this among themselves, so this is the basis of the optimism that I have."

The ASEAN foreign ministers endorsed the plan Monday at their meeting in Phuket, Thailand.

However, some activists are disappointed by Burma's efforts to water down the human rights commission. The commission will have no power to protect human rights or punish states that abuse rights. Its mission now simply is to promote the idea of human rights.

Sinapan Samdorai, from the Task Force on ASEAN Migrant Workers in Singapore, says Burma resisted any requirements that states protect human rights. But Samdorai says the commission will eventually take a more protective role.

"I think, as they say, it's an evolutionary process, it will take at least five years before anything gets done in terms of protection at this stage. I think there is a possibility it will evolve and they promised an evolutionary process," he said.

Yuyun Wahyuningrum, East Asia program manager for rights group Forum Asia

Several ASEAN governments have openly criticized Burma's lack of progress in human rights and political reform. The military government holds more than 2,000 political prisoners, including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Rights groups also welcomed the wider role for civic groups in the rights debate. Under the commission, labor unions also will have a role in promoting rights for workers and migrants.

Yuyun Wahyuningrum, East Asia program manager for the rights group Forum Asia, says society needs to ensure the highest standards are met in the commission's terms of reference.

Ministers and officials Tuesday are discussing the final terms of reference for establishing the rights commission. Final agreement is due to take place at the next ASEAN leaders' summit in October.

Obama Administration to Miss Deadline for Guantanamo Bay Reviews

By VOA News 21 July 2009

In pool photo, reviewed by US military, Guantanamo detainee speaks with guards, inside Camp 6 detention facility, 31 May 2009

Officials with the Obama administration say they will miss a self-imposed deadline for completing a detailed plan on dealing with terrorist suspects detained at a military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The officials said the deadline for the report by a Justice Department-led task force, set for Tuesday, has been extended for another six months. The panel has instead issued a short interim report summarizing how they would prosecute the 229 detainees still held at the facility.


A separate task force created to examine interrogation policy has been given a two-month extension to submit its report.

President Barack Obama created the task forces shortly after taking office in January, when he ordered the closure of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay by next January. The officials insist the administration will meet that deadline, despite the delay in the reports.

Mr. Obama has vowed to close the facility, which has been denounced by human rights groups over allegations of harsh treatment of the detainees.

But the president has been hampered in his goal to shut down Guantanamo by congressional lawmakers opposed to transferring the detainees to U.S. soil for trial.

More than 50 detainees have been approved for transfer to other countries.

The interim memo submitted by the task force dealing with detention policy calls for prosecuting the detainees either in civilian courts or military commissions. The memo says the prosecutions must occur as soon as possible, but insists the accused be given "a full and fair opportunity to contest the charges against them."

Support Rate for LDP Falls to 20%

Public support for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party has fallen to 20 percent, its lowest level since April 2001 when the current method of gauging opinion started.

A weekend telephone poll of eligible voters chosen at random by The Asahi Shimbun produced 1,064 valid answers.

The survey was conducted ahead of Tuesday's dissolution of the Lower House for a snap election to be held Aug. 30.

The party had 24 percent support in the previous survey conducted July 4 and 5.

The latest poll found that support for the main opposition Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan), which is widely expected to seize power in next month's election, rose to 31 percent from 25 percent.

Asked "Which party would you vote for in proportional representation constituencies if the Lower House election was held now," 42 percent cited Minshuto against 19 percent for the LDP.

The support rate for the Cabinet of Prime Minister Taro Aso stood at 17 percent, down from 20 percent.

The support rate for the LDP exceeded 40 percent for a while after the last Lower House election held in September 2005.

It then started to plummet, reaching what was then a historic low of 21 percent immediately after the July 2007 Upper House election.

The ruling party, which was then headed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, suffered a major setback in that election.

Afterward, however, the support rate rose again. When the Aso Cabinet came into being in September 2008, it stood at 34 percent.

In July 1998, support for the LDP, which was formed in 1955, marked an all-time low of 19 percent in a poll using a different method of gauging public opinion. That poll was taken during the dying days of the Cabinet then headed by Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto.

The 31-percent support rate for Minshuto in the latest survey is the third-highest following 34 percent recorded in July 2007 and 32 percent a month later.

The latest survey asked respondents whether the LDP's internal bickering over calls to hold a party presidential election ahead of the Lower House ballot had changed their impression of the party. Fifty percent replied that their impression had worsened, while 43 percent said it had not changed.

Even among LDP supporters, 43 percent said their impression had worsened.

Asked whether they wanted an administration centered around the LDP to continue or one led by Minshuto, 49 percent cited the latter option. Only 22 percent favored an LDP-led administration. In the July 4-5 survey, the percentages were 47 percent and 24 percent, respectively.(IHT/Asahi: July 21,2009)