Maliki Keeps Allies, Critics Guessing With Aggressive Moves Aimed at Reelection

By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, August 1, 2009

BAGHDAD -- With a raid this week on a camp of Iranian dissidents once sheltered by the United States, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has again demonstrated a knack for surprising both foes and allies in his attempt to emerge as the victor in crucial parliamentary elections in January.

So far, he has ordered attacks on militiamen in Basra against the advice of the U.S. military, turned the June 30 deadline for U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraqi cities into an orchestrated celebration of Iraqi independence and rigorously tried to conceal the U.S. presence that remains, fearful that Iraqis will see the withdrawal as a charade.

Maliki's government had for months contemplated a move against the Iranian exiles, who are members of a group called the Mujaheddin-e Khalq, promising the U.S. government that it would treat the more than 3,000 camp residents humanely and not force any of them to return to Iran. But the raid Tuesday caught U.S. military officials, diplomats and even some Iraqi officers by surprise. Iran, which has called for action against the group, lauded the operation.

Taken together, the moves demonstrate an eagerness on Maliki's part to do what was unthinkable when he took office three years ago -- create an image of himself as an independent leader in a country that still hosts 130,000 U.S. troops. But his penchant for unilateral action, often backed with the force of arms, has created enemies across the spectrum, many of them determined to block his reelection.

"He wants to turn himself into a national symbol, and he is willing to use power and force to promote himself as one," said Salim Abdullah, a Sunni lawmaker and part of a bloc in parliament that has opposed Maliki in the past. "He is determined to break through anything that can get in the way of him becoming prime minister again."

Challenges Loom Large

Maliki faces an array of challenges as he heads toward elections in January that will choose a parliament and eventually lead to a new cabinet and prime minister. Few expect him to continue to enjoy the remarkable convergence of luck and fortune that has helped transform him from a compromise choice as prime minister, whose weakness made him appealing to more powerful forces, into the axis today around which Iraqi politics have begun to revolve.

Violence remains a feature of the landscape here, threatening to undo what Maliki, fairly or unfairly, has touted as his greatest accomplishment: a restoration of a semblance of calm in Baghdad and other war-wrecked towns and cities.

On Friday, car bombings near five Shiite mosques in Baghdad killed at least 29 people, underscoring insurgents' continued ability to strike at the heart of the fortified capital.

Perhaps even more challenging to Maliki are the frenetic negotiations that have become a parlor game in Baghdad. Followers of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, blamed for some of the worst sectarian bloodletting, have ventured to Anbar province, once the cradle of the Sunni insurgency. A procession of politicians -- Kurd and Arab, secular and religious -- has visited Abdel-Aziz Hakim, a Shiite leader stricken with cancer, at his hospital room in Tehran. He remains lucid, though he often converses with guests while receiving oxygen, visitors say.

Politicians say Ibrahim al-Jafari, a former prime minister, has coined a phrase for the talks: "There are no guarantees for anyone, and there are no exclusions for anyone."

Since the spring, Maliki has courted Sunni leaders, including Saleh al-Mutlak, who counts former Baathists among his constituency, and Ahmed Abu Risha, probably the most powerful tribal sheik in Anbar. Abu Risha has declared his intention to ally with Maliki.

"If he considers you a friend, he keeps you as a friend," Abu Risha said.

"We are determined not to return to sectarianism because it's the root of all our problems," the prime minister said in an interview with The Washington Post.

Critics accuse Maliki of courting those Sunni politicians to put pressure on his Shiite colleagues in negotiations to reconstitute the pan-Shiite alliance that competed in elections in 2005. This time, Maliki would have the upper hand in the bloc, and he has sought promises that he would enjoy the coalition's backing to become prime minister again.

He has yet to win that pledge. And Shiite politicians, wary of what they see as Maliki's authoritarian streak, have demanded more transparency in a government dominated by a circle of advisers from his Dawa party -- in particular Tarek Nijm Abdullah, who directs the office of the prime minister. If Maliki becomes prime minister again, the politicians have vowed to retain a say in cabinet appointments, reserve the right to review his policies and curb attempts to concentrate control of the military in his hands.

Still, as one politician noted, "promises before the election aren't worth much."

Others insist that Maliki has simply earned too many enemies to become prime minister again, however well he does in the elections. This week, Sunni leaders criticized Maliki's raid on the camp of Iranian dissidents, suggesting that he was doing the bidding of neighboring Iran. Some Kurdish officials say they will never support his return -- as have followers of Sadr and a leading Sunni party. But in today's climate, it is rarely clear where bargaining ends and principle begins.

"He needs other powers to support him, and it will not be easy to win them over," said Jalaleddin Sagheer, a lawmaker and leader of a rival Shiite party. "His policy was never to have allies. He solved crises by creating enemies. He lost politicians' trust."

Changing Dynamic

Maliki seems to be playing an aggressive game with the Americans as well. No one missed the fact that the raid on the camp began as Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates arrived in Iraq -- either a sign of poor planning on Maliki's part or disregard for the U.S. reaction. The raid is the most dramatic of a growing list of moves that suggest Maliki is increasingly willing to act against American interests.

Hours before a bilateral security agreement went into effect Jan. 1, he demanded that U.S. diplomats vacate before midnight a building they had used as an embassy since the war began, forcing them to scramble. On his orders, Iraqi commanders sharply restricted the movement and authority of U.S. troops in Baghdad and other cities after the withdrawal deadline of June 30. And he has ordered that U.S. soldiers stop manning checkpoints in the capital's Green Zone.

No one questions that Americans still carry tremendous influence here. Through a phone call, diplomats say, Vice President Biden was able to help delay a vote on a Kurdish constitution that some Arab officials saw as provocative. But even amid signs of divisions in U.S. policy -- critics describe it as lacking direction -- there remains a sense in Iraq at least that the Americans would like to see Maliki consolidate control as the most expedient way to ensure stability while most U.S. combat troops pull out of Iraq by August 2010.

"I think they're turning the keys over. And that's unfortunate," said an Iraqi official who has been critical of Maliki. "Turning the keys over means that we're creating another strongman in Iraq, and that's just bad for Iraq."

Correspondents Ernesto Londoño and Nada Bakri in Baghdad, special correspondents Othman al-Mukhtar in Fallujah and Hasan Shammari in Baqubah, and staff writer Karen DeYoung in Washington contributed to this report.

Hamas Chief Outlines Terms for Talks on Arab-Israeli Peace

By JAY SOLOMON and JULIEN BARNES-DACEY

DAMASCUS -- The chief of Palestinian militant group Hamas said his organization is prepared to cooperate with the U.S. in promoting a peaceful resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict if the White House can secure an Israeli settlement freeze and a lifting of the economic and military blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Khaled Meshaal, 53 years old, said in a 90-minute interview at Hamas's Syrian headquarters that his political party and military wing would commit to an immediate reciprocal cease-fire with Israel, as well as a prisoner swap that would return Hamas fighters for kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

He also said his organization would accept and respect a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders as part of a broader peace agreement with Israel—provided Israeli negotiators accept the right of return for millions of Palestinian refugees and the establishment of a capital for the Palestinian state in East Jerusalem.

That pledge falls short of recognizing Israel, a necessary step for Hamas to be included in peace talks, but many Middle East diplomats said it could mark an important step toward that goal.

"Hamas and other Palestinian groups are ready to cooperate with any American, international or regional effort to find a just solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, to end the Israeli occupation and to grant the Palestinian people their right of self-determination," Mr. Meshaal said.

A senior White House official said Mr. Obama's administration wouldn't respond to Mr. Meshaal's comments. Mr. Obama has said the U.S. would only hold direct talks with Hamas if it formally renounces terrorism and violence and recognizes the state of Israel. U.S. officials say that to engage directly with Mr. Meshaal would undermine the Palestinian Authority.

A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday dismissed Mr. Meshaal's comments. "Anyone who has been following Khaled Meshaal's comments over the last few months sees clearly that despite some attempts to play with language in a cosmetic way to give the impression of possible policy moderation, he remains rooted in an extremist theology which fundamentally opposes peace and reconciliation," said the spokesman, Mark Regev.

Hamas in 2006 was elected to rule the Palestinian territories, but a global boycott, Israeli arrests and a 2007 civil war left the group in charge only of the Gaza Strip. Fatah maintains control of the West Bank, leaving the territories bitterly divided.

Mr. Meshaal said his movement is waiting for Mr. Obama and his special Middle East negotiator, George Mitchell, to present a broader outline for conducting Middle East peace talks.

Mr. Mitchell has focused on securing an Israeli settlement freeze in disputed areas in return for Arab states beginning to normalize their relations with Israel, such as establishing trade and telecommunications links.

"If Israel doesn't accept a halt to stop building settlements, what then?" Mr. Meshaal said, seated under photos honoring fallen Hamas leaders and Jerusalem's al Aqsa mosque. "The end of the settlements is a necessary step, but it's not the solution itself."

Mr. Meshaal's conciliatory positions toward Washington come amid significant political shifts in the region that are affecting Hamas's principal allies.

This week, Mr. Mitchell met Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus and agreed to begin easing U.S. sanctions as part of a growing diplomatic rapprochement between the two rivals. In June, Hezbollah, the Lebanese political party and militia, failed in its bid to gain political power through elections in Beirut. And Iran's government—Hamas's chief arms supplier and financier—has been subsumed in a post-election struggle that could lessen Tehran's ability and willingness to project itself into the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Some Middle East analysts and Western diplomats said these events could be feeding into Hamas's conciliatory line.

Syrian officials said this week that they've been advising Hamas to play a more constructive role in Arab-Israeli talks. They specifically cite Hamas's recent offer to enter into a long-term truce with Israel. "We believe Hamas has evolved," Syria's deputy foreign minister, Fayssal Mekded, said Monday. "They are for building and developing a Palestinian state."

A number of Middle East experts say Hamas's willingness to accept the 1967 borders represents a quasi-recognition of the state of Israel, though the militant group hasn't formally taken this step.

Hamas's 1988 political charter formally calls for the destruction of Israel and the creation of a Palestinian state on the lands that currently make up the Palestinian territories and Israel. The organization is designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., Israel and the European Union because of its use of suicide bombers against Israeli citizens and military personnel.

The "Quartet" of bodies seeking to broker Arab-Israeli peace talks, which includes the U.S., EU, United Nations and Russia, has refused to collectively engage Hamas in the process until it formally recognizes Israel's right to exist, and renounces terrorism and violence. Russia has been holding bilateral talks with Hamas.

Mr. Meshaal's conflict with Israeli authorities is also personal. In 1997, Mr. Netanyahu ordered the assassination of Mr. Meshaal in Jordan and Mossad agents sprayed a lethal toxin into the Hamas official's ear that began shutting down his respiratory system. The late Jordanian monarch, King Hussein, intervened and forced Mr. Netanyahu to dispatch an antidote by threatening to end Jordan's peace treaty with Israel.

In the interview, Mr. Meshaal offered both conciliation toward the U.S. and the West, and enmity toward Israel and its leadership. "I don't care about Israel—it is our enemy and our occupier and it commits crimes against our people," he said. "Don't ask me about Israel, Israel can talk for itself."

In recent months, a number of leading European politicians and U.S. foreign-policy luminaries, including former U.S. national security advisers Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski, have called on Hamas to be formally brought into the peace process.

Critics of engaging Hamas, including senior members of the Obama administration, are wary of Mr. Meshaal's statements of accepting a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders.

Palestinian Authority leaders attacked Mr. Meshaal Thursday, saying Hamas was moving arms into the West Bank and trying to launch a "coup" in the territory.

Mr. Meshaal said Hamas wouldn't be an obstacle to peace. "We along with other Palestinian factions in consensus agreed upon accepting a Palestinian state on the 1967 lines," Mr. Meshaal said. This is the national program. This is our program. This is a position we stand by and respect."

—Joshua Mitnick contributed to this article

Write to Jay Solomon at jay.solomon@wsj.com

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124899975954495435.html#mod=todays_us_page_one

Murder Bares Worker Anger Over China Industrial Reform

By SKY CANAVES and JAMES T. AREDDY

TONGHUA, China -- When Chen Guojun took over last week as general manager of Tonghua Iron & Steel Group, it was supposed to be a step forward for China's government-backed effort to consolidate its massive steel industry.

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Sky Canaves/The Wall Street Journal

On Wednesday, broken glass and other debris littered the hallway outside the room where he was killed.

Instead, he became a tragic symbol of the challenges facing Beijing as it tries to remake its overbuilt industrial landscape.

Last Friday, after learning that Mr. Chen's privately owned employer planned to take control of government-controlled Tonghua Iron & Steel, thousands of workers who were worried about losing their jobs staged a protest that shut down production at their factory, located in a soot-covered district of this city in northeastern China.

As rumors swirled that Mr. Chen's employer, Jianlong Group, planned to shed workers, a group of them found the 41-year-old executive and beat him severely, battering his skull. Workers blocked streets near the factory and hurled bricks, preventing police and paramedics from reaching Mr. Chen.

Local government officials announced on television that night that the plan for Mr. Chen's company to take control of the steelmaker had been scrapped. But by the time the protests calmed and authorities were able to reach Mr. Chen, about six hours after the attack, the father of two was dead.

As police continued to search for Mr. Chen's killers on Wednesday, workers cleared debris from the dormitory where he died, sweeping shattered glass, broken furniture and ruined televisions into heaps. The door to the room where Mr. Chen died was shut, its frame damaged. There were holes in nearby walls and doors, apparently punched through by angry workers.

The fury unleashed in Tonghua has sparked an intense discussion in the Chinese media and among experts about how workers should be treated when control of companies changes hands.

Luo Changping/Caijing Magazine

Chen Guojun, the newly appointed general manager of Tonghua Iron & Steel Group, was beaten to death last Friday by marauding workers.

"This case rang a necessary alarm," says Li Xinchuang, vice chairman of China Metallurgical Industry Planning and Research Institute, a state think tank that helped draft the government's policy for the steel industry. Before the Tonghua riot, restructurings "were concerned only with benefits of local governments and companies," he says. "But the interests of employees should draw a lot more attention."

In an editorial, the official government Xinhua News Agency faulted local-government officials, asking: "Wasn't the Tonghua incident really a matter of failing to consider the interests of workers during the restructuring process?" Provincial-government officials declined to comment on the matter.

Even before the incident, China had been struggling to make headway in its push to consolidate the industry. The nation's steel industry is the world's largest by far, accounting for about 38% of global production last year. That share has grown during the global recession. China's production rose about 6% in the first half of this year, even as global output slid 21%.

Fragmented Industry

But the industry in China is fragmented among as many as 800 producers. Shanghai Baosteel Group, long China's biggest producer, accounted for less than 5% of the roughly 500 million metric tons of steel China produced last year. By contrast, South Korea's Pohang Iron & Steel Co., or Posco, accounted for just over 60% of that country's steel production last year.

Chinese steelmakers have hefty payrolls. Shanghai Baosteel has more than 108,000 employees. By contrast, Japan's Nippon Steel Corp., far larger by output, employs around 17,000. China's central government has blamed smaller producers, owned by provincial and local governments, for weak environmental standards, inefficient use of electricity and other valuable resources, and for flooding the market with poor-quality products.

Despite their enormous output, many Chinese steelmakers lose money. Government figures show as much as one-quarter of production capacity is unused, which partly reflects how fast companies are adding capacity.

The industry has relied increasingly on exports, leading to growing friction with major trading partners. In April, U.S. steelmakers filed an antidumping suit against Chinese counterparts, claiming their product was being priced below cost. This week, European Union trade officials approved penalties on imports of steel pipe from China. Beijing, meanwhile, has launched its own dumping probes into steel from the U.S. and Russia.

Beijing has said it wants to remake the domestic industry so that there are just 10 or fewer globally competitive steelmakers. A consolidated industry might be able to negotiate cheaper prices for imported iron ore, a critical ingredient in steel. The government has unveiled similar consolidation plans for other industries that are plagued by overcapacity, from car making to coal mining. But its efforts have made little headway.

Its plans for the steel industry have met resistance from the local governments that own the companies, which see steel plants as a major source of tax revenue and jobs. When mergers do occur, says Thomas Wrigglesworth, a Citigroup analyst in Hong Kong, they often don't result in reduced production.

Steelmaking has long been core to China's identity. Mao Zedong made the industry a central part of his efforts to make China a Communist powerhouse. Deng Xiaoping, the former leader who ushered in the current era of market-oriented reforms, created Shanghai Baosteel as part of his push to modernize the economy. Today, the company is the world's No. 5 steel producer, with customers including General Motors Co. and China's space program.

Local officials built steelmakers too, with varying degrees of success. In recent years, brash entrepreneurs have moved in to buy them.

While violence like that in Tonghua is unusual, labor experts say workers are becoming more assertive when they feel their interests threatened.

Tonghua sits in a region known as China's "rust belt," which went through a round of unrest a decade ago when efforts to retool the state-owned industrial sector left tens of millions of workers without jobs. Today, the city still bears signs of the pre-reform era, when state firms provided all sorts of benefits to workers. Schools, hospitals, gymnasiums and a television station are still marked with the Tonghua Iron & Steel logo, even though few of those entities are still controlled by the steelmaker. Its flagship steel mill shows every bit of its 51 years.

Tension in Tonghua has been building for years. In 2005, the provincial government sold a 36% stake in Tonghua Iron & Steel to privately owned Jianlong as part of a restructuring.

Jianlong was founded by Zhang Zhixiang a decade ago, when private ownership was relatively rare in China's steel industry. The 41-year-old Mr. Zhang, a native of eastern China's Zhejiang province, began trading steel in his late 20s, quickly expanding his business to a dozen Chinese cities. In 1999, he took control of his first steel mill, in northern China. Today, his net worth is estimated at $1.97 billion, according to Shanghai's Hurun Report, making him one of seven steel magnates who are U.S.-dollar billionaires.

When Mr. Zhang bought the minority stake in Tonghua Iron & Steel, he pledged to transform it into a modern, profitable enterprise modeled on the world's best-run steel mills. To head one of the company's subsidiaries, he tapped Mr. Chen, a factory manager who had risen through Jianlong's ranks to run a company joint venture in Jilin province.

Mr. Zhang grew frustrated that government-appointed managers at Tonghua Iron & Steel blocked his efforts to improve efficiency at the company and expand its capacity, according to Chinese media reports and a Jianlong official.

Mr. Zhang couldn't be reached for comment. The Jianlong official said the restructuring of Tonghua Iron & Steel "is led by the government. It is the government who has organized it. It is impossible for us to control the process."

Worker Disappointment

For workers, Jianlong's involvement was also proving disappointing. "They promised lots of new equipment, but it never arrived," says an employee of the company's coking plant, who provided only his surname, Zhang. "They didn't invest in production. They didn't even maintain the equipment that was here before." Wages improved immediately after the Jianlong investment. Mr. Zhang, who has been a laborer at Tonghua Iron & Steel for more than 20 years, says his monthly pay doubled to about 2,000 yuan, or about $293, in 2006. But the raise proved to be short-lived, he says, and his pay gradually declined.

The situation worsened last year, as the entire Chinese steel industry entered a serious financial slump amid the global recession. Incomes for some workers at Tonghua fell back to their 2005 levels -- a decline for which workers say they blamed Jianlong. By early 2009, Jianlong was fed up with continued losses and indicated it planned to dump its stake, according to Chinese media reports and the company official.

Then, a few months ago, China's economy began to take off again, thanks to a $585 billion stimulus package announced by the government late last year that poured money into infrastructure and construction projects that require steel. Tonghua Iron & Steel reported a profit in June. Jianlong reversed course and structured a deal with the local government designed to increase Jianlong's stake in Tonghua Iron & Steel to a majority one.

The about-face angered workers. "It's like someone comes to your home to get something, and when they're about to leave, they find out that you're really rich, and then they try to stay," says Mr. Zhang, the coking-plant employee. "We can't accept this."

Mr. Zhang and his colleagues at the plant had received bonuses of 200 yuan a month as the company returned to profitability. Mr. Zhang says he feared that Jianlong would suspend the bonus scheme if it took over the company. Even worse, he says, there were rumors that Jianlong planned to lay off all workers who had been with Tonghua for more than 25 years, replacing them with outsiders. There are few other job prospects in this remote, hilly corner of the nation, 35 miles from the North Korean border.

Last Friday, Mr. Chen took over as general manager of Tonghua Iron & Steel and held a meeting with company executives. On the plaza outside, workers began gathering around 8 a.m., upset about the sudden takeover announcement and fearing that their jobs might be at risk, says Qiao Yukui, a 59-year-old company retiree who witnessed the protest.

Rumors Circulate

Rumors began flying that Jianlong planned to build a new steel plant in another city and replace existing Tonghua workers with recruits from there; that Mr. Chen planned to slash thousands of jobs and shrink pensions; that he was earning three million yuan, about $438,000, or more a year.

Around 5 p.m., Mr. Chen was cornered by angry workers in a dormitory office and beaten. At about 9 p.m., with Mr. Chen still missing and feared injured, the government announced that the deal was off. By the time rescuers got to Mr. Chen at 11 p.m., it was too late.

On Wednesday, the streets around the plant were relatively quiet. Several workers living in the dormitory where the killing took place denied having been at the scene on Friday.

A committee of Communist Party, government and company officials investigating the incident has been moving from hotel to hotel in Tonghua in order to hold meetings in secret, says Zhou Wei, a party propaganda official in Tonghua. No suspects have been detained, officials say.

Government officials say there were no plans for layoffs at Tonghua Iron & Steel after the Jianlong takeover. Yin Chunping, an official in the provincial agency that still holds a controlling stake in Tonghua Iron & Steel, says the only personnel changes in the acquisition plan involved executives.

—Gao Sen in Tonghua, China, and Ellen Zhu and Bai Lin in Shanghai contributed to this article.

Write to Sky Canaves at sky.canaves@wsj.com and James T. Areddy at james.areddy@wsj.com

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124899768509595465.html#mod=todays_us_page_one

Hepatitis Group Is Harassed in China

By ANDREW JACOBS

BEIJING — In the realm of potential threats to China’s stability, an organization that advocates on behalf of people infected with hepatitis B would seem to be low risk.

But on Wednesday, the group’s director, Lu Jun, found himself squaring off against four security officials who were trying to cart away stacks of literature they claimed had been printed without official permission.

In the end, Mr. Lu scored a partial victory. After eight hours looking through drawers and photographing volunteers, the inspectors walked off with 90 pamphlets, but Mr. Lu prevented them from delving into the group’s computer files. “I fear this is not the end of it,” he said Thursday.

The raid on Mr. Lu’s organization, the Yi Ren Ping Center, comes at a precarious time for China’s nongovernmental organizations, many of which operate in a kind of legal gray zone. Two weeks ago, officials used a bureaucratic infraction as the reason to shut down the country’s pre-eminent legal rights center, Gongmeng, or Open Constitution Initiative. The closing followed a separate disbarment of 53 lawyers known for taking on civil rights and corruption cases. Just before dawn on Wednesday, the founder of Gongmeng, Xu Zhiyong, was taken into police custody, and he has not been heard from since.

“The permissible space in which civil society groups can operate was already small, but right now that circle is getting smaller and smaller,” said Sharon Hom, the executive director of Human Rights in China, which is based in New York. “If an organization is creating an independent voice, putting together a newsletter or organizing people in any way, it’s going to feel the full brunt of the authorities.”

Although it is unclear exactly why the government is tightening its grip on such organizations, legal experts and rights activists generally agree that it may be related to the celebrations, three months from now, of the 60th anniversary of China’s Communist revolution. A similar clampdown took place in the months before the 2008 Summer Olympics, when security officials in Beijing stepped up the harassment of dissidents and encouraged thousands of migrant workers to return to the countryside.

“It’s basically a foolish attempt to make the year as peaceful and uneventful as possible,” said Jiang Tianyong, a lawyer who was among those blocked from renewing their licenses.

Another explanation, Mr. Jiang and others say, is that some powerful segments of China’s leadership feel threatened by the rise of independent entities working to advance causes like labor rights or clean water, or in the case of the Yi Ren Ping Center, protection for people with hepatitis B.

There is widespread trepidation over hepatitis B in China, a fear that has been intensified by an explosion in advertising for medical testing services and sham cures. Even though it is preventable with a vaccine — and most of those infected will not become ill — state-owned companies, medical schools and food-processing plants have come to believe that it is sensible policy to bar the infected.

Under Chinese law, carriers of hepatitis B cannot work as teachers, elevator operators, barbers or supermarket cashiers. In a recent survey of 113 colleges and universities, conducted by the Yi Ren Ping Center, 94 acknowledged that infected applicants, required to take blood tests, would be summarily rejected.

Many of the 120 million carriers in China got the virus in the 1970s and 1980s, when a single contaminated syringe was sometimes used to inoculate hundreds of people at a time against diseases. The second-biggest group of carriers, about 40 percent of the total, according to the government, got the virus from their mothers during childbirth.

An online bulletin board maintained by Mr. Lu’s group is a heart-rending clearinghouse for stories of people fired from jobs, or students denied college educations, after mandatory blood tests revealed their statuses. There are also scores of tales about the ashamed and the distraught who killed themselves.

“People are so afraid of this virus, they don’t act responsibly,” said Wang Li, an engineer who just graduated from a prestigious Beijing university and saw two job offers evaporate this year when blood tests showed that he had the virus. “The only thing they told me was, ‘You are not suitable for work.’ ”

Founded in 2006 by Mr. Lu, who is also infected, the Yi Ren Ping Center provides up-to-date medical information and tries to arrange legal help for those it considers wrongly dismissed from jobs. It also encourages its 300,000 members to press for antidiscrimination laws. Last summer the center was forced to move its Web site to an overseas server after it mysteriously vanished from the Internet.

Although his organization does not seek to challenge the government’s authority, Mr. Lu recognizes that its mission can stir discomfort among the powerful and mighty. “After all, it is these people who are maintaining the status quo of discrimination,” he said in his office on Thursday. “And of course, according to the government, there is no such thing as discrimination in China. There are only misunderstandings.”

Xiyun Yang contributed research.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/world/asia/31hepatitis.html?ref=todayspaper

Ads Follow Web Users, and Get Deeply Personal

By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD

For all the concern and uproar over online privacy, marketers and data companies have always known much more about consumers’ offline lives, like income, credit score, home ownership, even what car they drive and whether they have a hunting license. Recently, some of these companies have started connecting this mountain of information to consumers’ browsers.

The result is a sea change in the way consumers encounter the Web. Not only will people see customized advertising, they will see different versions of Web sites from other consumers and even receive different discount offers while shopping — all based on information from their offline history. Two women in adjoining offices could go to the same cosmetic site, but one might see a $300 Missoni perfume, the other the house-brand lipstick on sale for $2.

The technology that makes the connection is nothing new — it is a tiny piece of code called a cookie that is placed on a hard drive. But the information it holds is. And it is all done invisibly.

“Now, you’re traveling the Internet with a cookie that indicates you’re this type of consumer: age group X, income level, urban versus rural, presence of children in the household,” said Trey Barrett, a product leader at Acxiom, one of the companies offering this linking to marketers.

Advertisers and marketers say this specificity is useful, taking out the guesswork involved in online-only profiling, and showing products to the people most likely to be interested. Retailers including Gap and Victoria’s Secret are using this tactic.

But consumer advocates say such unseen tracking is troubling. On the old Internet, nobody knew you were a dog. On the new targeted Internet, they now know what kind of dog you are, your favorite leash color, the last time you had fleas and the date you were neutered.

“The industry’s love affair with persistent cookies has made it virtually impossible for users to go online without being tracked and profiled,” said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, in an e-mail message.

While Congress has been holding hearings on online privacy lately, the sessions have focused on online behavioral targeting. The industry has argued that no government intervention is needed, an argument that the Federal Trade Commission has so far accepted.

Consumers can avoid cookie-based tracking by deleting cookies from their computers or setting their browsers not to accept cookies. But few do, and privacy advocates say it is easy for companies to add cookies without users noticing.

For decades, data companies like Experian and Acxiom have compiled reams of information on every American: Acxiom estimates it has 1,500 pieces of data on every American, based on information from warranty cards, bridal and birth registries, magazine subscriptions, public records and even dog registrations with the American Kennel Club.

Patrick Williams, the publisher of the personal finance magazine Worth, recently asked Acxiom to find the names and addresses of 10,000 Americans from each of 11 cities who had houses worth more than $1 million, net worth of over $2 million, lived within a few miles of other rich people and subscribed to business publications.

“They are the scariest data research company around — they know far too much,” said Mr. Williams, who said he was very happy with the amount of information it gave him.

Companies like Acxiom and a competitor, Datran Media, make the connection between online and offline data when a person registers on a Web site or clicks through on an e-mail message from a marketer.

Datran’s cookies include 50 to 100 pieces of information. Both companies say cookie data is anonymous and generalized. Datran and Acxiom then sell advertising on Web sites like NBC.com, Facebook and Yahoo to companies that use their data.

For marketers, all this data is a boon. Beltone New England, a hearing-aid company, asked Datran to find people online who were 65 and over, owned a house, were head of a household, made more than $35,000 a year and lived in New England so it could show them ads. Datran also tested the same ads with a wider group of people.

“What was surprising was we found the majority of responders turned out to be women 35 to 40 who had elderly parents at home,” said Perry Ebel, Beltone’s director of marketing and business development. He said he was changing his offline marketing to include that group.

By using real-world data online, marketers can customize messages even further — showing different products to people with different shopping habits, whether it is in ads, an e-mail message or in semipersonalized Web pages.

Rodale, which publishes books along with magazines like Men’s Health and Prevention, uses Acxiom data to help determine which promotional e-mails to send to which customers. Offers aimed at women might be accompanied by an e-mail message offering a Father’s Day subscription to Men’s Health for him and a free book on losing belly fat for her. Young men might get another offer — a book on sex positions. Some marketers are using offline data more subtly — for example, showing a budget shopper a discount offer and a regular shopper a full-price section.

“The people who buy less frequently and are most price-conscious may get a better deal than someone who buys more frequently, who would buy anyway,” said Christopher S. Marriott, global managing director of Acxiom Digital, a division of Acxiom.

Of course, shoppers would have little reason to think their experience or their ads are being personalized based on their home value or Volvo ownership.

“It is a little Big Brother-ish,” said Betsy Coggswell, 49, a social worker in Fullerton, Calif., who shops online regularly. Still, she said, she wasn’t shocked. “Every time you put out information about yourself — people have got to understand — it’s going to be collected by somebody.”

Some online companies avoid matching online and offline profiles. In 2000, DoubleClick abandoned plans to connect online and offline data after a huge outcry. Google, which later acquired DoubleClick, has been conducting studies that connect the two areas, but it does not currently collect or serve ads based on such personal information without user permission, Sandra Heikkinen, a Google spokeswoman, said.

While Acxiom, Datran and some of their partners address their use of tracking in their privacy policies, such policies have become worthless, Mr. Rotenberg said. “Real transparency means that the user gets access to the information, not to a policy about the information,” he said.

Paul M. Schwartz, a law professor and privacy expert at the law school of the University of California, Berkeley, said the unwitting participation by consumers makes online marketing different from offline.

“Interactive media really gets into this creepy Orwellian thing, where it’s a record of our thoughts on the way to decision-making,” he said. “We’re like the data-input clerks now for the industry.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/business/media/31privacy.html?ref=todayspaper

U.S. Adviser’s Blunt Memo on Iraq - Time ‘to Go Home’

By MICHAEL R. GORDON

WASHINGTON — A senior American military adviser in Baghdad has concluded in an unusually blunt memo that Iraqi forces suffer from entrenched deficiencies but are now able to protect the Iraqi government, and that it is time “for the U.S. to declare victory and go home.”

The memo offers a look at tensions that emerged between Iraqi and American military officers at a sensitive moment when American combat troops met a June 30 deadline to withdraw from Iraq’s cities, the first step toward an advisory role. The Iraqi government’s forceful moves to assert authority have concerned some American officers, though senior American officials insisted that cooperation had improved.

Prepared by Col. Timothy R. Reese, an adviser to the Iraqi military’s Baghdad command, the memorandum details Iraqi military weaknesses in scathing language, including corruption, poor management and the inability to resist Shiite political pressure. Extending the American military presence beyond August 2010, he argues, will do little to improve the Iraqis’ military performance while fueling growing resentment of Americans.

“As the old saying goes, ‘Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days,’ ” Colonel Reese wrote. “Since the signing of the 2009 Security Agreement, we are guests in Iraq, and after six years in Iraq, we now smell bad to the Iraqi nose.”

Those conclusions are not shared by the senior American commander in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno, and his recommendation for an accelerated troop withdrawal is at odds with the timetable approved by President Obama.

A spokeswoman for General Odierno said that the memo did not reflect the official stance of the United States military and was not intended for a broad audience, and that some of the problems the memo referred to had been solved since its writing in early July.

Still, the memo opens a rare window into a debate among American military officers about how active the American role should be in Iraq and for how long. While some in the military endorse Colonel Reese’s assessment, other officers say that American forces need to stay in Iraq for the next couple of years as the Iraqis struggle with heightened tensions between the Kurds and Arabs, insurgent attacks in and around Mosul and checking authoritarian tendencies of the Iraqi government.

“We now have an Iraqi government that has gained its balance and thinks it knows how to ride the bike in the race,” Colonel Reese wrote. “And in fact they probably do know how to ride, at least well enough for the road they are on against their current competitors. Our hand on the back of the seat is holding them back and causing resentment. We need to let go before we both tumble to the ground.”

Before deploying to Iraq, Colonel Reese served as the director of the Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., the Army’s premier intellectual center. He was an author of an official Army history of the Iraq war — “On Point II” — that was sharply critical of the lapses in postwar planning.

As an adviser to the Baghdad Operations Command, which is led by an Iraqi general, Abud Qanbar, Colonel Reese drew examples from Baghdad Province, which is less volatile than the area near Mosul in northern Iraq, where the Sunni insurgency is strongest. But he noted that he had read military reports from other regions and that he believed that there were similar dynamics nationwide.

Colonel Reese, who could not be reached for comment, submitted his paper to General Odierno’s command, but copies have circulated among active-duty and retired military officers and been posted on at least one military-oriented Web site.

Colonel Reese’s memo lists a number of problems that have emerged since the withdrawal of American combat troops from Baghdad, completed June 30. They include, he wrote, a “sudden coolness” to American advisers and the “forcible takeover” of a checkpoint in the Green Zone. Iraqi units, he added, are much less willing to conduct joint operations with their American counterparts “to go after targets the U.S. considers high value.”

The Iraqi Ground Forces Command, Colonel Reese wrote, has imposed “unilateral restrictions” on American military operations that “violate the most basic aspects” of the security agreement that governs American and Iraqi military relations.

“The Iraqi legal system in the Rusafa side of Baghdad has demonstrated a recent willingness to release individuals originally detained by the U.S. for attacks on the U.S.,” he added.

A spokeswoman for General Odierno, Lt. Col. Josslyn Aberle, said of the memo: “The e-mail reflects one person’s personal view at the time we were first implementing the Security Agreement post-30 June. Since that time many of the initial issues have been resolved and our partnerships with Iraqi Security Forces and G.O.I. partners now are even stronger than before 30 June.” G.O.I. is the abbreviation for the government of Iraq; the Iraqi Security Forces are sometimes referred to as the I.S.F.

Colonel Reese appears to have anonymously circulated a less detailed version of his memo on a blog called “The Enchanter’s Corner.” The author, listed on the site as “Tim the Enchanter,” is described as an active-duty Army officer serving as an adviser in Iraq who is “passionate about political issues.” That post on Iraq, along with one criticizing President Obama’s health care proposals, has been removed but can be found in cached versions.

Under the plan developed by General Odierno, the vast majority of the approximately 130,000 American forces in Iraq will remain through Iraq’s national elections, which are expected to be held next January. After the elections and the formation of a new Iraqi government, there will be rapid reductions in American forces. By the end of August 2010, the United States would have no more than 50,000 troops in Iraq, which would include six brigades whose primary role would be to advise and train Iraqi troops.

Some experts, like Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former adviser to Gen. David H. Petraeus, have argued that this timetable may be too fast “Renewed violence in Iraq is not inevitable, but it is a serious risk,” Mr. Biddle wrote in a recent paper. “The most effective option for prevention is to go slow in drawing down the U.S. military presence in Iraq. Measures to maximize U.S. leverage on important Iraqi leaders — especially Maliki,” he added, referring to Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki “— can be helpful in steering Iraqis away from confrontation and violence, but U.S. leverage is a function of U.S. presence.”

During a recent appearance at the United States Institute of Peace, a Washington-based research organization, Mr. Maliki appeared to be contemplating a possible role for American forces after the December 2011 deadline for the removal of all American troops under the security agreement.

But while General Odierno has drawn up detailed plans for a substantial advisory role, Colonel Reese argued in favor of a more limited — and shorter — effort, and recommended that all American forces be withdrawn by August 2010.

“If there ever was a window where the seeds of a professional military culture could have been implanted, it is now long past,” he wrote. “U.S. combat forces will not be here long enough or with sufficient influence to change it. The military culture of the Baathist-Soviet model under Saddam Hussein remains entrenched and will not change. The senior leadership of the I.S.F. is incapable of change in the current environment.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/world/middleeast/31adviser.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

Movie Review: 'Burma VJ': Documentary on Brutal Repression of Protesters in 2007

By Desson Thomson
Special to The Washington Post
Friday, July 31, 2009

It was pitchforks at the Bastille, muskets at Concord, Mass., and rocks at the Intifada. But in this age of instant dissemination, the cellphone video has become the revolutionary weapon of choice.

We see this most palpably in "Burma VJ: Reporting From a Closed Country," a documentary that uses a mixture of real and fictional footage to revisit Burma's brutal reprisals against its own people in 2007. In August and September of that year, many Burmese rose in protest against the government's sudden hiking of gasoline prices. Those public demonstrations were spontaneous and scattered. And the government dealt harshly with them. But when Burmese monks -- considered sacrosanct in this culture -- joined the growing ranks, the conflict was drawn more sharply. The stakes got higher for both sides. And the cellphones started recording.

"I decided that whatever happened to me, I would do it," says "Joshua," the narrator of Anders Ostergaard's movie, justifying the dangerous decision to film as much as he could, and show it to the world. Joshua is the movie's only fictional element, a composite character meant to represent all the unnamed people who risked their lives to hold their government morally accountable.

Filmed by members of the Democratic Voice of Burma, a collective of underground video journalists (the VJ in the title), these scenes were smuggled to the outside world, processed in a studio in Oslo, transmitted around the world and -- significantly -- shown to the people of Burma (renamed Myanmar by the ruling junta).

"Joshua" may be made up, but the footage we see is indisputably real. Some of it is poignantly subtle, like the taxi driver who states he'll support this growing revolution if it takes off. In the context of these dangerous times, when government informers are everywhere, such a public declaration amounts to bravado. More obviously courageous is the spectacle of emboldened, head-shaven monks in red robes as they defy curfew orders and march in numbers through the streets as armed troops mass.

There is, of course, bravery from the unseen people behind the lens who could be killed merely for owning recording devices. Thanks to them, we can patch together the heartbreaking chronicle of popular demonstration and government brutality during those significant months. Fragmentary images -- filmed surreptitiously from hidden vantage points or concealed within clothes -- show palpable fear in the streets. They show beatings. And we realize we are sitting in the jittery eye of an evil, gathering storm.

The movie also provides a momentary, grainy glimpse of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning, pro-democracy activist. There she is, standing in the doorway of the house that has famously become her prison on and off since 1989. She is expressing solidarity for the demonstrators who have just marched to her home. It's a moving scene because we know that even today she faces indefinite home detention. The following day, the violence begins in earnest, and the video journalists -- nameless but unified in their determination -- are there to film it.

Of course, we have seen this kind of electronic activism more recently in Iran. But for the cellphone journalists of Tehran, we'd know little about the popular uprising that followed the country's disputed election. And we'd know nothing of Neda, the young woman whose videotaped -- and eternally replayed -- death has become the movement's most iconic moment.

As we watch "Burma VJ," and other documentaries like it, we can sense the beginnings of a paradigm shift in the way history is written, and the way the meekest can become empowered. Citizens no longer need to tell their sad stories to their children and grandchildren over a generation. They can inform the world immediately. Thanks to the new guerrilla narrative, the world has a constant flow of images to file in its collective consciousness. And that camera-testable accountability slowly becomes a global civic right that fulfills the noblest purpose of journalism -- to bring truth to power.

Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country (84 minutes, at Landmark's E Street) is not rated and contains real images of brutal repression. In Burmese and accented English with subtitles.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/30/AR2009073003914.html

Bankers' Bonuses Beat Earnings as Industry Imploded

By Tomoeh Murakami Tse
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 31, 2009

NEW YORK, July 30 -- The nation's nine largest banks handed out $32.6 billion in bonuses last year even as they ran up more than $81 billion in losses and accepted billions of dollars in emergency federal aid, New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo says in a report released Thursday.

Cuomo's investigation into pay practices at Wall Street's largest firms found that nearly 4,800 executives and other employees were each awarded at least $1 million. Of those, more than 900 worked for Bank of America and Citigroup, which have been among the largest recipients of government bailout funds.

This latest report about Wall Street bonuses turned up the heat on lawmakers and regulators, who have been weighing how to rein in compensation practices that banking executives themselves admit contributed to the worst financial crisis in decades. The House is set to vote Friday on legislation that would give regulators authority to prohibit pay practices that they deem inappropriate and grant shareholders the right to cast non-binding votes on executive compensation.

Shortly after Cuomo released his findings, Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, announced a hearing to examine pay practices, particularly at companies rescued by the federal government.

"A few months ago, they were facing bankruptcy. Then, after being bailed out, they're giving huge bonuses," Towns said. "I think the American people need some answers. With the economy being the way it is, and people suffering . . . how do you still do that?"

Facing the prospect of greater government oversight, some of the biggest banks have been taking steps since late last year to restructure pay incentives as a way of keeping Washington at bay while avoiding some of the business practices that led to the financial sector's tremendous losses.

Several firms have adopted a clawback policy that allows them to reclaim bonuses if corporate or individual business decisions turn out to be costly or improper. Other firms have extended the number of years that employees have to wait before cashing in on stock awards. Still others are discussing ways to further link compensation to long-term performance.

But some prominent pay experts and investor groups question whether the measures go far enough or if any of the more ambitious proposals will ever be implemented.

"The details of design in many cases still fall short of what is necessary," said Lucian Bebchuk, a Harvard law professor who has met with Obama administration officials to discuss pay principles. "There is substantial distance we need to go before we have effective tying of pay with long-term results."

Lawmakers in Washington also are skeptical and are moving ahead with legislation that would tighten restrictions on pay.

"If I thought they were enough, why would we pass the bill?" said Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, who sponsored the legislation. He said the restrictions should be uniform across companies, adding that he doubted firms would be restructuring pay practices if Congress wasn't moving ahead with legislation.

The bill embodies broad compensation principles similar to those outlined last month by Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, and its adoption would represent a victory for the Obama administration. The Senate is expected to take up the measure after the August recess.

While some in Congress and the administration have expressed cautious optimism that some banks were taking steps in the right direction, Cuomo's findings did little to boost confidence.

"It's window dressing," Towns said. "It's all basically rhetoric. They're not doing it. When it comes down to final analysis, it's not happening."

According to Cuomo's report, Citigroup and Merrill Lynch each lost more than $27 billion last year but paid out $5.3 billion and $3.6 billion in bonuses, respectively. Together, they have received government bailout funds from the Troubled Assets Relief Program totaling $55 billion.

Three other firms -- Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and J.P. Morgan Chase -- were faulted for each awarding bonuses that totaled much more than their respective 2008 earnings. Goldman made $2.3 billion and paid out $4.8 billion in bonuses. Morgan Stanley earned $1.7 billion and paid $4.5 billion in bonuses. J.P. Morgan Chase made $5.6 billion and paid $8.7 billion in bonuses, the report says. Those firms recently returned their government funds, a combined $45 billion.

The report, titled "No Rhyme or Reason: The 'Heads I Win, Tails You Lose' Bank Bonus Culture," looked at bonuses and earnings at the nine large banks that were the first to receive government funds last year under TARP. Cuomo says a review going back six years shows that pay at Wall Street firms has become "unmoored" from their financial performance.

"When the banks did well, their employees were paid well," he says in the report. "When the banks did poorly, their employees were paid well. And when the banks did very poorly, they were bailed out by taxpayers and their employees were still paid well."

As an example, Cuomo cited pay practices at Merrill Lynch, which he accused of abandoning any effort to link pay to performance. Instead the investment bank, dragged down early in the financial crisis by bad investment decisions, set bonuses based on what it expected competitors to award. Merrill's losses in 2007 and 2008 erased all of its earnings in the preceding four boom years, evidence that pay practices were based on short-term profits on risky bets that later evaporated, Cuomo said.

Representatives of Bank of America, which earlier this year acquired Merrill Lynch, declined to comment. Other banks named in the report also declined to comment on it or did not return messages.

Wall Street firms have begun taking some steps to try to ward off criticisms, which have rained in from President Obama on down. Late last year, for example, Goldman Sachs increased the holding period for restricted stock awards for all employees from three years to four. Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley introduced a clawback provision that would allow it to roll back a portion of year-end bonuses awarded to traders and other employees if they are deemed to have engaged in activities that prove detrimental to the company, such as triggering major losses or harming its reputation. The clawback can reach as far back as three years. Morgan Stanley's Swiss rivals, UBS and Credit Suisse, have adopted clawbacks.

Some experts who have studied pay practices are reserving judgment.

"They all depend upon implementation by directors," said Stephen M. Davis, a fellow at Yale University's center for corporate governance. "And do we have the right directors installed at these companies? Are they sufficiently independent to put these practices into tough practice? Or will they be more lenient as time goes on?"

Goldman Sachs said it has had a policy that allows it to claw back bonuses of employees who cause significant harm to the firm. But a company official declined to say whether the clawback has ever been triggered.

Among the more hotly debated changes in pay practices are plans to shift compensation from bonuses into higher salaries. Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and J.P. Morgan Chase, along with several foreign competitors, all have carried out or informed employees of plans to increase salaries for many of them. The banks say these raises will not increase total annual compensation. Putting less emphasis on bonuses, some banks argue, would discourage excessive risk-taking. Some executives, however, acknowledged that they are hiking salaries for competitive reasons after rivals awarded pay raises to employees.

Nell Minow, a co-founder of the Corporate Library, said these steps run counter to the efforts banks should be making to tie pay more closely to performance. "Whether you're awarding new stock options to make up for underwater options or raising cash compensation to compensate for more risk-based bonuses, all of that completely undermines the legitimacy of any of the reform efforts," she said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/30/AR2009073001581.html

U.S. Diplomat Urges Revised Sudan Policy

By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 31, 2009

President Obama's top Sudan envoy said Thursday that there was no basis for keeping Sudan on the U.S. list of states that sponsor terrorism and that it was only a matter of time before the United States would have to "unwind" economic sanctions against the Khartoum government.

Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Scott Gration's remarks before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee represented the most forceful critique yet by a U.S. official of the long-standing American effort to put economic and political pressure on Sudan's Islamic government. Sudan, which has harbored members of al-Qaeda, including Osama bin Laden, was designated a terrorism sponsor in 1993.

Gration's comments Thursday raised concerns among activists and Sudan's critics in Congress that the administration is offering to reward Sudan without securing assurances that the government will take steps to end conflict in the Darfur region and in the south.

The president's national security advisers have been locked in dispute over the right mix of rewards and penalties to persuade the Khartoum government to pursue peace in those regions. Susan E. Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has been pressing for a tougher approach, citing Khartoum's history of violating agreements.

The interagency feud became public last month, when Gration told reporters that Sudan's government was no longer engaging in a "coordinated" campaign of mass murder against Darfurian civilians. Two days earlier, Rice had said that Sudan was engaged in a campaign of genocide in Darfur.

"There is a significant difference between what happened in 2003, which we characterized as genocide, and what is happening today," Gration said Thursday.

Gration came under fire from human rights activists, who accused him of saying too little to the committee about the brutality of the Sudanese government, whose leader, President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, stands accused of war crimes in Darfur.

Also Thursday, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, in partnership with Google Earth, released a State Department analysis of U.S. satellite imagery showing that more than 3,300 Darfurian villages were damaged or destroyed between 2003 and 2005, more than twice previous estimates. The images also showed that most of the destruction in Darfur occurred before 2006, with only a small number of villages apparently destroyed since then.

Gration told the Senate committee that the administration would "roll out" a new, comprehensive strategy on Darfur in the next few weeks that would include "both incentives and pressure" for Khartoum. The administration's priorities, he said, include negotiating a durable political solution in Darfur and averting a collapse of a U.S.-brokered 2005 peace accord ending a war between Khartoum and southern-backed rebels.

But Gration hinted at the tensions over strategy, noting that the State Department had rejected a proposal to fund more U.S. diplomats or private contractors to help support American mediation efforts in Sudan. He said he would raise the issue at a higher level.

Gration said U.S. economic sanctions had undermined American efforts to help implement the 2005 accord, barring the delivery of heavy equipment needed for road and rail projects in southern Sudan. He said the provision of such assistance would be vital in ensuring that southerners can establish a viable government if, as expected, they vote to secede from Sudan in a 2011 referendum.

"We're going to have to unwind some of these sanctions so that we can do the very things we need to do to ensure a peaceful transition to a state that is viable in the south, if they choose to do that," he said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/30/AR2009073004123.html

U.S. Takes Steps to Boost Security Cooperation With Russia

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 31, 2009

The United States is moving to deepen security cooperation with Russia as part of the Obama administration's effort to "reset" relations with Moscow, senior officials told Congress on Thursday.

This week, a team of military experts went to Moscow for the first round of discussions on an early warning center that would assess the threat of ballistic missiles, including any from Iran or North Korea, the officials said. U.S. and Russian officials are also planning to hold talks in October to lay the groundwork for extensive military programs next year.

"Hopefully, through this joint threat assessment, we can begin to chip away at some of the Russian misperceptions" about U.S. plans for missile defense elements in Europe, Alexander Vershbow, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, told members of the House Armed Services Committee.

Vershbow, a former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, said Russian "elites" exhibit "paranoia and worst-case assessments" about the U.S. plan to put a radar in the Czech Republic and 10 interceptors in Poland, but he added that dialogue could help soften those views.

Vershbow said that the highest priority for President Obama in recent talks with the Russians was Afghanistan, and that securing Moscow's agreement to allow the transit of U.S. troops and weapons through Russian air space was an important achievement. "The Russians, I think, recognize that they, too, have a stake in defeating the Taliban and establishing a stable, democratic Afghanistan," Vershbow said.

He added that although Russia does not have a military presence in Afghanistan, it is participating in that country's counternarcotics programs, training Afghan police at a center in Moscow, and repairing Soviet-era bridges and tunnels that are improving access for commercial goods heading in and out of Afghanistan.

Officials said U.S. and Russian security interests overlap on nonproliferation and thwarting Iran's nuclear ambitions.

"I think we've seen cooperation with Russia on this issue and then other areas where they've been less helpful," said Philip Gordon, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs.

He said that although some officials in Washington and in other capitals are concerned about Moscow's relations with Iran, "Russia has refrained from moving forward with what would be really considered more destabilizing arms transfers to Iran or steps in the nuclear area that would be provocative to us and others."

There remain disagreements between Russia and the United States, such as over U.S. support for Georgia and the enlargement of NATO.

"The predominant view in Russia is that they're better off dominating their neighbors, even if that means instability than accepting the choices of those neighbors -- unfortunately," Gordon said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/30/AR2009073004094.html

Anti-Settlement Group Takes Palestinian Property Claims to Israel's High Court

By Howard Schneider
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, July 31, 2009

BURQA, West Bank -- It has been nearly a decade since the Jewish settlement of Migron appeared on the hilltop opposite this Palestinian village, beginning with a communications tower and followed by a cluster of homes and a fence around approximately 90 acres of land.

Data tucked onto the hard drive of anti-settlement activist Dror Etkes's computer indicates that the land belongs to the residents of Burqa and nearby Deir Dibwan, and Etkes said he expects that information will one day force the settlers to leave.

The compulsion won't come from Israel's politicians, world public opinion or the Obama administration, Etkes contends, but from Israel's Supreme Court, where local advocacy groups are having increased success challenging settlements with simple property claims.

Etkes, the 42-year-old coordinator of settlement issues for the Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, has helped instigate a number of lawsuits through the pioneering use of mapping software to establish where settlements have encroached on private Palestinian land. "You have to create a tsunami that will expose the dimensions" of the problem, he said.

The debate over the status of West Bank settlements has been underway for more than three decades -- with the United States and many other countries regarding them as the improper actions of an occupying power, Israel claiming they are legitimate uses of land it is responsible for administering, and the Palestinians regarding them as an effort to undermine creation of a state of their own. Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, and about 290,000 Israelis now live in roughly 120 government-sanctioned settlements, as well as several dozen unauthorized ones. Those figures exclude Jewish areas in East Jerusalem.

The enclaves run from small clusters of homes, such as Migron, where some residents feel they are fulfilling a religious call to reclaim the land of Israel, to city-size developments with tens of thousands of residents drawn by cheaper prices and room for growing families.

But even as the international debate has proceeded with no clear resolution -- the dispute between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is the latest in a long series of disagreements between their countries over the issue -- a quiet revolution has taken place among Israeli groups opposed to the settlements.

Limited in the past to political advocacy and efforts to court international opinion, they now have access to a deeply layered database on West Bank land that Etkes assembled over three years. Multiple sets of information can be compared -- official Israeli maps; Palestinian, Jordanian and British records rendered in digital form; hundreds of Global Positioning System images; and aerial photos supplemented by field observations.

The Israeli courts honor the property rights of Palestinians and are beginning to pressure the government to block construction or make plans to remove houses built on private property. Proving landownership in the West Bank is not always easy, though, with a hodgepodge of records and rules that include formal land registrations, conventions that extend property rights to those who traditionally cultivate an area and Israeli government property seizures.

Still, Etkes's data are having an effect. Prodded by litigation, the Israeli government is laying plans now to move the Migron settlers to another part of the West Bank. And building at the settlement of Ofra has been restricted because it is on private land, according to Michael Sfard, the lawyer who has filed most of the lawsuits.

"It's a different universe," Sfard said. "If we had had these tools 40 years ago, I think the landscape would be different." Yesh Din has about 20 cases pending in the courts, and Etkes said "dozens" more are yet to be filed. The change has been noted by the Netanyahu government and others, who say the groups are funded by foreign governments and other outside sources and who have promised more aggressive rebuttals.

But Yesh Din's strategy of relying on the Israeli courts raises some deeper issues, akin to the debates in the United States about the role of the judiciary in molding policy, said Gerald Steinberg of Bar-Ilan University, who tracks the funding and relationships among nongovernmental groups.

"There is already a debate that the court is run by a small group of like-minded people that are outside the political process," Steinberg said. "As a result of this, it will increase." Judges are chosen by a nine-member committee that includes three justices, members of the Israeli bar, cabinet members and members of the parliament.

That debate, Etkes said, is the type of issue he hopes his work will raise. There is little chance, he added, that litigation alone will stop the expansion of settlements. But he said he hopes it will make Israelis confront the degree to which the settlements have encroached on private property and make the government enforce the law.

"We're asking questions about what Israel wants to be when it grows up," said Etkes, a former tour guide who said that he was raised in a religious family that supported the settlements and that he spent summers picking fruit in some of the same communities he is now opposing in court. "You talk about the rule of law and say that is your ethos. The main point is: Who controls the West Bank -- the state or the settlers?"

Enforcement of the rules can be slow, with Israeli authorities saying they prefer even years-long negotiations to risking the kind of violence that flared this month when settlers set fire to Palestinian fields and pelted cars with rocks after the removal of a small outpost.

Across the valley in Migron, training-wheel bikes scattered in driveways speak to a community that is nestled and comfortable, despite the large metal security gate and the guard at the entrance.

Itai Harel was one of the first to move to Migron. He said there was no sense of taking land that belonged to anyone else, only of improving barren hills "where our prophets walked and where the Bible was written." In responding to the litigation, Migron residents contended that their homes were built on land that had been abandoned and was under Israeli state control, and that they were abiding by government policy that supported Jewish settlement in the area.

If the larger area that was fenced in around Migron included private fields -- Harel acknowledged that some wheat and barley fields had been maintained in the area -- then compensation should be discussed, he said.

According to Etkes, all of Migron is in a part of the West Bank where private land registration was completed before the 1967 war and ownership was well established. He has become a familiar figure to the settlers, trolling the West Bank in a dusty four-wheel-drive vehicle looking for signs of new roads or outposts.

"They found a genius strategy: go to the Supreme Court, where everybody thinks like them," Harel said of Etkes and groups such as Yesh Din and Peace Now.

"Why should we leave here? If we leave, it is acknowledging it is occupied land," rather than Israel, said Harel, 35, who is raising four children here.

Across the valley, Mohammed Barakat, the Palestinian village treasurer of Burqa, said the wheat and barley fields mentioned by Harel may well have been his: Those were the crops grown on his 10 acres before the fence went up around the place in 2001. The loss has meant a few thousand dollars a year out of his pocket ever since.

"It's paralyzing," Barakat said of the settlements and the road, built for their use, that encircle Burqa. "It's like living in a refugee camp."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/30/AR2009073003809.html

Legal, Diplomatic Issues Stall Guantanamo Detainees' Confinement Challenges

By Del Quentin Wilber
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 31, 2009

In the 13 months since the Supreme Court issued its landmark decision granting detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the right to challenge their confinements before federal judges, most prisoners still have not had their day in court.

In addition, prisoners who have successfully contested their detentions are having difficulty getting released. Nineteen of 28 detainees ordered freed remain at Guantanamo Bay, ensnared in a diplomatic and legal limbo that has frustrated federal judges, the government and attorneys for detainees.

In the days after the Supreme Court's June 12, 2008, decision, federal judges said they would push the government to swiftly resolve civil lawsuits brought in the District's federal court by about 200 detainees under habeas corpus, a centuries-old legal doctrine that allows prisoners to challenge their confinements before independent arbiters.

But the cases quickly bogged down in appeals court rulings and lengthy fights over legal theories and evidence. In some cases, after years of court battles, the government abandoned allegations on the eve of hearings. That was the case involving a young Afghan detainee who was ordered released Thursday.

In many respects, judges and attorneys for the government and detainees have spent much of their time in the past year tussling over some of the same vexing issues that have stymied two presidents and Congress and recently forced a Justice Department task force to announce that it needed six more months to complete its work.

"These cases are difficult," U.S. District Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth said in an interview about the issue last week. "We are having to develop answers to complicated legal questions. These are novel cases in our country's history."

Judges, lawyers, government officials and outside experts said there are myriad reasons for the sluggish progress, despite the declaration in Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's opinion that "the costs of delay can no longer be borne by those who are held in custody."

Although the opinion was sweeping, the high court gave little guidance in how to handle the lawsuits, forcing judges to create rules and procedures on the fly.

The government's evidence is heavily classified, resulting in cumbersome handling procedures. Judges, for example, cannot take most government documents home to review at night. Instead, most of the judges visit the courthouse on weekends to review Guantanamo Bay files. The work is so time-consuming that the judiciary has assigned federal judges from outside the District to help handle routine civil matters.

Battles over legal issues and evidence have also gobbled up time. Attorneys for detainees have aggressively sought access to medical records and documents that might undermine government allegations. Meanwhile, the government has fought the detainees' requests and has continued to defend cases that judges say are surprisingly weak.

David J. Cynamon, a lawyer representing four detainees, accused the Justice Department of enacting a "scorched-earth defense policy in fighting every issue, big and little, that comes up in the cases."

Justice Department officials counter that they are trying to protect national security and classified information. They also rejected criticism from judges and detainee attorneys about the strength of their cases, saying most of their evidence was collected on chaotic battlefields for intelligence purposes, not for a courtroom.

Judges have generally given the Justice Department wide latitude in what information it can present to justify a detention. They set the bar of proof at "preponderance of the evidence," a standard in which the government wins if the evidence slightly tilts to its side. Since November, the government has won orders -- all by U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon -- allowing it to detain five Guantanamo Bay prisoners.

Even so, records and judicial opinions have revealed that many cases are flimsy or even illogical.

Last month, after months of litigation, Leon eviscerated the government's case against a Syrian detainee, saying it was weak and defied "common sense."

Leon even used exclamation points in his opinion to highlight the case's absurdity. Another federal judge, Gladys Kessler, wrote that the government "produced virtually no credible evidence" to justify a Yemeni's confinement.

A third judge has criticized government attorneys for bringing a case against an Afghan because it is "riddled with holes."

"This case is an outrage to me," U.S. District Judge Ellen S. Huvelle said two weeks ago during a hearing on the detention of Mohammed Jawad, who might have been as young as 12 when captured. The Afghan is accused of injuring two U.S. soldiers and an Afghan interpreter in a December 2002 grenade attack.

Under pressure from the judge, the government announced last week that it was no longer contesting Jawad's challenge but was mulling over potential criminal charges instead. Huvelle on Thursday ordered Jawad's release. The government has until at least until Aug. 21 to send him home or charge him.

At Thursday's hearing, the judge criticized the government for its repeated delays in the habeas case. She stopped short of telling the government how to transfer Jawad, saying she didn't have the authority to tread into such territory.

Even when ordered freed, many detainees have remained prisoners. Under a recent appeals court ruling, federal judges have been given little power to enforce the ultimate remedy in habeas challenges: release of prisoners. An appeals court ruled in February that judges cannot order the release of detainees into the United States, and federal judges do not have the power to order other countries to accept detainees.

In another ruling, an appeals court held that judges cannot even compel the government to provide 30 days' notice about an impending transfer.

The decisions have led some judges to delay habeas challenges because the effort seems futile, especially if the government has already designated a detainee for transfer. One judge griped to a colleague that they have the power only to issue "advisory opinions."

Last month, for example, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton delayed proceeding on a detainee's challenge because he did not "see any meaningful purpose in forging ahead."

The case involved Umar Abdulayev, 30, whom the government has approved for release, probably to his home country of Tajikistan. One of Abdulayev's attorneys, Matthew O'Hara, says the detainee does not want to be sent home because he is afraid he might be tortured. He asked Walton to block any such transfer and urged the judge to hold a habeas hearing on the government's evidence. O'Hara said he believes that a ruling in favor of his client might encourage another country to accept him.

Walton denied the request, saying in court that he did not have the power to block a transfer and that a habeas hearing would be pointless in light of the appellate decisions.

The complexities of cases were on display Thursday in a brief hearing before Leon, a judge who has methodically marched through most of his habeas challenges.

In November, Leon ordered the government to engage in diplomatic negotiations to release five Algerians who were picked up in Bosnia in 2001. Since the ruling, the government has transferred three men to Bosnia and one to France. The fifth, Saber Lahmar, 40, remains a prisoner because the government has been unable to find him a home.

Bosnia has apparently refused to accept him. Lahmar is in the same spot as more than a dozen Uighurs, Chinese Muslims who were ordered released but cannot go home because they fear they might be tortured. Four Uighurs were transferred recently to Bermuda, but 13 remain at Guantanamo Bay.

A Justice Department lawyer told Leon on Thursday that the State Department was working hard to find Lahmar a place to live.

The judge said he might eventually order a State Department official to testify to get another progress check. Otherwise there was little else for him to do.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/30/AR2009073004116.html

Unpopular, Unfamiliar Fish Species Suffer From Become Seafood

By David A. Fahrenthold
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 31, 2009

If the slimehead were still a slimehead, it wouldn't be in this kind of trouble.

An arm-long fish with the look of a prehistoric fossil, the slimehead lived in obscurity a quarter-mile deep in the ocean. The fish was known mainly to scientists, who named it for its distinctive mucus canals.

But then, in the 1970s, seafood dealers came up with a name that no longer tickled the gag reflex. This was the beginning of the "orange roughy."

And, very nearly, the end. With this tasty-sounding name, the slimehead was widely overfished.

On Thursday, a long-awaited report on the world's seafood stocks declared that 63 percent of these species are below healthy levels.

The seafood study, released online Thursday in the journal Science, is one of the most comprehensive looks at the contents of the world's seas. An international group of scientists examined an unprecedented amount of data about harvests and fish populations from the Bering Sea to the Antarctic, and they studied thousands of species from the Atlantic cod to the Australian jackass morwong.

Some of those worst-hit were fish that have been renamed to make them more marketable. For threatened animals on land, a more attractive name might be a blessing. But for these creatures -- slimeheads, goosefish, rock crabs, Patagonian toothfish, whore's eggs -- it was a curse.

That fishermen have turned to them shows what's left in the ocean. Today's seafood is often yesterday's trash fish and monsters.

"People never thought they would be eaten," said Jennifer Jacquet, a biologist at the University of British Columbia. "And as we fish out the world's oceans, we're coming across these species and wondering, 'Can we give them a makeover?' "

The study's lead author, Boris Worm, was following up on a study that predicted that if fishing continued at the same rate, all the world's seafood stocks would collapse by 2048. He said the latest study actually revealed something surprising: a reason for optimism.

About half of the depleted species might actually have a chance to recover, the scientists found, if given enough protection.

But, Worm said, species such as slimehead still illustrate what's gone deeply wrong.

As the world's catch has grown more than fivefold since 1950, he said, overfishing has spread from "rivers to coastal areas to the [continental] shelf to the deep sea." As they went farther and deeper, fishermen have brought back fish that people didn't have recipes -- or even words -- for.

"We didn't even consider fishing [for] these things 15, 20 years ago," said Worm, a professor at Dalhousie University in Canada. Today, he said, "we have another choice. And that is rebuilding what we've lost off our doorstep."

The depleted stocks include familiar fish such as the Atlantic cod, which has been fished so heavily that the Georges Bank population off New England is at 12 percent of healthy levels. The Gulf of Mexico's red snapper stocks are at 6 percent of what scientists say they should be.

To fill the void, some seafood vendors have fraudulently sold cheaper fish as grouper or snapper.

But in other cases, they have given the fish a more palatable name -- preying, environmentalists say, on the arm's-length relationship Americans have with their seafood.

The most famous case involves the Patagonian toothfish and the Antarctic toothfish -- drab, yard-long creatures from the cold waters near the South Pole. In the 1970s, they were rechristened "Chilean sea bass," although they are not, biologically speaking, sea bass.

The toothfish's new name and the firm, oily meat found a huge market. In recent years, environmentalists have said both toothfish are now threatened with heavy fishing, including by "pirate" fishing boats that ignore conservation laws.

The slimehead had similar troubles. Environmentalists say they live long -- 100 years or more -- and reproduce slowly, so it takes a long time to replace fish that are caught.

And along the U.S. Atlantic Coast, fishermen used to toss back a toad-colored fish that looked like it was 30 percent mouth and 50 percent stomach: the goosefish. Then somebody noticed that the tail meat could be cut into tasty fillets. Then, someone thought of "monkfish." Harvests jumped five times from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s, and the fish's numbers dropped.

"You went from unexploited, discarded fish -- bycatch, essentially -- to a targeted species that became overfished," said Thomas Munroe, a zoologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "The fish was the same as it was as a goosefish."

Federal officials say Chilean sea bass imports are now certified to make sure they came from sustainable operations, that orange roughy are better protected and that monkfish have recovered to safe levels.

But Seafood Watch, a guide produced by the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, still recommends that consumers avoid Chilean sea bass, orange roughy and monkfish.

Other names have been invented more recently. A few years ago, a Maine seafood dealer renamed the Atlantic rock crab the "peekytoe crab." He's sold hundreds of thousands of pounds since then. A species of sea urchin -- a ball of green spines that Maine lobstermen used to call a whore's egg -- have found a niche in U.S. sushi restaurants under its Japanese name, uni.

Early next year, look for what might be the biggest test yet of the seafoood market's response to a new name. Catfish farmers are going to introduce especially large, thick fillets to white-table restaurants under the name "delacata."

The naming of seafood is policed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which keeps a Seafood List of acceptable market names. One of the more recent additions: snakehead can now be sold as "channa."

But FDA officials said that, in practice, they don't punish many restaurants for calling fish by unsanctioned names. "It is not a high priority . . . unless it involves a food-safety hazard," said Spring Randolph, a consumer safety officer.

At the National Fisheries Institute, a trade group, President John Connelly said the seafood industry works to police itself -- recently going after a California restaurant that was selling a Vietnamese cousin of the catfish as "white roughy." But he said there's nothing wrong with giving new names to unfamiliar creatures.

"A company is always going to find a name that customers are comfortable with," Connelly said. "A cattleman, for instance, doesn't sell 'bull testicles.' They sell 'Rocky Mountain oysters.' "

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/30/AR2009073002478.html