China Says Migrants Are Employed Again

By ANDREW BATSON

BEIJING -- China's government said most rural migrant workers have found new jobs after mass layoffs last year, indicating the effects of its stimulus are filtering into the job market. But the downturn is still being felt in weaker growth of household incomes, which could hold back consumer spending.

Less than 3% of migrant workers who have returned to cities in recent months are still looking for jobs, said Wang Yadong, a deputy director-general at China's labor ministry. He said 95% of migrant workers preferred to seek work in cities this year rather than go back to farming. He declined to give more detailed figures, and didn't explain how the estimates were made. Mr. Wang's report is the first official update since February on the migrant job situation.

Itinerant rural workers are the backbone of China's manufacturing and construction industries, with tens of millions crossing the country every year for work. Officials previously estimated that 18 million to 23 million of them -- about 13% to 15% of the migrant-worker population -- had lost their jobs as of January.

Since then, China's economy has pulled back from the brink, thanks to a huge expansion of government investment and lending from state banks. "Our economic stimulus plan has had a clear impact on employment," said Liu Yuanchun, an economist at Renmin University in Beijing.

He noted that while the job market is performing better than many expected a few months ago, the picture is cloudy because government figures aren't reliable. "The actual number of migrant workers who have returned to the cities and found jobs may not be as high as the official figures say," he said.

• China Journal: Fears of Migrant Unrest Have Faded

Yet there are other scattered signs of an improving job market. Recent purchasing managers' index surveys indicate many manufacturers added jobs in May and June. And the government's revenue from income taxes rose 2% in the second quarter, according to economist Stephen Green of Standard Chartered, which also suggests payrolls are expanding.

The International Monetary Fund says businesses such as consumer-durables manufacturing and infrastructure construction are absorbing the laid-off workers.

Mr. Wang said the government's estimate of the total migrant worker population had increased by about 10 million since the end of 2008, to 150 million people in June. That figure could be evidence that job opportunities are still drawing more people off the farm this year.

He said the government will continue measures to boost employment, as three million recent college graduates have yet to find a job. "China's employment situation is still very serious," Mr. Wang said. "There are still a lot of companies whose businesses are in trouble, and the risk of job losses is still high."

New jobs for migrants this year may not be as good as those they had before. Some scholars report that migrant workers have often had to accept lower wages to find new work in recent months. The southern city of Shenzhen, long a magnet for migrant workers, recognized this trend by cutting its average wage guideline for this year by 3.8%, to 2,750 yuan ($402) a month.

Official measures of income and consumption are still rising this year, although at a slower rate. The government's survey of rural households shows average income from migrant work grew 7.7% in the first half of 2009, down sharply from 19.6% growth in the same period last year.

Yet a central-bank survey in May found urban households' satisfaction with their income was at its lowest level since 1999. Mr. Liu, the Renmin University economist, said official income figures don't include commissions or bonuses, which are likely to be down sharply. "Many people feel their incomes are declining, and their expectations for future income are not so great, so they are cutting back on their daily consumption," he said.

Write to Andrew Batson at andrew.batson@wsj.com

The Go-Between: Interpreting Life in Bermuda for Freed Gitmo Prisoners

By PAULO PRADA

HAMILTON, Bermuda -- Rushan Abbas climbed the stone steps of Camden, the official residence of Bermuda's premier, earlier this summer and led three island newcomers into a stately receiving room where the Rev. Al Sharpton was waiting.

"Thank you for your valuable time," said Ms. Abbas, after interpreting Rev. Sharpton's greeting to the three men into Uighur, an obscure language of central Asia.

Being Uighur Muslims from western China -- and having spent the past seven years as prisoners at the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- the men really had no idea who the American civil-rights activist is.

Rushan Abbas

The task of explaining many such mysteries to the freed Uighurs has fallen to Ms. Abbas, a 42-year-old former office worker and mother of three in Fresno, Calif. Since 2002, her rare combination of language skills, passports and Uighur activism has made Ms. Abbas the primary link between Guantanamo's Uighur detainees and a world far removed from the Afghan hamlets where they were living just before the U.S. military captured them early in its hunt for al Qaeda.

The men say they were passing through the region at the time after fleeing China, where Uighurs, a people of Turkic descent, have long been an oppressed minority. In early July, clashes between Uighurs and residents from China's Han majority led to 197 deaths in Xinjiang province, which is home to most Chinese Uighurs.

Ms. Abbas had never worked as an interpreter before Sept. 11, 2001. She has since gone from a sales job in California, through the barbed wire of Guantanamo, to the private jet that Bermuda chartered to retrieve the Uighurs after the U.S. government freed them June 11. In the process, Ms. Abbas, a native Uighur and a naturalized U.S. citizen, went from helping the Defense Department interrogate prisoners to working for their release.

"She got into this expecting vicious, throat-slitting terrorists," says Sabin Willett, a Boston lawyer who helped free the Uighurs. "Now she's helping to demythologize those men."

After the Uighurs were released, Ms. Abbas spent two weeks easing their transition. Now, after a recent move from Fresno to Washington, D.C., she is on standby to fly to Palau, in case a deal is finalized with the Pacific island nation to accept 13 remaining Guantanamo Uighurs.

"I have to explain almost everything," says Ms. Abbas. The visit from Rev. Sharpton, she explained to the men and to a fourth colleague who didn't make the meeting, was a show of support for Bermuda's government, which had caught political flak for accepting them.

In addition to interpreting, Ms. Abbas coordinated everything from meals to visits from Bermudan lawyers and government employees who are helping them find homes, English classes and work. On Monday, the Uighurs began jobs as landscapers at the state-owned Port Royal Golf Course.

As they settled in at the oceanside guesthouse where they first arrived, Ms. Abbas baked bread, fried flounder, and made halwa, a sweet confection. "She's our translator, our assistant, and our chef," says Abdullah Abdulqadir, 30, the most jovial of the four men.

Ms. Abbas was born in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang province and the city where the recent violence erupted. Her father, a scientist, befriended an American researcher who invited Ms. Abbas to study in the U.S. once she had finished a biology degree at Xinjiang University. In 1989, she moved to Prosser, Wash., studied plant pathology at Washington State University, fell in love with a professor and married. Over the next seven years, Ms. Abbas had three children, became a U.S. citizen and grew active in Uighur-American circles.

In 1998, when U.S.-funded Radio Free Asia launched a Uighur language service, Ms. Abbas became the sole female voice on the channel, communicating world news to western China and other Uighur areas. In 2000, she quit radio to work in sales for an exporter of animal feed.

Then, as she recalls it, one Saturday morning a few months after the Sept. 11 attacks, the phone rang. "I've been looking for you for weeks," the voice on the line said.

It was an executive at Titan Corp., now owned by L-3 Communications Corp., which was providing interpreters for the U.S. military. The company needed her in Guantanamo, where a small group of captured Uighurs had recently been shipped.

Three weeks later, she was in Cuba, in fatigues, interpreting the interrogation of a Uighur detainee. After the interview, the detainee told interrogators he would like to speak with Ms. Abbas. "You are Rushan Abbas," the prisoner said. He and others recognized her voice from Radio Free Asia.

A U.S. government official said that some of the Uighurs before their capture lived at times in suspected terrorist training camps. Investigators, though, never had enough evidence to prove they were indeed "enemy combatants," the official said.

Frustrated with what she describes as fruitless and repetitive interviews, Ms. Abbas resigned from her Guantanamo post in 2002, and returned to another sales job in California.

In early 2003, the military transferred the Uighurs to a medium-security portion of Guantanamo. Since then, the U.S. has been unable to free most of them. They can't return to China, where the government considers them separatists. China has warned other countries not to accept them.

In 2005, a group of U.S. law firms launched a pro bono effort to free the Uighurs, but had trouble communicating with the detainees. "Get Rushan," one of the detainees told the lawyers.

Over the past three years, Ms. Abbas made more than 20 trips to Guantanamo. She left her job and $65,000 salary and now free-lances for the law firms.

Last October, a federal judge ruled that the U.S. must release the 17 Uighurs who remained at Guantanamo. The four in Bermuda were going to be sent in May to live in Virginia, but local and state officials protested.

Once Bermuda accepted them, Ms. Abbas helped the men understand that they would no longer be treated as prisoners. "I thought we would still be wearing shackles," says Salahidin Abdulahat, 32, recalling their surprise when they stepped into the chartered jet and saw couches, a phone and a microwave.

Before leaving Bermuda for home, Ms. Abbas made sure the Uighurs had some things they needed to adjust to a free life in the West. "I really liked the Wii," said Mr. Abdulahat, boasting how well he played a virtual bowling game the men had in their final week at Guantanamo. Ms. Abbas interpreted. Within seconds, a Bermuda government worker across the table was on the phone pricing gadgets.

Write to Paulo Prada at paulo.prada@wsj.com

China’s Tally of 718 Arrests in July Riots Is Questioned

By MICHAEL WINES

BEIJING — Chinese authorities said Tuesday that they had taken 718 people into custody in connection with last month’s ethnic riots in the western region of Xinjiang, but an official with an ethnic Uighur exile group said the true number was far higher.

The new report, released by the state-run Xinhua news agency, left it unclear whether the 718 detainees represented the total of suspects captured since the July 5 unrest, or were in addition to previous arrests and detentions. The government had previously said that more than 1,500 people had been detained after the riots.

Nor was it clear how many of the suspects had been charged with crimes. State radio, quoted by Reuters, reported on Tuesday that 83 suspects had been accused of crimes ranging from murder and arson to assault and disturbing the peace.

The Xinjiang riots in the regional capital, Urumqi, killed at least 197 people — most of them ethnic Han Chinese, officials said — and injured about 1,100 others. The violence broke out after Uighur residents, the area’s original settlers, marched to protest the treatment of Uighur factory workers involved in a disturbance in eastern China.

The resulting unrest was the worst ethnic violence in China in at least a decade. Tuesday’s Xinhua report, a summary of progress in the official inquiry into the riots, quoted the head of Urumqi’s Public Security Bureau, Cehn Zhuangwei, as saying that 718 “criminals who disturbed the peace” had been detained. Investigators were pursuing nearly 600 important leads, he said, and were examining hundreds of photographs and video clips, as well as DNA samples in an effort to track down those involved in the violence.

In Washington, Omar Kanat, the vice president of the World Uighur Congress, an exile group, said that the Chinese reports of detainees were understated, and that the new report of 718 detentions could only add to previously reported totals.

“Many people are calling us every day, and they say the number of arrests exceeds five, six thousand,” he said in a telephone interview. “We cannot confirm that. But we know that the numbers of arrests are much more than the Chinese figures.”

Most of the detained people are of Uighur descent, he said, adding that Uighurs in Xinjiang have told the organization in recent days about a wave of new detentions in Urumqi and surrounding areas.

Americans Return to Tougher Immigration Stance

by Lymari Morales

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- With some U.S. lawmakers and immigration rights activists stepping up calls for the Obama administration to pursue immigration reform, Gallup finds Americans less favorable toward immigration than they were a year ago. Half (50%) say immigration should be decreased, up from 39% last year. A third (32%) say immigration levels should be kept the same, down from 39%, and 14% say they should be increased, down from 18%.

The most recent results, from a Gallup survey conducted July 10-12, 2009, mark a return to the attitudes that prevailed in the first few years after 9/11; attitudes softened from 2006 to last year. The shift toward a tougher stance this time around may reflect the country's economic situation, as Americans tend to become less pro-immigration during difficult economic times.

A similar shift is evident when Americans are asked more broadly whether immigration is a good thing or a bad thing for the country. Currently, 58% say it is a good thing -- the lowest percentage saying so since 2003. The historical low for this measure, 52%, came in 2002, after the 9/11 attacks.

The latest Gallup findings preceded a letter that was circulated Monday by seven Illinois congressmen, aimed at urging the Obama administration to take up immigration reform this year. Immigrant activist groups have been eager for reform since a Bush administration bill was defeated in the Senate in 2007.

While these Gallup data do not specifically ask about proposals that might be included in comprehensive immigration reform, they do suggest that Americans of all political persuasions are taking a tougher stance toward immigration than they did a year ago. Republicans are more likely than Democrats to want immigration decreased, as has typically been the case, but more than 4 in 10 independents and Democrats share this view.

The 61% of Republicans who now say they would like to see immigration decreased is up from 46% in 2008. At the same time, the 46% of Democrats and 44% of independents who would like to see immigration decreased represent shifts in the same direction, up from the 39% and 37%, respectively, who said the same in 2008.

There are slight variations in views on immigration across the four major regions of the country. Americans in the South (54%) are the most likely to want immigration decreased, while those in the West (44%) are relatively less likely to say the same. Here again, each group has shifted toward a more anti-immigration stance.

Bottom Line

Americans have returned to a tougher stance on immigration than has been evident for the past few years. Republicans, in particular, have shifted most strongly toward decreasing immigration, with Democrats and independents moving in the same direction, but to a lesser degree. Thus, as lawmakers consider when and how to pursue immigration reform, they should do so mindful that Americans of all political persuasions are generally more resistant to immigration in broad measure than they were a year ago.

Author's note: While the views of Hispanics are important to debate and discussion about immigration, the sample size of Hispanics in the poll is not large enough to allow for meaningful interpretation.

Survey Methods

Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,018 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted July 10-12, 2009. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones (for respondents with a land-line telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell-phone only).

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

Banks Slow to Modify Mortgages

By Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Less than 10 percent of delinquent borrowers eligible for the Obama administration's foreclosure prevention program have received help so far, according to Treasury Department estimates released Tuesday, which also illustrated how unevenly the effort has been carried out.

Of the 2.7 million borrowers who have missed at least two mortgage payments, only 235,247 have received loan modifications since the $75 billion program was launched in March. Most of those modifications have been completed by just a few banks; other lenders have modified far fewer loans under the program.

"We're encouraged by the way the program is ramping up," said Michael Barr, Treasury's assistant secretary for financial institutions. But "we're disappointed in the performance of some of the servicers -- we think they could have ramped up faster . . . and we expect them to do more."

Under the program, J.P. Morgan Chase has modified 20 percent, or 79,304, of its borrowers who have missed at least two payments. Saxon Mortgage Services, which is owned by Morgan Stanley, has modified 25 percent of its eligible delinquent borrowers. Citigroup has modified 15 percent, or 27,571, of its delinquent borrowers.

But other large banks are lagging. Bank of America has modified 4 percent, or 27,985, of its delinquent borrowers. Wells Fargo has modified 6 percent, or 20,219.

This is the first progress report on the administration's Making Home Affordable program. Under the initiative, the government is offering subsidies to help lenders offset the cost of lowering mortgage payments for distressed borrowers.

Industry executives said they are reacting quickly to a complicated program. It took time, for example, to develop a protocol for judging when a borrower who has not missed any mortgage payments should qualify for the program, they said. The data also do not reflect modifications that banks have made outside of the government initiative. Wells Fargo said that it had completed more than 220,000 modifications this year besides the 20,000 counted under President Obama's program.

"It would be false or unfair to paint Wells Fargo as if [the government program] was the only thing we were doing," said Mike Heid, co-president of Wells Fargo Home Mortgage.

Bank of America has doubled the number of employees working on loan-modification efforts since last year, the company said in a statement. "Despite our aggressive efforts to find solutions for homeowners in default, we must improve our processes for reaching those in need," said Barbara J. Desoer, president of Bank of America Home Loans and Insurance.

But part of the problem is that there is a lot of confusion, even within some of the banks, about what kind of help is available to troubled borrowers. Lisa Harris of Lorton requested a loan modification from Bank of America earlier this year after her husband's work hours were cut and her family incurred medical bills. Harris said the bank offered her in June a modification outside the federal program that would lower her payments by about $250 a month.

She declined the deal and asked for a modification under the federal program that would lower her payments by about $1,000 a month. But Bank of America refused, saying her loan was not covered by the initiative. "Servicer participation in this program is voluntary," according to a June letter Harris received from the company's loan modification department. The bank "is not actively participating in this program."

Bank of America said that Harris received the letter by mistake and that she would qualify for a modification under the federal program. The company is reviewing its records to make sure no similar letters exist, a company spokesman said. "It was very frustrating," Harris said. "At all levels at Bank of America, they were wrong and not coming through. It's just unbelievable."

Banks have been facing increasing pressure to speed up implementation of the program, and the administration set a goal last week of more than doubling the number of borrowers who will receive help, to 500,000, by Nov. 1. Some Democrats in Congress are threatening to revive legislation allowing bankruptcy judges to modify the mortgages of troubled borrowers, known as cramdowns, if lenders don't do more to prevent foreclosures.

The results of the program so far are disappointing, said Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), who has led two previous attempts to pass legislation to allow loan modification in bankruptcy proceedings.

"I think it's further evidence that voluntary programs have not succeeded. We need to create some deadlines" for these lenders, Durbin said. "This mortgage foreclosure crisis will not to come to an end until we have a more aggressive approach than we have seen up to this point."

Bank Regulators Resist Reform

By Binyamin Appelbaum and David Cho
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 5, 2009

The nation's banking regulators are defying pressure from the Obama administration to line up in support of key proposed reforms, testifying before Congress on Tuesday that elements of the plan would actually weaken oversight of the financial industry.

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner summoned the heads of half a dozen agencies for a caustic scolding Friday and told them they were interfering unacceptably in a political process, according to people familiar with the meeting.

The warning, however, had no discernible impact on testimony Tuesday, as four of the regulators who were reprimanded told the Senate Banking Committee they had particular concerns about a centerpiece of the plan, the proposed creation of a new agency to protect consumers of bank products, including mortgages and credit cards.

The resistance comes as progress has stalled on other key administration initiatives, notably climate change and health-care reform. Organized opposition has fostered growing public skepticism, undermining the administration's prospects.

While Republicans on the banking committee welcomed the regulators' dissent, leading congressional Democrats said the basic elements of financial reform command a much broader consensus than the embattled initiatives. These Democrats said they remained confident they would pass a comprehensive regulatory bill by year's end.

"For someone who's involved in health care and this, this is very different," said Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), chairman of the Banking Committee, and also a leading player on health care. "We remain in very good shape" on regulatory reform.

Working Over Recess

Democrats plan to begin writing legislation during the August recess, working from hundreds of pages of polished drafts the administration has sent to guide the process.

The broad outlines of the plan remain stable after months of hearings -- Dodd said his committee has held 28 hearings on the subject -- and increasingly heated lobbying by industry and consumer groups. Democrats want to give the government new power to oversee large financial companies and important markets, and to shut down troubled firms in an orderly fashion. They want to create a consumer protection agency, removing that responsibility from banking regulators. And they want to rein in Wall Street, including by placing limits on bonuses and restricting investments made with borrowed money.

"These things are going to happen," said Steven Adamske, a spokesman for Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. "It's complicated. It's not easy to do, but we are trudging through it."

The idea of a new agency to protect consumers has proved particularly popular on Capitol Hill, forcing some critics to drop their outright opposition and instead press for its powers to be circumscribed. The heads of the regulatory agencies argued Tuesday that the new agency should write rules, but that banking regulators should continue to ensure that companies comply with those rules, and punish those that do not.

Enforcement of consumer protection laws "should stay with the bank regulators, where it works well," said John Dugan, head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Sheila C. Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., and John E. Bowman, acting head of the Office of Thrift Supervision, also argued that banking regulators should retain enforcement powers. Federal Reserve Governor Daniel K. Tarullo declined to take a position, but senior Fed officials have said they want to retain that power, too.

New Dedication

Regulators, who under the proposals would maintain responsibility for bank health, argue that protecting consumers is a vital aspect of that job. While acknowledging failures in recent years, the agency officials argue that they are newly committed to consumer protection.

Administration officials have dismissed these arguments, saying that the record of failing to protect consumers, ensure the health of banks and prevent the financial crisis speaks for itself. Some legislators were equally dismissive.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the regulators' arguments were motivated by "turf, turf, turf."

Republicans, by contrast, celebrated the regulators' concerns as evidence of independent opposition to the administration's plan.

The ranking Republican, Richard Shelby of Alabama, asked each witness to affirm that their testimony "was not in any way influenced by Secretary Geithner's tirade against you the other day?"

An administration official expressed few concerns about the debate on Capitol Hill.

"In the scheme of lawmaking, we're doing quite well," said Michael S. Barr, the Treasury Department's assistant secretary for financial institutions. Barr also offered a milder account of the Friday meeting. "We were having a conversation," he said. "We told them, 'As each of you pursue your own points of view, let's not lose sight' " of the broader goal of achieving financial reform.

Another person familiar with Geithner's remarks said he warned that regulators were impeding the progress by sniping at details.

The hour-long meeting at the Treasury included the four regulators who testified as well as Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro and Gary Gensler, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Geithner's confrontation with the regulators was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Friends and Family Look Forward to Detained Journalists' Return

By Karl Vick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 5, 2009

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 4 -- One woman approached China's border with North Korea as a seasoned foreign correspondent, the other as a sharp editor who was on her first trip abroad in her new role as a producer.

Laura Ling, 32, one of the two American journalists released by North Korea on Tuesday after five months in captivity, had reported from Sri Lanka, Iran, Brazil, Pakistan and Eastern Europe, among other places.

"She knows her way around the world," said Morgan Wandell, who supervised Ling at San Francisco-based Current TV after working with her at another startup, the Channel One news outlet that is broadcast into classrooms. "And she's a smart, prepared journalist. One of the things I take a little bit of issue with, she's not a cavalier risk-taker at all. She's very smart, and while she's curious and ambitious, she knows her limits, and she's certainly not a cowboy."

Euna Lee, 36, had been a standout editor at Current TV, the cable and Web network co-founded by former vice president Al Gore, and was breaking into producing via the route that had worked for Ling a decade earlier: hard work backed by language skills and cultural knowledge that could add immense value to a story that demanded discretion and delicacy. The women had traveled to the Chinese border with North Korea, where they were preparing a report about North Korean refugees.

"It was unfortunately her first assignment," said Annika Mandel, who was hired as a writer-producer at Current in 2005, about the same time Lee came on as a video editor, the person who ties reports together.

"She was the editor we all wanted to work with," said Mandel, who now works for a health insurer. "I knew that if I worked with her, my work was going to be 10 times better than if I was going to do it myself. She brought a really critical, creative eye to things."

Friends said they expected the women to arrive in Los Angeles on Wednesday on the plane carrying former president Bill Clinton, who arranged their release Tuesday during a trip to Pyongyang.

"We are counting the seconds to hold Laura and Euna in our arms," said a statement from their families, whose united effort to free the women displayed the qualities -- discipline, determination and devotion -- that friends said marked the captives' lives.

"We especially want to thank President Bill Clinton for taking on such an arduous mission and Vice President Al Gore for his tireless efforts to bring Laura and Euna home," the statement said. "We must also thank all the people who have supported our families through this ordeal, it has meant the world to us."

Gore and Current co-founder Joel Hyatt released a statement through the network Tuesday night, saying they were "overjoyed" at the women's release. "Our hearts go out to them -- and to their families -- for persevering through this horrible experience," they added.

In Los Angeles, Lee will reunite with her husband, actor Michael Saldate, and their daughter, Hanna, 4. Lee's parents live in Seoul, the South Korean capital, where she grew up. She has two sisters in the United States, where she attended college.

"She has a little bit of an accent," Mandel said.

Ling will see her husband, Iain Clayton, a British-born investment banker who has said that he wrote her a letter every day of the five months she was captive. Wandell said the two met in college on a concert date that went so well that Ling purposely left her ID in his borrowed jacket "so she had an excuse for contacting him."

"We have been together for 12 years and this is the longest I've gone without hearing her voice," Clayton wrote on a blog for CNN's "Larry King Live." Many family members appeared on that program in late May when they judged that going public might help the women. After North Korea sentenced the women to 12 years of hard labor, the families largely withdrew again, following the advice of experts including Gore.

"There was a strategy for a long time to keep things sort of low-key," Mandel said. "They didn't want to make them any more marketable as detainees than they already were."

Ling grew up in the Sacramento suburb of Fair Oaks. Her father, a second-generation Chinese American, was a military contractor; her mother was born in Taiwan. At Del Campo High School, her sister, Lisa, was on her way to success as a TV journalist on a program, "Scratch," that went national, said Jim Jordan, who taught Laura Ling honors English her junior year.

Lisa Ling went on to National Geographic, "Oprah" and "The View," but, Jordan said, "I wouldn't say Laura was in her shadow." Friends and relatives describe the sisters as best friends.

"Laura was always just really secure," said Angie Wang, a cousin. "She knew who she was."

The sisters helped each other. When Gotham Chopra, a producer at Channel One, was preparing to travel to China for a story in 1999, he told Lisa that he needed an interpreter. She recommended Laura, fresh from UCLA and fluent in Mandarin. By trip's end, Channel One had offered her a full-time job.

On the trip to the North Korean border, Lee was following the same path into producing. Fluent in the refugees' language, "her Korean would be very helpful," Mandel said. Plus, she was a good listener.

"If you're ever having a problem, you can go to Euna and just vent, and she validates your feelings and helps you get through a hard time." Mandel said.

"She's a devoted worker and a devoted family person and just a sweet soul. A very sweet soul."

Recession in the West Cuts Off An Economic Pipeline in Ghana

By Karin Brulliard
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, August 5, 2009

ADUASE, Ghana -- When the U.S. housing crash triggered economic chain reactions around the world, one ended in a lush forest near this village, where on a recent day Emmanuel Awatey was tapping his machete on a log that he very much wanted to chop up.

In previous years, Awatey would have done just that, and then carried the wood on his head to the red dirt road nearby. A truck there would have ferried it three hours to the Tekura handicrafts workshop in Accra, Ghana's capital, where it might have been carved into a stool by an artisan, then shipped duty-free to the United States, then sold at Cost Plus World Market for display in an American home.

But the U.S. housing market and the global economy collapsed. And so has work for Awatey, the carvers and others working what had been a thriving pipeline from Ghanaian rainforest to American retail.

"If work comes tomorrow, we will head to the forest," said Awatey, 44, a sinewy subsistence farmer who, like others in his village, used to make as much as $25 a week chopping and carrying cedrela wood for Tekura. "But it all depends on the ones who bring the work."

'Wiping Out' the Vulnerable

The financial crisis has checked demand for African commodities, slowing the continent's economies. Less visibly, however, it has also stunted small African exporters who had become fledgling trade success stories -- and micro-level poverty busters -- in a region often associated with gloom.

In many cases, these exporters were lifted by a decade-old U.S. program meant to promote economic development through duty-free access to American markets. Now a U.S.-triggered meltdown is erasing many of the gains.

"We had small- and medium-sized businesses that had so much hope. They invested capital, they took loans. And the rug has been pulled out from under them," said Rosa Whitaker, a former assistant U.S. trade representative for Africa and architect of the program, the African Growth and Opportunity Act, or AGOA. "It's wiping out some of the world's most vulnerable people."

In the first quarter of this year, AGOA exports from sub-Saharan Africa to the United States, including oil, plummeted 59 percent, while non-oil exports such as textiles and agricultural products dropped 22 percent.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is set to discuss the program, which expires in 2015, at a forum Wednesday in Kenya as part of her seven-country trip to Africa.

Ghana's overall economy has remained steady because of strong prices for its cocoa and gold. But exports under AGOA dropped by more than one-third in 2008, and fell 86 percent, to $5.2 million, in the first five months of this year. While much of the plunge came from a fall in exports of foreign oil processed in Ghana, it also reverberated through particleboard factories, mango farms and jewelry studios.

As in many sub-Saharan countries, Ghanaian textile and apparel exporters have been particularly hard-hit, including some that U.S. officials once touted as AGOA poster children. Among them is Prosper Adabla's formerly humming factory near Accra, which manufactured tube socks for export.

An end to worldwide quotas on Chinese apparel exports in 2005 brought stiff competition. Two years later, Adabla's U.S. partner went bankrupt. Adabla shut his factory last summer, leaving $1 million worth of socks unsold and 1,000 workers jobless.

"The demand has dried up, number one. Number two, the partners have either gone bankrupt or are no longer in business or have decided to buy from China," Adabla said. "AGOA gave us an option . . . but if you can't sell your product, it's useless."

Few Ready for Tough Times

Ghana's small handicrafts industry, which was already expanding because of free-market reforms meant to grow nontraditional exports, got an additional boost from the program and then another from a booming U.S. housing and consumer market.

Earlier this decade, big American retailers such as Pier 1, World Market and TJ Maxx were snatching up handmade candleholders and baskets from Ghana. When Target ordered hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of goods from Tekura and other enterprises in 2004, hundreds of rural carvers won work chiseling African art for American abodes.

But most of the orders dried up by the end of 2007. Spokesmen for Pier 1, TJ Maxx and World Market did not respond to or declined requests for comment, but retail analysts say the explanation is evident.

In an era when retailers are trimming inventories, cutting price points and closing stores, African accessories count as luxuries, said Nick McCoy, an analyst with RetailForward in Ohio.

Robert Ellis, whose Fritete African Art Works was the forerunner of Ghana's handicrafts exporters, said cracks in the industry began showing before U.S. and world financial woes. Asian factories were making cheaper copies. Ghanaian artisans were not updating their work often enough. And when demand fell, he said, few had built a foundation to get them through tough times.

Ellis, who proudly shows off a 2005 Target ad touting "AFRICAN DESIGNS 14.99 -- 79.99" that includes his rustic wood table, watched his export sales drop from $305,000 in 2007 to $70,000 in 2008. Six muscular carvers now toil in his wood-strewn workshop, down from 150 in December.

He has sold property and paid off debts, and he says he thinks he can survive the crash. Smaller Ghanaian producers, he said, "will need a miracle."

AGOA has never become a silver bullet for micro-enterprise in Africa, whose share of global trade is just 2 percent. Ninety percent of exports under the program still come from oil, though non-oil exports have tripled since 2001.

Small businesses complain about the program's byzantine guidelines and say U.S.-provided training is not tailored enough. While some African governments saw the program as an opportunity and created export-friendly policies, others ignored it. More generally, poor roads and power supplies hinder commerce, and little companies cannot afford the 30 percent interest rates that African banks typically slap on long-term business loans.

In Tekura's quiet offices on the muddy outskirts of Accra, Josephine and Kweku Forson said they are waiting out the storm. Their sleek stools and masks -- all made from trees cut as part of government reforestation programs -- are gathering dust. Sales fell in half from 2007 to 2008 and are on track to fall another 60 percent this year.

In the sawdust-filled workshop on a recent day, Kwabena Appiah, 25, was one of just 10 artisans on duty. He was lucky: The Forsons said that they had regretfully let go more than 100 workers, and that they were especially worried about the woodcutters in the forest.

Out in Aduase, a tiny settlement where goats scurry about, those 20 or so woodcutters were once again getting by on their cassava and plantains. The clothes, haircuts and even rat poison they purchased with the extra income were on hold, Awatey said.

The woodcutters said they had no idea where the trees they chopped ended up after they left Ghana. But they said they knew why the wood was staying put for now.

"Because of the recession," said 32-year-old Paulina Ohenewaa, "there are economic problems everywhere in the world."

Anti-Drug Aid Delayed as Leahy Blocks Positive Report on Mexico's Rights Record

By William Booth and Steve Fainaru
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, August 5, 2009

MEXICO CITY, Aug. 4 -- A key senator rejected a State Department plan to issue a report this week affirming that Mexico is respecting human rights in its war against drug traffickers, delaying the release of millions of dollars in U.S. anti-narcotics assistance, according to U.S. officials and congressional sources.

The State Department intended to send the favorable report on Mexico's human rights record to Congress in advance of President Obama's visit to Guadalajara for a summit of North American leaders this weekend, U.S. officials familiar with the report said.

That plan was scrapped after aides to Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee, told State Department officials that the findings contradicted reports of human rights violations in Mexico, including torture and forced disappearances, in connection with the drug war.

At stake is more than $100 million in U.S. aid under the Merida Initiative, a three-year, $1.4 billion counternarcotics package begun by President George W. Bush in 2007. The law requires Congress to withhold 15 percent of most of the funds until the secretary of state reports that Mexico has made progress on human rights.

"Those requirements have not been met, so it is premature to send the report to Congress," Leahy said in a statement. "We had good faith discussions with Mexican and U.S. officials in reaching these requirements in the law, and I hope we can continue in that spirit."

Soaring Violence

The State Department's failure to push through the report is a setback for the U.S. and Mexican governments at a time when drug violence in Mexico continues to soar and President Felipe Calderón has come under growing pressure to revise his U.S.-backed anti-narcotics strategy, which relies heavily on the military to fight the cartels.

State Department officials said they are considering whether to rewrite the report before submitting it to Congress, probably after it reconvenes Sept. 7.

Mexico is likely to lose some of the money if it is not released by Sept. 30, U.S. officials said. U.S. aid under the Merida Initiative is used to buy helicopters and surveillance aircraft, train police, and improve intelligence-gathering in the fight against the drug cartels.

But congressional aides and human rights experts expressed doubt that the State Department would be able to make a compelling case that Mexico has made sufficient progress.

"In the area of prosecuting human rights abuses and ending the impunity, I don't believe we have seen any real progress," said Maureen Meyer, who oversees Mexico for the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights group that opposes release of the funds. "There is no sign that people are being held accountable. Every major human rights group has opposed releasing the money."

Push for Transparency

Mexican officials acknowledge that human rights violations have occurred in the fight against traffickers but say the cases are isolated.

The Mexican government is sensitive to U.S. criticism about rights violations because the military is a respected institution -- and many Mexican leaders say the U.S. government has not done enough to reduce consumption of illegal drugs in the United States or stem the flow of weapons and cash heading south.

In recent weeks, frustrated U.S. officials have pressed the Mexican government, including Defense Secretary Guillermo Galván Galván, to provide additional information, according to three officials involved in the campaign.

Late last week, after the report was completed, Mexican officials disclosed details of a number of cases in which they said soldiers had been tried on charges of human rights violations, according to a U.S. official. He said the State Department is trying to verify whether the soldiers were prosecuted and has not decided whether to include the new information.

"We are looking for the Mexicans to be as transparent as possible," said a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions. "We are pushing them to be more transparent than they think they can be. What happens when complaints are lodged? What do they do with them? What processes do they go through? What happens to individuals accused of abuses?"

A spokesman for the Mexican military said it would be unable to comment. Arturo Sarukhan, Mexico's ambassador to Washington, said Tuesday: "Mexico is unequivocally committed to ensuring the protection of human rights in the fight against drug-trafficking organizations." He added, "We are confident that this will be recognized by Congress."

140 Complaints a Month

Since Calderón launched his war against the cartels after taking office in December 2006, human rights complaints against the military have soared 600 percent, rising to 140 a month this year, according to government statistics. The National Human Rights Commission has issued reports on 26 cases involving the military since the beginning of Calderón's term, and it found evidence of torture in 17 of the cases.

In April, Human Rights Watch issued a report highlighting 17 cases, including several from 2007 and 2008, involving what it said were military abuses of more than 70 victims. The alleged abuses include killings, torture, rapes and arbitrary detentions. According to that report, "not one of the military investigations into these crimes has led to a conviction for even a single soldier on human rights violations."

On July 9, The Washington Post reported that the Mexican army had carried out numerous acts of torture, forced disappearances and illegal raids in pursuit of traffickers, according to court documents, political leaders and human rights monitors in Mexico's most conflicted regions.

With the State Department report imminent, many prominent human rights organizations in the United States and Mexico released advance statements saying that Mexico had failed to meet the Merida Initiative requirements and urging the U.S. government to withhold the money.

"Why is this so important? Because Mexico cannot win this fight against drug cartels without human rights protections. Human rights provisions are not a headache. They are absolutely critical to the success of the whole initiative," said José Miguel Vivanco, director of the Americas program at Human Rights Watch.

Carlos Cepeda, of the Miguel Agustín Pro Juarez Human Rights Center, said: "Mexico is not fulfilling the human rights requirements of the initiative and the government does not seem close to fulfilling them, and so of course it is a bad idea to release the funds. It would be a green light for further human rights abuses and for continued impunity for the military."

A Case Not Yet Made

Under Merida, the State Department is required to report to Congress on Mexico's progress in four areas: improving transparency and accountability; establishing regular consultations with civil institutions; ensuring that civilian and judicial authorities are prosecuting police and military officers credibly accused of violations; and prohibiting the use of testimony obtained through torture.

The most controversial of the provisions is determining whether the Mexican government is prosecuting human rights offenders. To date, the military has handled all allegations of crimes under its own justice system. U.S. officials and Mexican and international human rights groups say the Mexican military is secretive and hostile to scrutiny by outsiders.

Last month, amid growing allegations of abuses, Gen. Jaime Antonio López Portillo, head of the military's human rights office, held a news conference and announced that the military had prosecuted seven human rights cases dating to 1996, in which 12 members of the armed forces were found guilty of crimes, including homicide and kidnapping.

Only one of the completed cases appeared to date from the Calderón term. An additional 14 cases involving 53 troops were working their way through the military's judicial process, according to López Portillo.

The State Department had still intended to argue for the release of the Merida funds this week, U.S. officials said. But officials with the department's bureau of Western Hemisphere affairs got a chilly reception from Leahy's foreign policy expert, Tim Rieser, at a meeting last week. According to people familiar with the meeting, Rieser told officials that they had not made the case on any of the four areas required under Merida.

After receiving the additional information from Mexico, State Department officials went back to Rieser over the weekend to find out whether Leahy would support the report. He said he would not.

Next week Mexico's Supreme Court will address whether it is unconstitutional to try cases of human rights violations in military courts. The legal challenge, brought by the Miguel Agustín center, involves four civilians who were shot dead in Sinaloa state last year, allegedly by Mexican soldiers. Mexico's attorney general declined to take the case, and the military investigated the deaths instead.

Residents of Michigan Town Want Prison to Stay Open, Even If That Means Housing Guantanamo Bay Detainees

By Kari Lydersen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 5, 2009

STANDISH, Mich., Aug. 4 -- From the road, the Standish Maximum Correctional Facility looks like it could be a country resort, lush wooded grounds surrounded by corn fields and flower beds.

Prison employees and residents of this northern Michigan town are proud of the facility and want to keep it open at all costs, even if that means becoming the new home of Guantanamo Bay detainees.

The news that the Obama administration is considering moving some detainees at the military prison in Cuba to facilities within U.S. borders, including Standish and Fort Leavenworth, Kan., prompted Michigan Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm (D) and several state legislators Tuesday to voice their opposition. But residents here are most concerned about keeping some of the 340 jobs and other economic sustenance the prison provides, in a county where unemployment tops 17 percent.

A hand-painted sign outside the lockup begs "Save Our Town, Save Standish Max," referring to the collection of buildings behind razor-topped fencing that contains 604 beds, usually reserved for maximum-security inmates. Throughout the quaint, somewhat ramshackle borough of 1,500 people, marquees and handmade posters outside churches, bars and Denise's Beauty Barn carry the same message.

The facility is one of three prisons and five correctional camps slated to close because of the state budget crisis and a declining prison population. The Michigan Corrections Department needs to cut $120 million from its $2 billion budget for the fiscal year that will start in October, and 500 to 1,000 jobs will be lost with the closings.

State officials are making a last-ditch effort to turn Standish into a medium-security facility for about 1,100 California prisoners. They also proposed housing inmates from Alaska.

And then there is the Guantanamo Bay option.

Some residents loathe the idea of terrorism suspects locked up in their town, but relish the chance to keep people employed. Others scoff at the notion that current guards would keep their jobs in a federal facility housing such detainees. State and federal spokesmen said they had no information on likely hiring practices.

"The state officers are more than capable of doing anything the federal government would have us do," said Bob Davis, president of the local corrections officers union. "But if they bring them here, I think we'll be cut out of jobs. They'll want their own personnel, there will be CIA all over the place."

Standish warden Thomas Birkett first heard about the proposal on television over the weekend. "There had been rumors, but no one in our department knows what it means, no one can tell you anything," he said.

Over the past few months, former governor John Engler (R) and Michigan legislators and business leaders brought up the idea of housing Guantanamo Bay detainees in the state. Engler proposed putting them in the sparsely populated and remote Upper Peninsula, which has two maximum-security facilities.

Standish City Manager Michael Moran III supports bringing the detainees to town. Even if locals do not keep their jobs, he said, the economic stimulus would be crucial. The prison pays the town $36,000 per month in water and sewer fees, and new employees would help keep businesses afloat. If the prison closes, teachers probably will lose jobs as school enrollment drops, post office revenue will plummet, and family-owned restaurants and bars will suffer. The town is home to small factories making fire sprinklers, pet food and plastic parts, but the prison is by far the biggest employer.

Elementary school teacher Kitty Campau wants to keep the prison open, but she considers Guantanamo Bay detainees a last resort.

"That scares me," she said after choir practice at a Catholic church whose parishioners have been protesting the closure plan. "We have high-risk prisoners there now, but not terrorists."

Michigan Sen. Carl M. Levin (D) and Reps. Dale E. Kildee (D) and Bart Stupak (D), who represents Standish, have supported the idea of bringing Guantanamo Bay detainees to the state. On the question of whether Standish should be the site, Stupak said he will reserve his opinion until federal and state officials have further studied economic and security issues.

Officials from the departments of Defense, Justice and Homeland Security will visit potential sites for Guantanamo Bay detainees in the next few weeks, Stupak's office said. Michigan corrections spokesman John Cordell said the California deal may be finalized soon, which could mean no inmates from the prison in Cuba.

"It's hard to believe the feds and lawmakers could get their act together overnight, and California could make a decision any minute now," said Mel Grieshaber, executive director of the Michigan Corrections Organization, the union representing prison guards.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra (Mich.) said he opposes bringing Guantanamo Bay detainees to Michigan, based on information he sees as the ranking Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He thinks locals would be endangered by affiliates of the detainees coming to the area.

"If President Obama wants to move Gitmo jihadists to Standish, I would hope he would brief the local officials and guards," he said. "I want to make sure everyone has a much more comprehensive view of who these people are and the threat they pose to those in the facility and the community. I think if they knew what I know, they would make the same decision as me. Michigan can do a lot better than becoming the federal government's penal colony."

During a media call for the Republican National Committee on Tuesday, Rep. Mike Rogers (Mich.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (Kan.) echoed this sentiment, saying Guantanamo Bay inmates should not be anywhere in the continental United States. Roberts threatened to shut down the Senate before allowing the detainees in Kansas, and Rogers suggested that Guantanamo Bay's name be changed rather than closing the facility.

But auto mechanic Gary Church, 50, laughed at the idea that locals would be in danger.

"If they do get out, they're not going to rob the general store," he said. "They are thinkers and planners, not street criminals. They do big stuff."

GOP Senators Seem Unconcerned About Hispanic Backlash Over Sotomayor Opposition

By Paul Kane and Perry Bacon Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Senate Republicans have lined up in staunch opposition to the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, rejecting concerns about alienating the growing Hispanic vote.

Even before debate began Tuesday night, almost three-fourths of the Senate Republican Conference had already announced opposition to the first Latina ever nominated to the nation's highest court. The party's 2008 standard bearer, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), joined the chorus of opposition this week, and no likely contender for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination has spoken in support of confirmation.

Sotomayor has the backing of every Senate Democrat and at least a half-dozen Senate Republicans, assuring her of confirmation by week's end. But the 28 already-pronounced no votes from Republicans would dwarf the single-digit opposition drawn by the two previous nominees from a Democratic president, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

Most Senate Republicans say opposition to Sotomayor is a principled stand based on the belief that her public speeches reveal a personal bias in her judicial philosophy. Republicans have cited her views on Second Amendment cases, speeches she has given during her time as a federal judge and a key ruling on affirmative action -- all issues that are of sharp interest to conservative-base voters.

But some senators and Republican strategists worry that efforts to shore up support from conservative voters who dominate the GOP primaries could become a missed opportunity to extend an olive branch to Latino voters, who gave just 31 percent of their ballots to McCain last fall.

Even some of Sotomayor's opponents said they recognize the decision is fraught with some peril. "I don't feel happy about being against Sonia Sotomayor. I'm not happy about it," said Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), who has voted in favor of every Supreme Court nominee since he was first elected in 1976. "When I add up all the things that are wrong [with Sotomayor's record], I think it's the right thing to do, but it's not a happy day for me."

Republicans entered this confirmation battle holding just 40 seats and with Obama's approval rating above 60 percent when he nominated Sotomayor 10 weeks ago. They also entered the fray rejecting conservative commentators such as radio host Rush Limbaugh and former House speaker Newt Gingrich, both of whom labeled her "racist" for speeches suggesting that "wise Latina" judges would make better rulings than white male judges.

GOP senators began a two-pronged effort to personally compliment the nominee's background while also citing her rulings as grounds for opposing her, apparently hoping not to offend Latino voters or conservative activists.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday that her "wise Latina" speeches suggested that her empathy, a quality Obama said he wanted, would trump blind adherence to the law. He particularly criticized her joint ruling with other appellate court judges in a firefighters' case, which said that the town of New Haven, Conn., could reject the results of a promotion test based on the fact that few minorities scored well. In June, the Supreme Court overturned that ruling.

"Judge Sotomayor has impressed all of us with her life story. But if empathy is the new standard, then the burden is on nominees like her, who are chosen on that basis, to demonstrate a firm commitment to equal justice under the law," McConnell said.

With Obama's approval rating falling as he has become enmeshed in the health-care debate, Republicans have grown more comfortable opposing Sotomayor. Still, she already has twice as many votes from the minority party as Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. had after being nominated by in 2006 by President George W. Bush. Democrats also forced an unsuccessful filibuster vote on Alito, a move that Republicans are not forcing on Sotomayor.

Some Republican strategists warn that the tone of the debate and statements of personal praise for Sotomayor's hardscrabble upbringing in the Bronx will fall short with Latino voters, because the final GOP vote will appear so lopsided against her.

"Latinos see her as a symbol of Hispanic leadership in America," said Lionel Sosa, a Latino political strategist who has advised several presidential candidates on Hispanic outreach, including McCain. "If they vote against Sotomayor, it's a vote against Hispanic leadership in America. That's the way Latino voters will see it."

Others disagreed, saying there was little to be gained by trying to appease Latinos by voting simply based on ethnicity. "It is insulting that Hispanics would believe a Hispanic nominee must be approved solely because of her ethnicity and not on the merits of her achievements, impartiality and judicial philosophy," said Alex Castellanos, a Cuban American strategist who advises the Republican National Committee.

Some Republicans said there is no monolithic Latino vote, with only a few states in which Latinos make up a critical segment of ballots.

In a recent NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll, 58 percent of Hispanics favored Sotomayor's confirmation, 11 percent opposed her, and about 30 percent had no opinion. But the poll found continuing troubles for Republicans with Hispanics: Just 20 percent had favorable views of the Republican Party, while 41 percent had unfavorable views.

Several Republicans who will face GOP primary voters next year have opposed Sotomayor, including some from Sun Belt states with sizable Hispanic populations. McCain and Sen. Robert F. Bennett (Utah), both facing conservative primary challengers, are opposing her. Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who is considered insufficiently conservative by some Sunshine State Republicans, announced he would oppose her nomination. Crist is running against former Florida House speaker Marco Rubio, who is Cuban American and also opposes Sotomayor, for the GOP nomination to succeed outgoing Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.).

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R), running in a primary for the Texas governor's race, also announced her opposition to Sotomayor.

Where Republican primaries are already settled or the field is clear, conservatives have come out in support. Former representative Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), running unopposed for the nomination to challenge Sen. Arlen Specter (D), announced he would support Sotomayor if he were in the Senate.

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), one of the six Republicans who has said he will support Sotomayor, said the Supreme Court confirmation process had become akin to "Mideast politics," with the minority invariably opposed to the president's nominee as a way to appease its base.

"You're seeing what I'm afraid is the going to be the future. It's Mideast politics, and Mideast politics, when it comes to judging, will not serve the judiciary well in the long run," Graham said.

Polling analyst Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.

Leadership Vacancy Raises Fears About USAID's Future

By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 5, 2009

NAIROBI, Aug. 4 -- As Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton begins a seven-country African trip with a visit to Kenya, the main U.S. foreign aid agency is in limbo, entering its seventh month without a permanent director despite pledges by the Obama administration to expand development assistance and improve its effectiveness in poor countries.

Clinton has backed the use of "smart power" -- employing a full range of economic, military, political and development tools in U.S. foreign policy -- but many aid experts are questioning whether the U.S. Agency for International Development could lose clout under her plans. While Clinton has championed additional personnel for USAID, aid groups worry that the once-autonomous agency could be swallowed up in the State Department, with long-term development goals losing out to short-term political aims.

"Both President Obama and Secretary Clinton have said how important development is. Increasingly, it's a painful contrast between their rhetoric and the reality of having no leadership" at USAID, said Carol Lancaster, interim dean of the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, who served as deputy administrator of the aid agency under President Bill Clinton.

The Obama administration inherited a foreign aid system starved of civilian experts and burdened by a bewildering array of mandates. USAID's full-time staff shrank by 40 percent over the past two decades, but the assistance it oversees doubled, to $13.2 billion in 2008. The agency has a skeleton crew of technical experts, with four engineers for the entire world, Clinton noted recently. Increasingly, USAID has become a conduit for money flowing to contractors, who have limited supervision from the agency.

As USAID has weakened, foreign assistance programs have proliferated across government agencies, especially the military, causing duplication and confusion. Meanwhile, aid budgets have been saddled with presidential directives, "buy America" provisions and congressional earmarks that raise the cost of aid and reduce its effectiveness, development specialists say.

"In the USAID budget, every dollar has three purposes: help build an Air Force base, support the University of Mississippi, get some country to vote our way," said the Rev. David Beckmann, president of the aid group Bread for the World, describing the plethora of political claims attached to aid. The development program, he said, "is a mess."

The waste of billions of U.S. reconstruction dollars in Iraq and the growing role of development in the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan have given new urgency to long-running debates about reforming the aid system.

During his presidential campaign, Obama promised to double overall U.S. foreign assistance to $50 billion and build a "modern development agency." His campaign literature said that "no single person . . . (is) responsible for directing and managing what should be one of our most powerful foreign policy tools."

While development groups and experts have welcomed Obama's boosting of the assistance budget, many are "very, very disappointed" with the lack of progress in reforming the aid system, said Brian Atwood, who headed USAID in the 1990s. The frustration of USAID employees bubbled up at a town hall meeting at the agency that Clinton held last month.

"When will we be getting political leadership in our agency?" an employee asked Clinton. "And I think we'd also like to hear from you why it's taking so long. I think you know we're very concerned about this."

Obama administration officials say the lack of a USAID leader does not indicate a lack of attention to development. The administration has requested in next year's budget 350 new positions for the agency, which currently has a full-time staff of 2,200.

In the next few weeks, the White House plans to bring together the roughly two dozen government agencies involved in assistance in an effort to shape development policy, a senior administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

And during the recent Group of Eight summit in Italy, Obama secured pledges totaling $20 billion for food and agricultural aid for the world's poorest countries.

"It's a landmark initiative. It happened during the first six months of this administration, working with the existing USAID leadership," said Mike Froman, the deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs, referring to career staff members.

Many aid organizations endorse Obama's campaign idea of a single point of contact for development programs. Before the election, a coalition of prominent experts called for the creation of a Cabinet-level department to coordinate development, as many other Western countries have. Two of them, Mike McFaul and Gayle Smith, went on to key jobs on Obama's National Security Council staff.

But Clinton, who has a deep interest in development, has moved to keep USAID inside the State Department. She recently launched a quadrennial review, modeled after the Pentagon's strategic-planning exercise, to draw up a blueprint for more closely integrating diplomacy and development.

With no permanent USAID leader in place, however, some development experts are concerned that the agency has little say in the blueprint. Fears of being absorbed into the State Department run deep at USAID, which lost control of its budget and its policy office under President George W. Bush's administration.

"AID and State are like oil and water," said Andrew Natsios, a USAID administrator under Bush. He and two other former directors of the agency wrote an article last fall in Foreign Affairs saying that the "semimerger of USAID and the State Department has not worked." They cited differences in missions, personnel systems and timelines, with development workers focused on longer-term goals and diplomats on shorter-term political crises.

"State doesn't realize it, but the more they absorb AID, the more dysfunctional it [AID] will become," Natsios said.

He and another development expert, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the uncertainty over the fate of USAID within the State Department had discouraged some candidates from pursuing the agency's top job.

At the town hall meeting last month, Clinton said, without giving details, that the position had "been offered." But she said some qualified individuals were so put off by the arduous White House vetting process that they dropped out. "The clearance and vetting process is a nightmare. And it takes far longer than any of us would want to see," she said. "It is frustrating beyond words."

Several development experts said the top candidate in recent weeks appeared to be Paul Farmer, a charismatic doctor who has built hospitals for the poor in Haiti, Rwanda and other countries.

Senior State officials say the concerns about USAID being swallowed up by their department are overblown. Greater integration of diplomacy and development will give the aid mission more importance, not less, they said.

"This is not about subverting development to diplomatic ends," said Anne-Marie Slaughter, the State Department's director of policy planning. Instead, she said, Clinton sees development as central to solving political problems such as those surrounding Iraq, Sudan or global epidemics. "Those issues can't be addressed without a really strong development component, because they have to be bottom-up. You can't negotiate a treaty and think that's going to stop a global epidemic," Slaughter said.

Atwood, who led USAID under President Clinton, said Hillary Clinton was a major ally when she was first lady, working behind the scenes to help the agency's top officials.

"That's why I have so much confidence in her doing the right thing at USAID," he said. But without a director, he said, "she's had her hands tied behind her back."

Obama's Domestic Policies Are Having Immediate Effects on Race for Va. Governor

By Sandhya Somashekhar
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 5, 2009

The coffee was still brewing when Chris Ann Cleland got her first reminder of the day that voting for Barack Obama might have been a mistake.

The Prince William County real estate agent was sitting at a long wooden table covered with paperwork. Her clients, a young couple who had brought their 2-week-old baby, were finalizing a short sale on a townhouse that they were anxious to unload, even if it meant ruining their credit, because they had maxed out their credit cards trying to make the payments.

For Cleland, it was another example -- one of many this day -- of the broken promises of a president who she thought would be different. Obama pledged to change a Washington culture that favored corporations and the connected and instead lift families such as the one sitting next to Cleland out of their economic funk. Rather, she said, Obama has backed billions of dollars to banks that continue to "act like they're broke" and started the country down a path that Cleland said she thinks will lead to more grief for the middle class.

"He's just not as advertised," she said. "Nothing's changed for the common guy. I feel like I've been punked."

There is no empirical evidence at this point in Virginia's race for governor showing that huge numbers of voters think like Cleland and will respond by sending a message to Washington. But Obama's policies are nonetheless having immediate consequences in the campaign as the candidates adjust their strategies to account for the president's controversial domestic agenda, which has overshadowed many state issues.

The president will make his first appearance in the campaign Thursday, when he headlines a fundraiser for R. Creigh Deeds (D) in McLean, in part to try to help the state senator from Bath County win over wavering Democrats such as Cleland.

But Obama's entry into the race presents a challenge for Deeds: How does he continue the momentum created by Obama, the first Democratic presidential candidate in more than four decades to carry Virginia, without being saddled with the baggage the president now carries?

His answer has largely been to distance himself from the president's policies despite attempts by Republican Robert F. McDonnell to force him to take positions on issues such as unions, climate change and health care.

Deeds has declined to take firm stands, commending the administration's intentions to limit greenhouse gas emissions and expand health care but objecting generally to actions that would strain small businesses and families. He has also accused McDonnell of focusing too heavily on federal issues, declaring in a recent debate that "I'm not running for Congress." And he skipped two health-care town halls hosted by Obama in Virginia in recent weeks, saying it would be inappropriate to mix campaigning with White House policy initiatives.

Supporters of the president say his efforts will pay off for Deeds. But Republicans are gambling that many of Virginia's middle-of-the road voters, who have backed Democrats in recent races, will be up for grabs as people grow more skeptical of Democratic leadership.

"The mood is becoming just as lousy for the Democrats as it has been for us the last couple of years," said J. Kenneth Klinge, a longtime Virginia GOP strategist. "It's evening the playing field."

According to a Gallup poll last week, about 52 percent of Americans approved of Obama's job as president, the lowest number of his tenure. That number rose to 56 percent in the most recent poll but was down from an average of 61 percent early last month and 69 percent immediately after he took office in January.

Stephanie Slater, 44, a neighbor of Cleland's who leans Republican, voted for Obama on the strength of his character and because of his positions on education, energy and health care. She recalled brimming with confidence after Obama's historic inaugural address.

"When he gave that speech that day, I was in awe. I was really inspired and thought, 'Wow, this is a guy who can do it,' " said Slater, a medical transcriptionist and mother of three.

But she has been disturbed by the large Wall Street bonuses that Obama doesn't seem to be able to halt and his inability to rein in credit card companies that raise rates even on those with good credit. Although she is trying to be patient, she said she is losing faith in the Democrats running Washington.

"Honestly, at this point, I have to say I'm worried. I haven't come across one person that seems to have been helped," she said. "If I don't see a spark, a light at the end of the tunnel, I may be voting Republican [for governor]."

Cleland, 39, is not so generous. Obama was supposed to help the everyman but instead he helped the banks and General Motors, she said. He was supposed to help homeowners keep their houses, but the primary federal effort in that direction, called Hope for Homeowners, has had limited success. She said she has grown uneasy as government spending has seemingly grown out of control.

Despite voting for Democrats in the past three statewide elections, she is undecided about the governor's race.

Her disappointment with Obama persists when she returns home to her neighborhood, Tartan Hills Village, outside Manassas, where about 400 houses are arranged in neat rows along landscaped lanes with a Scottish theme -- Bonnykelly, Woolen Kilt, Rob Roy Way. Cleland said that under Obama's leadership, little has improved for struggling residents in this upper-middle-class enclave.

As president of the Tartan Hills homeowner's association, she has heard from many neighbors seeking a reprieve from their $100-a-month homeowner's dues because of job losses, skyrocketing mortgage payments and other problems. But Cleland tries to explain that, without the money, the pool contract would lapse, the cul-de-sac circles overflowing with crape myrtles and azaleas would brown and wither, and the grass would eclipse the footpath.

The most stark evidence of Obama's failure, as Cleland sees it, is at her job at Long & Foster. Her workload consists of short sales, an arduous and often unsuccessful real estate maneuver that makes her feel less like a salesman and more like a social worker or lawyer.

Too often, she said, she has seen banks turn down perfectly good offers. Each time, she researches the bank to find out how much its executives have made in bonuses, and each time she calls the offices of Sen. James Webb (D) or Sen. Mark Warner (D) to ask them for help. Sometimes, she gets it; most times, she doesn't.

"Frankly, business has never been better," she said. "But these banks, they're given leeway that we as citizens are not."

She offers the example of Amy VanMeter, 29, whose story is familiar in this era of foreclosures. VanMeter, a cancer researcher at George Mason University, said she had impeccable credit until a couple of years ago, when she bought a house with an adjustable-rate mortgage at the urging of a broker.

The area wasn't ideal, but she tried to make the townhouse her own, VanMeter said while dropping by Cleland's office to sign some papers. She gutted the bathrooms and updated the kitchen. She brightened the living room with a coat of sage green paint. But despite her pleas to her lender to freeze her interest rate, the payments ballooned to $2,700 a month, double what a similar place would cost to rent and an impossibly high sum even with two roommates.

VanMeter, who stopped making her payments and moved out, is hoping to cut her losses by pursuing a short sale, but every day she edges closer to foreclosure -- a word that brings tears to her eyes.

Unlike Cleland, however, she cheers a little when Obama's name is mentioned. She blames her troubles on the bank and the broker, not on the president whom she helped elect in a groundswell of goodwill.

"He has a tough job ahead of him, but I think he has the passion to make it happen," she said of Obama. "It seems like he tried to make changes really quickly, and maybe that wasn't realistic. I think with time we'll see things change."

VanMeter has not tuned in to the governor's race, but she expects that she will vote for the Democrat.

For Cleland's part, however, she's seen enough of Obama's leadership to know that she is open to voting for a Republican this fall. "We really needed something different," she said, "but instead we are doing the same things over and over and over."

N. Korea Releases U.S. Journalists

By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 5, 2009 



North Korea pardoned and released two detained American journalists after former president Bill Clinton met in Pyongyang on Tuesday with the country's ailing dictator, a transaction that gives Kim Jong Il a thin slice of the international legitimacy that has long eluded him.
Although the White House and the State Department steadfastly insisted that the former president -- the husband of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton -- was on a "private humanitarian mission," the trip came about only after weeks of back-channel conversations involving academics, congressional figures, and senior White House and State Department officials, said sources involved in the planning.
North Korea rejected the administration's first choice for the trip -- former vice president Al Gore, who co-founded the television channel that employs the journalists -- and Bill Clinton left the United States only after North Korea provided assurances that the reporters would be released, the sources said.
U.S. officials said they hoped Clinton's trip would give Kim a face-saving way to end North Korea's provocative actions, such as recent missile launches and a second nuclear test, and begin the process of returning to the negotiating table on its nuclear programs. The American effort also appears to have been aided by South Korea's government, which in recent weeks has sought to ease tensions with its neighbor.
In Pyongyang, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that the release of Laura Ling, 32, and Euna Lee, 36, was ordered after Kim issued a "special pardon." The two had been sentenced to 12 years of hard labor after they were captured in March near the Chinese border while making a documentary about the trafficking of North Korean women to China.
The journalists and Clinton left North Korea on a plane en route to Los Angeles, where the women were to be reunited with their families.
"Clinton expressed words of sincere apology to Kim Jong Il for the hostile acts committed by the two American journalists," KCNA reported. "Clinton courteously conveyed to Kim Jong Il an earnest request of the U.S. government to leniently pardon them."
U.S. officials denied late Tuesday night that any apology was offered.
During the visit, Kim hosted a banquet in Clinton's honor, and U.S. officials said the men held talks that lasted more than three hours. State media broadcast images showing a dour-looking Clinton and a smiling Kim. And the KCNA report summarizing the trip was remarkably positive, speaking of "building the bilateral confidence" and "improving the relations between the two countries."
Ling and Lee were in many ways pawns in a test of wills between North Korea and the United States. After their sentencing in June, North Korea reportedly kept them in a guesthouse near Pyongyang, allowing them to make occasional phone calls to relatives in the United States. The sentence to hard labor was not carried out.
North Korea had long made it clear that it expected a high-profile visit on behalf of the journalists, but Gore may not have been acceptable because he was viewed as their boss and thus not an appropriate symbol of the United States. Other potential envoys considered by the administration included Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) and a former ambassador to South Korea, Donald Gregg.
The discreet discussions to secure the women's release continued even as Hillary Clinton slammed North Korea last month, saying it had "no friends" and was acting like an unruly child. But in critical ways, she also moderated her tone with regard to the case, moving from declaring in June that the charges were "absolutely without merit or foundation" to saying last month that the journalists "are deeply regretful, and we are very sorry it's happened."
Some officials said the success of former president Clinton's trip could result in the first U.S.-North Korea bilateral meeting of the Obama administration. They also think the United States will have a somewhat stronger hand because China for the first time has backed tougher sanctions in the wake of North Korea's May nuclear test.
No government officials appeared to be aboard Clinton's plane, but the nature of the delegation gave the mission a quasi-official status. It included John Podesta, Clinton's White House chief of staff, who served as chief of Obama's transition team and is president of the Center for American Progress. Also seen in photos released by the Korean media were David Straub, a former head of the Korea desk at the State Department who is now at Stanford University; longtime Clinton aide Douglas J. Band; and Justin Cooper, who has worked with the William J. Clinton Foundation.
It is not clear who funded the trip. News of Podesta's role came as a surprise to staffers at the Center for American Progress; he was thought to be on vacation in Truckee, Calif. Colleagues of Straub's at Stanford were also surprised.
Clinton and his party were greeted early Tuesday at an airport in Pyongyang, the capital, by Yang Hyong Sop, vice president of the presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly, and by Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, according to KCNA. Kim is the chief nuclear negotiator for North Korea, suggesting that Pyongyang hoped to use the visit to make progress on the impasse over its nuclear weapons program.
The visit offered the United States its first direct look at the increasingly frail-looking Kim Jong Il, 67, who is thought to have suffered a stroke a year ago and whose health has triggered speculation that he has picked his third son to take over Asia's only communist dynasty.
"One of the most beneficial things that could come of this is that smart American observers can describe how sharp he is, how lucid he sounds," said Robert Carlin, a former U.S. intelligence analyst who has made nearly 30 visits to North Korea and is dubious about reports of a succession crisis. "It might put to rest a lot of garbage rumors."
The most senior U.S. official previously to have met Kim was then-Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright in 2000, who traveled to Pyongyang aiming to arrange a presidential visit by Clinton. That visit did not take place as he turned his concentration to faltering Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in the waning days of his presidency. "The visit that never happened has now happened," said a source involved in the talks with North Korea, noting that the meeting could help fill a gap in Kim's perceived legacy.
Special correspondent Stella Kim in Seoul, correspondent Blaine Harden in Seattle and staff writer Garance Franke-Ruta in Washington contributed to this report.

Editorial - Burma Must Come Clean

The evidence is now overwhelming of an alliance between Burma and North Korea. The vital question for Thailand is whether whatever ventures the two rogue states have started up pose a threat to our neighbourhood.

Political cartoon

In one sense, the answer is a clear "yes", since secrecy breeds suspicion. But as this newspaper showed in three major reports last Sunday, the Burma-North Korea alliance vastly increases the stakes of international diplomacy in our backyard and in the rest of Southeast Asia.

Any project involving nuclear weapons paints a new bull's-eye over the region, not to mention that Burma would be in gross and unforgivable violation of the Asean agreements it has signed.

First, the known facts.

Burma, with experts from North Korea, has undertaken huge earthworks in areas where foreigners and most Burmese are not allowed. Truck-sized tunnels have been burrowed into the ground and hills in the general region of the heavily secured new capital, Naypyidaw, in remote central Burma.

Commercial satellite photos show more than 600 tunnel complexes. Other photographs, taken on the ground and smuggled out of the country, show that some of the tunnels are fortified with blast-proof doors.

During construction of these tunnels, which was begun by 2003, Burma renewed official relations with North Korea, cut off in 1983 after state-sponsored terrorists from Pyongyang attempted to assassinate South Korean president Chun Doo-hwan in Rangoon with three deadly bombs.

Relations resumed in April, 2007. At the time, the chief concern of Burma's neighbours and the United Nations was that the twin rogue states would collude against human rights, chiefly with Burma purchasing weapons from North Korea.

The Burmese military continues to abuse citizens at the whim or acquiescence of the ruling junta. But the tunnel projects and increasingly warm relations between Burma and North Korea raise major questions that get to the very basis of Southeast Asian diplomacy, cooperation and peace.

Burma and its dictatorship have clearly violated major tenets of Asean. Indeed, as details of the tunnel projects emerged to the public, Burmese officials were attending the Asean Regional Forum in the southern Thai resort island of Phuket. The purpose of the ARF is specifically to encourage openness among all members in order to build trust.

Even the most peaceful and innocent nuclear project requires Burma - by Asean and by United Nations law - to fully reveal the work. It must be remembered that the junta has stated that it wants a small nuclear reactor, such as the one in Bangkok. Russia announced it would help to achieve that aim; then the subject was dropped from public discussion. But even that proposal must be fully public, and conducted through the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency.

There also has been speculation that the tunnels are part of a plan to mine uranium, and again Burma would be breaking international law not to discuss that.

On general principles of regional agreement, Burma must quickly disclose what it is up to with the tunnel complexes. The generals can prove that reports of nuclear cooperation with North Korea are wrong.
But by their silence they also can encourage even more distrust and suspicion about the intentions of their violent regime.

Bangkok Post, Aug 8

Defiant Iran President Takes Oath

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been sworn in for a second term as Iran's president, after weeks of post-election unrest. 
 
In an address after the ceremony, he criticised foreign powers who have cast doubt on the validity of the election, saying Iran would resist them.

Opposition supporters protesting outside parliament were met by hundreds of riot police.

Germany, France, Britain and the US all said they would not be sending letters of congratulation to Mr Ahmadinejad.

At least 30 people died during the street protests which followed the 12 June poll.

Mr Ahmadinejad now has two weeks to form a government that must then be approved by parliament.

'We will resist' 
 
Taking his oath of office, broadcast live on state TV, Mr Ahmadinejad promised to "protect the official faith, the system of the Islamic revolution and the constitution".

**

ANALYSIS

Jon Leyne, BBC Tehran correspondent The formalities have been observed. Iran's authorities will be pleased that the show of unity was maintained as Mr Ahmadinejad was sworn in for his second four-year term. 

 

For the moment the fractured Iranian establishment has come together to agree on the one thing that unites them - decrying foreign interference in their domestic affairs.

Nevertheless, there was a substantial boycott by reformist members of parliament, and by leading opponents of Mr Ahmadinejad, including former President Rafsanjani.

Already the conservative press is speculating about the new cabinet. The conservative Hamshahri newspaper called for the new ministers to be "efficient, religious and prudent" - a strong hint that conservatives have not been happy with the calibre of past ministers.

**

The opposition has kept up its pressure on the streets. The appearance of calm and normality in Iran's affairs of state may not last very long.

In the address that followed, he called for "a national will, a national resolve", and told his audience: "We need to join forces."

"I do not have any incentive other than serving the people and the country and I do not think of anything but the progress and development of the nation," Mr Ahmadinejad said.

Following the swearing-in, he used his first address to defend the official results of the election - which gave him an overwhelming victory - and criticised Western powers' response to the disputed poll.

"Some governments should feel responsible for their words and deeds," he said.

"The people of Iran are for a constructive dialogue... We will resist violations of law and abuse...

"[Foreign governments] just want democracy at the service of their own interests - they do not respect the rights of other nations. They see themselves as the yardstick of democracy - our people oppose this, that's what our people are resisting," he said.

Several states which have criticised the elections said they would not be sending customary letters of congratulations to Mr Ahmadinejad to mark his reappointment as president, including the US, Germany, France and the UK.

"Nobody in Iran is waiting for anyone's congratulations," said Mr Ahmadinejad, to the laughter of listening deputies.

Outside, hundreds of demonstrators gathered. There were reports of clashes with riot police and at least one arrest.

Khamenei endorsement 
 
There were some notable absences for Wednesday's inauguration ceremony, though envoys from the European Union and the UK did attend.

Mr Ahmadinejad's predecessors as president - Mohammad Khatami and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani - were missing, as they were from a formal ceremony to endorse his presidency on Monday.

Also missing were two defeated opposition candidates - Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi - who continue to contest the results.

In addition, a reformist faction of about 70 MPs said only about 13 of its members attended - and some of those who did attend reportedly left during Mr Ahmadinejad's speech in a show of protest.

Mr Ahmadinejad has received the backing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has supported him throughout the unrest.

Mr Khamenei said Mr Ahmadinejad was the rightful winner and that Iranians had "voted in favour of a fight against arrogance, to confront destitution and spread justice".

The BBC's Tehran correspondent, Jon Leyne, says forming an acceptable, credible government could be the real challenge for the president.

He has been dogged by controversy in recent weeks, becoming embroiled in a series of disputes with conservative politicians who would normally be his allies.

More than 100 people, including some members of the opposition movement, went on trial in Iran on Saturday for their alleged involvement in the post-election violence.


Foreign media, including the BBC, have been restricted in their coverage of Iran since the election protests turned into confrontations with the authorities in which at least 30 people were killed.