Northern Hemisphere Braces as Swine Flu Heads North

By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 10, 2009

As the first influenza pandemic in 41 years has spread during the Southern Hemisphere's winter over the past few months, the United States and other northern countries have been racing to prepare for a second wave of swine flu virus.

At the same time, international health authorities have become increasingly alarmed about the new virus's arrival in the poorest, least-prepared parts of the world.

While flu viruses are notoriously capricious, making any firm predictions impossible, a new round could hit the Northern Hemisphere within weeks and lead to major disruptions in schools, workplaces and hospitals, according to U.S. and international health officials.

"The virus is still around and ready to explode," said William Schaffner, an influenza expert at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine who advises federal health officials. "We're potentially looking at a very big mess."

President Obama arrived in Mexico on Sunday for a two-day summit that will include discussions on swine flu, along with Mexico's drug wars, border security, immigration reform and economic recovery.

"Everyone recognizes that H1N1 is going to be a challenge for all of us, and there are people who are going to be getting sick in the fall and die," said John O. Brennan, the U.S. deputy national security adviser for counterterrorism and homeland security. "The strategy and the effort on the part of the governments is to make sure we . . . collaborate to minimize the impact."

Since emerging last spring in Mexico, the virus, known as H1N1, has spread to at least 168 countries, causing more than 162,000 confirmed cases and playing a role in at least 1,154 deaths, including 436 in the United States.

Scientists have been closely monitoring the flu's spread for clues to how much of a threat it might pose this fall. So far, no signs have emerged that the virus has mutated into a more dangerous form. Most people who become infected seem to experience relatively mild illness.

Still, the virus has caused major outbreaks involving a disproportionate number of younger people in Australia, New Zealand, Argentina and other countries, prompting schools to close, causing theaters to shut down, and straining some emergency rooms and intensive care units, sometimes forcing doctors to postpone other care, such as elective surgeries.

Swine flu has also begun to spread in South Africa, where at least two deaths have been reported; the national laboratory, meanwhile, was overwhelmed last week with samples that needed testing. In India, a 14-year-old girl became the first person to die from the disease in that densely populated nation.

In Britain, meanwhile, where anxiety was increasing because of high-profile cases including "Harry Potter" films actor Rupert Grint, health officials were trying to determine the cause of a sharp rise in reported cases in recent weeks.

"This is something that we could see here soon," said Arnold S. Monto, a University of Michigan infectious-disease expert who advises the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other federal health agencies. He noted that some emergency rooms were overwhelmed by last spring's outbreak in New York City. "We have to be worried about our ability to handle a surge of severe cases."

Concern about a second wave has prompted a flurry of activity by federal, state and local officials, including intensifying flu virus monitoring and making plans to distribute vaccine and antiviral drugs and other treatments if necessary.

"There's a lot of moving parts to this," said Joseph S. Bresee, who heads the CDC's influenza epidemiology and prevention branch. "Hopefully we won't have a panic, but instead we'll have the appropriate level of concern and response."

The Obama administration has been updating recommendations for when to close schools, what parents should do if their children get sick, how doctors should care for patients and how businesses should respond to large-scale absences. Officials are hoping to navigate a fine line, urging precautions to minimize spread, serious illness and deaths while avoiding undue alarm and misinformation.

"The last time we had anything similar to this was prior to the Internet," said one senior official who spoke on the condition of anonymity last week during one of a series of background briefings for reporters.

A Gathering Storm

The virus could cause nothing more than a typical flu season for the Northern Hemisphere this winter. But many experts suspect the second wave could be more severe than an average flu season, which hospitalizes an estimated 200,000 Americans and contributes to 36,000 deaths. Because the virus is new, most people are not immune to it.

"This epidemic will transmit faster than usual, because the population is more susceptible," said Marc Lipsitch, a professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health who has been helping the CDC project the severity of the upcoming wave. "It's fair to say there will be tens of millions of illnesses and hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations, and tens of thousands of deaths. That's not atypical. It just depends on how many tens of thousands."

Perhaps more important, in every country where the virus has spread, it has continued to affect children and young adults much more commonly than typical flu viruses.

"In a pandemic where a greater fraction of illness and deaths occur in kids and young adults, that will be clearly noticeable to the public. There will be a sense that this is a greater severity of illness even if fewer people die overall," the CDC's Bresee said.

Most of those who have developed serious illness and died have had other health problems. But those include many common conditions, such as diabetes, asthma and obesity. Pregnant women appear to be especially at risk. And the virus can cause severe illness and death in otherwise healthy people in perhaps a third of cases.

The virus continued to simmer in the United States over the summer, causing more than 80 outbreaks in camps in more than 40 states. Officials estimate that more than 1 million Americans have been infected.

The number of cases could increase rapidly as soon as schools begin to reopen in the next few weeks and could accelerate further as cooler, drier temperatures return, possibly peaking in October.

That is much earlier than the usual flu season, and it could create confusion. People could start becoming sick with the swine flu before a vaccine is widely available and nonetheless be urged to get the regular seasonal flu vaccine, which will be available first. Because different groups are being given priority for the different vaccines, officials are concerned it could be difficult to make sure the right people get the vaccine at the right time to provide optimal protection. The elderly are a top priority for the seasonal vaccine, but not for the swine flu vaccine.

The first batches of swine flu vaccine are not expected to become available until mid-October, assuming studies indicate it is safe and effective. And officials have yet to answer many key questions, including how many doses will be needed. If it is two, as many suspect, it could take at least five weeks after the first shot before vaccinated people are fully protected.

Southern Hemisphere

In the Southern Hemisphere, which experiences winter during the Northern Hemisphere's summer, the swine flu virus caused a more intense and somewhat earlier flu season in some places. In Argentina, which was hit particularly hard, school breaks were extended and the economy suffered as people avoided restaurants, clubs and other public places.

"There was panic and I felt it, too," said Cristina Malaga, a maid in Buenos Aires who stayed home for a week in July out of fear. "I was scared. It is three buses to get to work and there were many people on those buses who are coughing."

At the Gutiérrez Children's Hospital, officials set up a trailer with specially outfitted examination rooms to help deal with the influx of sick people.

"The system did not collapse, because we prepared special units for outpatients and for inpatients," said Eduardo López, who heads the hospital's medical department.

Paula Morey, a housewife who lives in an affluent neighborhood in Buenos Aires, said she and friends stopped sharing the national tea, which is served in a communal gourd. Now, she said, they bring their own gourd. Morey also began cleaning her 4-year-old daughter's hands constantly and carrying a tube of disinfectant to dab on the moment she touches anything like a doorknob.

"She had to learn to take care of herself," Morey said.

Greater Concerns

The appearance of the virus in countries such as South Africa and India is raising concern that the pandemic could be devastating if it begins to sicken large numbers of people in places with fewer resources.

"These are countries with vulnerable populations and fragile health-care systems," said Nikki Shindo, acting head of the WHO's influenza program.

Indian doctors and health officials were scrambling last week to prepare for a sharp increase in cases. Despite well-run clinics for the wealthy, many of India's government health services are overcrowded, understaffed, chaotic and antiquated.

"If we start investigating every case of H1N1 virus, I think the government facility will not be able to cope with the rush," said Dharam Prakash, the Indian Medical Association's secretary general.

In Kenya, white-coated health workers have been passing out questionnaires at the Nairobi airport and putting up glossy posters about the virus on the walls of downtown cafes. False alarms about the virus have spawned a sense of panic in some places. When a health clinic in a Nairobi mall recently suspected a patient of being infected, word leaked out and soon shoppers were sending out text messages across the city warning people to stay away. The clinic was shut down for a day.

Northern Hemisphere

In Britain, chief medical officer Liam Donaldson said there were several possible explanations for that country's recent increase in cases, including London's role as an international transport hub. In an effort to relieve intense pressure on doctors, the government recently launched the National Pandemic Flu Service, a phone and Internet hotline that allows patients to diagnose themselves and prescribe their own drugs.

"It's changing the way people are responding," said Alan Hay, who directs the WHO's World Influenza Centre in London.

Meanwhile, health officials in Virginia, Maryland, the District and other localities said they have been preparing all summer for the swine flu's return, including making plans to set up special clinics to treat and vaccinate patients if necessary.

"We're doing a tremendous amount of contingency planning," said Frances Phillips, Maryland's deputy secretary for public health.

Although strains of the virus have emerged that are resistant to Tamiflu, one of two antiviral drugs effective in treating it, scientists say both drugs generally appear to continue to be effective. The U.S. government shipped 11 million doses of the drugs to states to add to the 23 million they already had on hand and bought an additional 13 million doses to replenish its supplies.

"There's only so much that can be done to get ready. Flu, like a hurricane, is a force of nature. You can't stop it. You can't make it less severe than it would be otherwise," said Eric Toner of the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Biosecurity. "All you can do is try to be prepared to deal with the consequences."

The last flu pandemic, the 1968-69 Hong Kong flu, was the mildest of the 20th century, contributing to perhaps 1 million deaths worldwide, including about 34,000 in the United States. After emerging, many flu viruses continue to circulate for years, while others disappear or combine with other viruses.

Correspondents Juan Forero in Buenos Aires, Emily Wax in Mumbai and Stephanie McCrummen in Nairobi; special correspondent Karla Adam in London; and staff writer Cheryl W. Thompson in Guadalajara, Mexico, contributed to this report.

Bangladesh: The Modern Face of Slavery | Economy Governance

DHAKA, 7 August 2009 (IRIN) - Tens of thousands of people are working as bonded labourers in rural Bangladesh, say activists. Even though it is illegal, entire families, including children, are bonded to their employers while they struggle to pay back loans.

"Thousands of children are being forced into bonded labour every day because of poverty and their parents' unemployment," Sumaiya Khair, a human rights activist and researcher into child labour in Dhaka, the capital, told IRIN.

"The biggest tragedy is that it all seems to go unnoticed," she said.

According to Anti-Slavery International, bonded labour - or debt bondage - is probably the least-known form of slavery and yet the most widely used method of enslaving people.

Although proscribed by international law, millions worldwide are affected, particularly in South Asia, including India, Pakistan and Nepal.

"Forced labour is the antithesis of decent work," ILO Director-General Juan Somavia said earlier this year. "It causes untold human suffering and steals from its victims. Modern forced labour can be eradicated, providing there is a sustained commitment by the international community, working together with government, employers, workers and civil society."

The face of slavery

Although rare in urban Bangladesh, bonded labour is common in rural areas.

Unlike in cities where workers are paid a daily or fixed wage, the rural workforce mostly has to make verbal arrangements for wages, which are often manipulated by unscrupulous landlords and loan sharks, known as Mahajan.

Still another way to become bonded is being forced to take out a loan due to a temporary financial crisis, often caused or aggravated by a poor harvest or family emergency.

Once bonded, the labourer is then forced to work long hours for little or no pay, often seven days a week.

Many, mostly women and children, end up as domestic servants, working in conditions that resemble servitude. Many suffer physical abuse, sometimes resulting in death, activists say.

"Domestic servants, especially the women and children, are often exposed to inhuman treatment. Few, if any, are concerned with this matter unless a tragedy like a death by torture becomes public," Nazma Ara Begum, director of the Family Planning Association of Bangladesh (FPAB), an NGO that also works with victims of domestic torture, told IRIN.

Legislation

In 1972, Bangladesh ratified both ILO Convention No. 29 (1930), the Forced Labour Convention and ILO Convention No. 105 (1957), the Abolition of Forced Labour Convention.

The law prohibits forced or bonded labour and the Factories Act and Shops and Establishments Act provide for inspection mechanisms to strengthen laws against forced labour.

"Forced labour has been present in Bangladesh for centuries. After the liberation of Bangladesh, it changed its form and has taken the new face of various 'contracts' associated with loans taken by poor farmers from the usurers," Mohamad Abul Quasem, founder of the human rights related NGO Uddyam and member of the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society, said.

Human trafficking

Bangladesh prohibits trafficking in persons under the Repression of Women and Children Act of 2000 (amended in 2003); however, there is extensive trafficking in women and children, primarily to India, Pakistan, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and within the country, mainly for prostitution and in some instances for labour servitude.

The exact number of women and children trafficked is unknown.

In 2008, the government created a 12-member anti-trafficking investigative unit that complements the existing anti-trafficking police unit.

Last year, 231 victims of trafficking were rescued and 34 offenders convicted, of whom 26 were sentenced to life imprisonment.

In addition, Bangladeshi men and women migrating to the Middle East and elsewhere for work often face bonded labour as a result of fraud or illegal fees demanded by recruitment agents.

"It is regrettable how crooked recruitment agencies often lure young men to their doom with false promises of jobs. The victims are often unable to contact their loved ones and remain stranded in foreign lands without decent payment and [in] inhuman living conditions. This is the modern face of slavery," Motasim Billah, a manpower consultant, told IRIN.

ao/ds/mw

Eritrea Rebuffs 'Smear Campaign'

Eritrea has strongly denied allegations that it supports Islamist insurgents in neighbouring Somalia.

Salih Omar Abdu, its ambassador to Kenya, says the accusations, repeatedly made by the US and the African Union, are a "smear campaign".

He says Eritrea is in favour of a united Somalia whose government represents all of its people.

Somalia is nominally ruled by a UN-backed government but insurgents control large parts of the country.

Last week US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on a visit to Africa, warned that the US would "take action" against Eritrea if it continued to support the militants.

She said Eritrea was destabilising Somalia and its actions were "unacceptable".

Moral obligation

But in an interview with the BBC's Network Africa programme, Mr Abdu dismissed the claims.

"This is a smear campaign against Eritrea under the pretext that Eritrea supplies arms, ammunitions and finances [to insurgents]," he said.

"But unfortunately this is not the case and Eritrea does not tolerate being an instrument to any country or any government."

He said his country had a "moral and legal obligation to support the Somalis", but had no right to "bring or establish a government for the Somalis".

"We believe in a united Somalia. Not like our neighbours who want to sub-divide it into cantons. Let the Somalis solve their problems themselves."

Analysts say several militant groups operated from Eritrea after being ousted from the Somali capital, Mogadishu, when Ethiopian troops entered Somalia in 2006.

The main insurgent group is al-Shabab, which is extending its influence in the south of the country.

About 250,000 Somalis have fled their homes in fighting between militants and government forces over the past three months.

There are growing fears that Somalia - which has been without an effective central government since 1991 - risks becoming a haven for terrorists.

Militants Launch Afghan Attacks

Taliban militants have attacked official buildings in eastern Afghanistan, firing rockets at a police headquarters and government offices.

Five Afghan police were reportedly killed and 26 others hurt as six gunmen fired grenades inside Pul-i-Alam.

Part of the city, capital of Logar province, was said to have been evacuated as military helicopters flew overhead and fired on the insurgents.

The attack comes 10 days before nationwide elections in Afghanistan.

The Taliban have vowed to disrupt the elections and have stepped up attacks in recent weeks.

US and UK forces are currently engaged in a major offensive against Taliban militants in the south of the country.

High casualty levels among the international coalition and reports of escalating violence have raised concerns in Washington and London.

The US commander in Afghanistan, Gen Stanley McChrystal, described the Taliban as "a very aggressive enemy" in a newspaper interview published on Monday.

Explosive vests

Eyewitnesses in Pul-i-Alam said insurgents took up positions in an unfinished tower block and fired rockets into government compounds in the city, which is close to the capital, Kabul.

Two rockets were reported to have hit the headquarters of the city's chief of police, while four hit the governor's compound.

"The governor's building came under rocket attack from close range," local government spokesman Din Mohammad Darwish told AFP news agency.

"The rockets hit the building and partially damaged the building. The governor was having lunch and no-one was killed or wounded," he added.

Mr Darwish said attackers inside the buildings had been surrounded by the security forces. There were also reports of coalition helicopters involved in the fight.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, claimed responsibility for the attack in Logar. He said that six fighters entered the buildings wearing explosive vests.

Taliban strategy

The attack in Logar was the latest in a series of similar co-ordinated attacks on provincial cities in recent months.

“ We've got to stop their momentum, stop their initiative. It's hard work ”
Gen Stanley McChrystal US commander in Afghanistan

In July five people were killed in a series of strikes in eastern Afghanistan. This came after simultaneous assaults on government buildings in the city of Khost, also in eastern Afghanistan.

The BBC's Martin Patience in Kabul says that such attacks on provincial government compounds are designed to weaken the authority of the Afghan government.

The Taliban target provincial headquarters because they are not guarded as closely as institutions in Kabul, our correspondent says.

The significance of this attack is that it took place so close to the Afghan capital just days ahead of presidential elections.

Violence across the country has escalated in the run-up to presidential and provincial council polls on 20 August.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Gen McChrystal - who is to present a major strategic review of the conflict to the US Congress this month - admitted US and international forces were facing a tough period in Afghanistan.

"We've got to stop their momentum, stop their initiative. It's hard work," he said.

On Sunday US National Security Adviser James Jones defended the US approach in Afghanistan, telling TV interviewers the developing strategy in the country was new and a system to judge progress was still being put in place.

Bomb Attacks in Iraq Kill Dozens

A series of bomb blasts in Iraq have killed more than 40 people and wounded at least 200.

Two truck bombs exploded in a Shia village near the northern city of Mosul, killing at least 28 people and injuring more than 130.

Meanwhile, Baghdad was hit by a string of bomb attacks that killed at least 18 people and wounded more than 90.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has warned of an upsurge of violence ahead of next January's elections.

Insurgents "will try in any way they can to give the impression that the political process is not stable", he said in a televised news conference.

But he said the government was doing all it could to "deny them a safe environment for [the] planning and implementation of further attacks".

The BBC's Natalia Antelava in Baghdad says the Iraqi government is keen to show its troops are fully in control and capable of doing their job without the help of US forces.

But many Iraqis say this wave of violence is what they feared would happen when US troops pulled back from Iraqi cities a month ago.

Few believe the country's army - perceived by many to be corrupt - is capable of protecting them, our correspondent says.

No-one has yet claimed responsibility for Monday's attacks, but one minister said they bore the hallmark of al-Qaeda and other Sunni insurgents in Iraq.

Al-Qaeda stronghold

Truck bombs exploded nearly simultaneously in the village of Khaznah, 20km (13 miles) east of Mosul, at about 0400 (0100 GMT) on Monday.

ANALYSIS
Natalia Antelava, BBC News, Baghdad This string of attacks seems to be well co-ordinated, well organised and it certainly sends a very powerful message to the government of Iraq.

The big question now is can the government handle the security situation? They say they absolutely can.

There are forces in Iraq though that don't want this violence to stop.

And for more and more Iraqis the confidence they have in their government to protect them is decreasing.

Many see the Iraqi security services as corrupt and many fear the violence will escalate.

The blasts were so powerful they completely destroyed at least 30 houses and left a 7ft (2m) crater in the village, which is home to the tiny Shia Shabak ethnic group.

Witnesses spoke of scenes of chaos as people searched through piles of bricks, twisted metal and rubble for buried family members.

"I was sleeping on the roof and I woke up as if there was an earthquake. After that I saw a plume of smoke and dust spreading everywhere," resident Mohammed Kadhem, 37, told the AFP news agency.

"A minute later another bomb went off, knocking me off the roof on to the ground. I was struck unconscious by shrapnel and stones.

Ethnically-mixed Mosul - Iraq's second city - is considered one of the last strongholds of al-Qaeda in Iraq, and still sees frequent attacks despite a decline in violence elsewhere in the country.

Deadly blasts

However, despite security gains in Baghdad, at least three bombs went off in separate parts of the capital on Monday.

Two of the blasts appeared to be targeting labourers who were gathering in the early morning looking for work.

One of the bombs was hidden in a pile of rubbish when it went off in the western district of Hay al-Amel, killing at least seven people and wounding 46.

KEY ATTACKS AFTER US PULLBACK

7 August: A car bomb outside a mosque in Mosul kills 30 people. Six people die in attacks in Baghdad

31 July: At least 27 people die in a string of attacks outside five mosques in Baghdad

9 July: 50 killed in bomb attacks at Talafar (near Mosul), Baghdad, and elsewhere

30 June: Car bomb in Kirkuk kills at least 27 people

30 June: US troops withdraw from Iraqi towns and cities

Minutes later a second bomb went off in the northern area of Shurta Arbaa, killing at least nine people and wounding 35.

There were also reports of a roadside bombing in the southern suburb of Saidiyah, killing at least two people and wounding 14.

This is the latest in a series of deadly blasts in Iraq since US troops pulled back from Iraqi cities at the end of June.

A car bomb exploded outside a mosque in Mosul during a funeral service last Friday, killing 30 people.

Three bombs killed six people returning from a pilgrimage in Baghdad on the same day.

Two Muslim Village Chiefs Killed in Thai South

Sun Aug 9, 2009 3:22am EDT

YALA, Thailand, Aug 9 (Reuters) - Two Muslim village leaders were killed in drive-by shootings in Thailand's restive southernmost provinces, police said on Sunday.

The attacks took place at the weekend in Yala and Pattani, two of the three mainly Muslim provinces in predominantly Buddhist Thailand, which have been plagued by five years of separatist violence.

Gunmen on a motorcycle killed an assistant village chief in the Muang district of Yala early Sunday, police said.

Late on Saturday, a village headman was shot dead in front of his home in Yaring, Pattani by unknown assailants riding in a pickup truck armed with M-16 assault rifles.

The attacks came during a two-day visit to the region by Bangkok-based diplomats from member countries of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), the world's largest Muslim body, which has criticised Thai security forces for their handling of the conflict.

The OIC demanded an end to attacks on Muslims after 11 were shot dead while praying in a mosque in southern Thailand in June.

Close to 3,500 people have been killed since 2004 in Thailand's deep south. The 30,000 troops deployed to the region, which was once an independent Malay-Muslim sultanate, have made little progress towards quelling the unrest. (Reporting by Surapan Boonthanom; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

General Calls for Mousavi, Khatami, Karroubi Prosecution

As Iran moves to squelch opposition to the disputed June presidential election, the stage has been set for the judiciary to try two defeated candidates and a former president.

A senior official with Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) on Sunday accused Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, two defeated candidates whose supporters took to the streets to protest the official vote result, as well as former President Mohammad Khatami of inciting the unrest.

Brigadier General Yadollah Javani, head of the IRGC's political bureau, said it was absolutely vital to defend the integrity of the 30-year-old Islamic Revolution amidst a “Western-backed plot to topple the government through a 'velvet coup',” the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported Monday.

"The question is who were the main plotters and agents of this coup. What is the role of Khatami, Mousavi and Karroubi in this coup?" he wrote in an article in the weekly IRGC journal.

The official outcome of the presidential vote, which saw President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad win by a massive margin, provoked unprecedented, widespread protests.

The crackdown against the street demonstrations resulted in the arrest of thousands of opposition figures, protesters and journalists -- who have been put on trial on charges of plotting to topple the government --, and the deaths of at least 30 people.

During their hearings in the Revolutionary Court, many of the defendants have confessed to aiding foreign countries in the post-vote developments.

Iranian authorities blame world powers, particularly Britain and the US, for the turmoil, and accuse them of instigating the unrest in line with staging a “velvet revolution” in the country.

The trials have raised the ire of the opposition with their public symbols, Mousavi and Khatami, terming the prosecution as a “sham” and claiming the confessions were extracted under torture.

However, the IRGC official believes the affirmation of guilt can be used by the judiciary to convict those who are truly to blame for the “failed coup.”

“If Mousavi, Khatami, [Ayatollah Mohammad] Mousavi Khoeiniha (Iran's prosecutor general after the victory of the revolution in 1979) and Karroubi are the main suspects believed to have been behind the velvet coup in Iran, which they are, we expect the judiciary ... to go after them, arrest them, put them on trial and punish them according to the law,” Javani was quoted by IRNA as saying.

The remarks also echo increasing pressure by the ruling system on the opposition who alleges that the June 12 election was rigged and continues to defy the result.

The vote, hailed by President Ahmadinejad and the Guardian Council, the body tasked with overseeing elections, as the “healthiest” vote in the history of the Revolution, has also presented an influential critic.

Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, the head of the Assembly of Experts and Chairman of the Expediency Council, has denounced the government's handling of the controversy over the election and urged officials to release the protesters still in custody.

However, Rafsanjani, who is to deliver a sermon at the Tehran University prayer hall on Friday, has been harshly criticized for his stance by supporters of President Ahmadinejad and a number of officials in the Principlist camp.

An Iranian lawmaker, Nasrollah Torbai, on Sunday moved to quiet the criticism by boasting the credentials of Ayatollah Rafsanjani and the leaders of the opposition.

“It has taken years and a vast amount of political capital has been spent on the likes of Mousavi, Hashemi-[Rafsanjani], Khatami, Karroubi and [Hojjatoleslam Ali-Akbar] Nateq-Nouri to grow and serve the Revolution,” Torabi was quoted by Parleman News website as saying.

“Why is it that the trust of the people is not regarded as the most valuable treasure in the country?” he queried.

Ayatollah Rafsanjani had said during his Friday Prayers sermon on July 17 that the ambiguities surrounding the presidential election had led to the distrust of the Iranian nation in the establishment.

"Doubt has been created," he said. "There are two currents; one has no doubt and is moving ahead. And the other is a large portion of the wise people who say they have doubts. We need to take action to remove this doubt."

MD/HGH

Amazon.com, Digital Publishing and Jeff Bezos

By Lev Grossman and Andrea Sachs

This story has been updated since publication in TIME magazine.

Cayla Kluver was 14 when she wrote her first novel. It's a fantasy novel called Legacy, and it's about a certain Princess Alera of Hytanica who's being forced to marry the handsome but obnoxious Lord Steldor when she's really interested in the handsome but mysterious Narian, who hails from Hytanica's bitter enemy, Cokyri.

When she was 15, Kluver and her mom, who live in Wisconsin, formed their own publishing company to publish Legacy. Sales were modest, but the book attracted some rave reader reviews on Amazon.com At 16, when most authors are years away from getting their first big break, Kluver is getting her second: this August, Amazon is going to relaunch Legacy on a grand scale.

The whole story is practically a fantasy: Amazon plucked Kluver out of obscurity to be the first author in its Amazon Encore program, which takes worthy but overlooked books and republishes them for a wider audience. But there's something odd about it too. If Amazon is a bookstore, it's supposed to be buying from publishers, not competing with them. Right? (See the 50 best websites of 2008.)

Except it isn't just a bookstore. As numerous publishing journalists and bloggers have pointed out, Amazon has diversified itself so comprehensively over the past five years that it's hard to say exactly what it is anymore. Amazon has a presence in almost every niche of the book industry. It runs a print-on-demand service (BookSurge) and a self-publishing service (CreateSpace). It sells e-books and an e-device to read them on (the Kindle, a new version of which, the DX, went on sale June 10). In 2008 alone, Amazon acquired Audible.com a leading audiobooks company; AbeBooks, a major online used-book retailer; and Shelfari, a Facebook-like social network for readers. In April of this year, it snapped up Lexcycle, which makes an e-reading app for the iPhone called Stanza. And now there's Amazon Encore, which makes Amazon a print publisher too.

No question, Amazon is the most forward-thinking company in the book business. If there's a Steve Jobs of books, it's Amazon's founder, Jeff Bezos. His vision is defining the way books will be bought and sold and written and read in the digital world — which is to say, the world. The question is whether there will be room in it for anyone besides Amazon.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, holding the new big-screen Kindle DX.

ENLARGE +

The Perils of Verticality

If you're a reader, you probably consider Amazon your friend. And it is. It recommends books to you and gets them to your door for cheap. But try shifting your point of view to that of a publisher and Amazon starts looking a bit scarier.

The Amazonians are really good at selling books online, and publishers love them for it. But because Amazon is so much better than anybody else at selling books online — last year, it owned 43% of that market, according to the bibliographic-information company R.R. Bowker — it has a lot of power at the negotiating table. All retailers get discounts from their wholesalers, but some publishers think the discounts Amazon asks for are getting too deep. "They're fast approaching the point where we just can't afford to do business with them," says a well-known New York book editor, who asked not to be identified. "It'll be interesting to see what happens then."

Publishing is a genteel business, and publishers aren't used to playing hardball. Amazon is, and it does. "I think it's fair to say there's some tension," says Jim Milliot, business and news director at Publishers Weekly. "They're the dominant online retailer. Publishers really aren't in the position to argue. Or to fight back." Last year, in a widely publicized scuffle, Amazon disabled its "Buy now with 1-click" button for some books published by Hachette's U.K. division after the companies disagreed about sales terms.

See the 100 best novels of all time.

Read Bill Gates' take on why Jeff Bezos is a TIME 100 icon.

The whole digital revolution just makes things more complicated. For example: How much should an e-book cost? Right now, Amazon prices most of its Kindle editions at $9.99, which is quite a bit less than the cost of your average hardcover book. "In the digital-books world, a number of the costs are removed, so we believe they should be priced lower," says Russell Grandinetti, vice president of books for Amazon. "Our approach to digital books is that we will allow that to continue."

For now, Amazon takes a loss on these books, since it buys them from publishers at the price of a regular hardcover. The company considers it an investment in getting the Kindle established as a platform. But eventually — soon — it's going to want publishers to start sharing the pain. This may seem a nitpicky issue, but once e-books become a significant part of the market, the price of a Kindle edition could mean the difference between the red and the black for some publishers. "That's the detonation point," says Dennis Johnson, publisher of the prominent small press Melville House. "Because nobody can make a book that sells for $9.99." Yes, you save on printing and shipping, he says, but that's only a small fraction of what it costs to make a book. (See the top 10 gadgets of 2008.)

Don't get them wrong: publishers are thrilled that Amazon is putting all these resources into the Kindle. Any new retail channel for books is a godsend. They're just concerned that the precedent being set is unworkable. "Amazon picked a cost in the beginning that they believed the consumer would like, and of course, the consumer likes it," says Carolyn Reidy, president and CEO of Simon & Schuster. "Who wouldn't like a price that was significantly lower than the price the hardcover is? And we think it's too low." (Grandinetti sticks to his guns: "We believe our approach to digital books allows authors, publishers and retailers to run profitable businesses yet still pass on the savings that digital books allow to readers," he says. Right or wrong, nobody can stay on message like an Amazon exec.)

Such are the conundrums raised by a company that has attained the radical verticality that Amazon has: when it comes to e-books, Amazon doesn't just sell them; it practically owns the entire medium. Of course, they'll all have to make nice eventually, since Amazon needs publishers to survive and thrive. Or does it?

Here's an interesting factoid: last year, for the first time in history, more books were self-published in the U.S. than were published the regular way. Amazon has invested heavily in publisher-free publishing, and it's paying off handsomely. The sector has seen two straight years of triple-digit growth, and on the cultural side, the stigma associated with "vanity" publishing is wearing away.

Or if Amazon can't make a deal with the publishers, it can always just become a publisher. That's where Princess Alera of Hytanica makes her royal entrance. Last year, speaking to Publishers Weekly, Bezos pooh-poohed the idea of Amazon publishing books: "I'm not sure we have any skills per se to be a content originator," he said. "Why would we be better at it? It's a well-served industry." That it may be. But as Amazon Encore demonstrates, Amazon does have one very important skill: it gathers better data on how readers buy books than anybody else. "We're lucky enough to have a passionate customer base who comes to our store and tells us about books that they like," Grandinetti says. "Even great books can be overlooked." When they are, Amazon is the first to know about it.

See the 50 best inventions of 2008.

Read an interview with Bezos.

If Amazon Encore pans out, what's to stop authors from signing directly with bookstores and cutting publishers out of the loop completely? U2 and Madonna don't have deals with record labels anymore; they did their deals with a concert promoter, LiveNation. That stuff that the labels used to do — production, promotion, distribution — it's just not that hard to DIY now or buy off the shelf. It's the same with publishing. Amazon could become the LiveNation of the book world, a literary ecosystem unto itself: agent, editor, publisher, printer and bookstore. It probably will.

The Sky Isn't Falling

But it's a big leap from there to concluding that publishers are going to perish or that Amazon wants them to. It's true that Amazon plays hardball with them, but that's partly because the online-book world — unlike the real-life Amazon — isn't particularly biodiverse yet. If publishers aren't in a position to check Amazon directly, the market is, or it will be. There will be some painful scenes while we wait for that to happen, but already Google — a company that never met a loss leader it didn't like — has announced its intention to start selling e-books before the end of the year. Simon & Schuster has just announced a plan to sell digital copies of its books through the e-book website Scribd.com. The price? Twenty percent off the harcover price, which comes to a good deal more than $9.99. "Within the next six to nine months, there will be many new devices, some new platforms and formats and a number of big companies entering this field that don't currently have a presence," says Michael Cader, founder of Publishers Lunch, an e-newsletter for book-world insiders. (See 25 must-have travel gadgets.)

As for Amazon the publisher, it's hard to imagine it competing seriously with conventional publishers. Its DNA is just too alien. When Amazon uses its customer base to crowd-source editorial selection, it's doing something radically different from what regular publishers do. "This is a very different method of discovering books than the more classic publishing process," Grandinetti explains. "The robustness of Amazon customer data is a different view into what people are looking for in a book."

He's right. A different editorial method will engage a very different set of literary values. Imagine a world where publishing has two centers rather than one: a conventional literary center, governed by mainstream publishing — with its big names and fancy prizes and high-end art direction — and a new one where books rise to fame and prominence YouTube-style, in the rough and tumble of the great Web 2.0 mosh pit. The two centers will affect each other gravitationally and swap authors back and forth between them, but they're not likely to eat each other. With any luck, they'll energize each other.

Which is why the future of books won't be purely Amazonian. It's not an either/or future. It's both/and. It will have publishers and self-publishers and books and Kindles and probably other devices in it too. The rise of a new model doesn't require the death of the old one. In fairy-tale terms, Princess Alera won't have to choose between the politically expedient Steldor and the mysteriously alluring Narian. She can have them both and live happily ever after. Or if not happily, at least she'll have plenty to read.

Where Sonia Sotomayor Really Stands on Race

by Jeffrey Rosen

Of the thousands of cases Sonia Sotomayor has heard during nearly 17 years on the federal bench, the one likely to raise the toughest questions during her Supreme Court confirmation hearings, which begin on July 13, involves affirmative action. In 2007 Sotomayor, as a member of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, heard arguments in the case of Ricci v. DeStefano. In that case, white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., challenged the city's decision to ignore the results of a promotion test after there were no black firefighters among the top scorers. One of 20 white firefighters who brought the case, Frank Ricci, is dyslexic and paid an acquaintance more than $1,000 to read study guides for the test onto audiotapes. Ricci scored sixth out of 77 — high enough to merit the promotion. But the city, fearing that it could be sued for discrimination, decided to promote no one.

During the oral argument for the case, Sotomayor was an active questioner, but the decision eventually released by her three-judge panel was a brief, unsigned order. With little explanation, it affirmed the lower-court decision dismissing the firefighters' claim that the city discriminated against the white firefighters by throwing out the test. In a subsequent opinion, one of Sotomayor's colleagues and longtime mentors, Judge José Cabranes, criticized the panel for disposing in such a cursory way issues that were "indisputably complex and far from well-settled." Ricci and the others appealed the panel's ruling, and the case is now before the Supreme Court. (See pictures of Judge Sonia Sotomayor.)

Republican critics of Sotomayor are planning to use the Ricci decision as Exhibit A in what they hope will be confirmation hearings focused on her views about race. Exhibit B is a speech she delivered in 2001 that included the following 32 words: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." Since President Barack Obama nominated Sotomayor to the court on May 26, that remark has become the main source of conservative attacks. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich told his followers on Twitter that Sotomayor was a "Latina woman racist" who should withdraw. (He later apologized.) Sotomayor expressed regret about her word choice to Senator Dianne Feinstein. But after the Senate Judiciary Committee released Sotomayor's complete list of speeches, it emerged that she had delivered many versions of the same stump speech — seven by one count — between 1994 and 2003. In all of them, she suggested that a judge who was a "wise woman" or a "wise Latina woman" would issue a better opinion than a male or a white male judge.

Sotomayor's defenders say that those words were taken out of context and that her appellate opinions are hardly radical on race. Tom Goldstein of SCOTUS Blog has estimated that of the 96 race-related cases other than Ricci she heard on the Court of Appeals, "Judge Sotomayor rejected discrimination-related claims by a [ratio] of roughly 8 to 1." (See the top 10 Supreme Court nomination battles.)

So, what does she actually believe? An examination of Sotomayor's career supports the idea that on the bench, she has been a racial moderate, not a radical. At the same time, her opinions and speeches suggest that her views about race, multiculturalism and identity politics are more nuanced, complex and provocative than either her critics or her supporters have allowed. And for that reason, if confirmed, she could influence the racially charged issues the Supreme Court will confront over the next few decades in unexpected ways.

The Richness of Experience

The first speech in which Sotomayor introduced the "wise Latina" theme was delivered in Puerto Rico in 1994 and focused not on race but on gender. Sotomayor was responding to an article written by a colleague, Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum, a federal judge in New York. Cedarbaum, like Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, was an "equal treatment" feminist, who had expressed concern about the premise that women judges necessarily approach cases differently than men do. "Generalizations about the way women or men are," Ginsburg famously said, "cannot guide me reliably in making decisions about particular individuals."

Read "Four Enduring Myths About Supreme Court Nominees."

Watch TIME's video "Sonia Sotomayor: Bronx (and Baseball) Role Model."

Sotomayor, in her speech, takes a very different view from Ginsburg's and O'Connor's. She sympathizes with "difference feminists" and then says she is not sure she agrees with O'Connor's reputed statement that "a wise old man and a wise old woman reach the same conclusion in deciding cases." Sotomayor concludes, "I would hope that a wise woman with the richness of her experience, would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion" — and then defines "better" as a "more compassionate, and caring conclusion." She also recommends a 1993 article in Judicature, a legal journal, that found that women judges reached different conclusions from men in employment-discrimination cases but not in obscenity or criminal cases. The claim that gender makes a difference in some categories of cases is widely accepted today, but academic theorizing about women's essential differences still remains hotly debated.

When Sotomayor gave her speech in 2001 at California's Berkeley School of Law, "A Latina Judge's Voice," she added "people of color" to the earlier passages that focused on gender. "I wonder whether by ignoring our differences as women or men of color we do a disservice to the law and society," she wrote in a 2002 article based on the talk. And yet it is hard to portray her speeches as those of someone committed to the view that all women and minority judges have essentially different perspectives than white male judges. "No one person, judge or nominee will speak in a female or people-of-color voice," Sotomayor said in her "wise Latina woman" speech, citing Justice Clarence Thomas as representing a "part but not the whole of the African-American thought on many subjects." In other speeches, she has emphasized that her view of justice requires understanding the different perspectives of the clashing parties rather than imposing her individual perspective. In a public-service dinner at Columbia Law School in 1999, she said, "I am learning that to begin thinking about justice, you must constantly step out of the role you are in and not just listen to your adversaries but learn to respect and appreciate their perspectives." She added that prosecutors, defense attorneys and civil attorneys should appreciate one another's roles and practice in a fair and procedurally correct way.

Sotomayor does not appear to be a crusader for radical change. She has always sought change from within the system rather than fundamentally challenging its premises. As a student at Princeton, she co-chaired a Puerto Rican student organization and filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission about Princeton's affirmative-action failures, leading to the hiring of the first Hispanic dean of students. But she acted in such a constructive way that William Bowen, then university president, helped select her for the Pyne Prize, the highest honor Princeton bestows on undergraduates. Sotomayor's experiences as an outsider in an Ivy League world seem to have made her pragmatic rather than rigid, leading her to thrive within the Establishment even as she sought to improve it.

Moderate on the Bench

Although Sotomayor's speeches raise legitimate questions about her views on essential race and gender differences, the best evidence that she is no radical multiculturalist in the courtroom is found in her judicial opinions. Here she appears to be an incrementalist rather than a radical of any stripe. In a survey of Sotomayor's 226 majority opinions, Stefanie Lindquist, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin, found that only 38% could clearly be characterized as liberal, while 49% could clearly be considered conservative. When the criminal cases (in which appellate judges are encouraged by Supreme Court precedent to be relatively pro-prosecution) are taken out of the mix, Sotomayor's record looks about 46% liberal and 36% conservative.

On civil rights cases — including race, gender and immigration appeals — Sotomayor tilts more to the left; Lindquist characterized her majority opinions as 54% liberal and 46% conservative. But when you break out the seven majority opinions involving race, only three rule in favor of the discrimination plaintiffs. It's in the immigration and gender cases that Sotomayor shows clearer signs of liberal leanings: out of 28 majority opinions in immigration cases, Sotomayor decided in favor of the immigrant in 17, or 61%. And in four gender cases, involving sex discrimination and sexual harassment, she decided in favor of the plaintiff all four times.

Read "The Limits of Empathy for Sonia Sotomayor."

But it's in dissents rather than in majority opinions that appellate judges often reveal their true feelings. Of Sotomayor's 19 published dissents, only three dealt clearly with racial issues, and they pointed in different directions. In a 1999 case, Gant v. Wallingford Board of Education, Sotomayor would have allowed a 6-year-old African-American student to challenge as racial discrimination his school's decision to demote him from first grade to kindergarten. In Pappas v. Giuliani (2002), Sotomayor would have held that the New York City police department may have violated the First Amendment when it fired a police officer for his racist, anonymous speech. And in Hayden v. Pataki (2006), Sotomayor said that a New York State law barring felons from voting violated the federal Voting Rights Act. Sotomayor does not appear to be an outlier in race cases, although she seems to have no overarching theory about how to decide them. For that reason, she seems unlikely, in the short term, to affect the balance on the Roberts Court in cases involving race. At the moment, the court is divided among four color-blind conservatives who are suspicious of affirmative action, four liberals who are sympathetic to it, and Anthony Kennedy, who is skeptical of racial classifications but reluctant to strike all of them down, in the middle. On most cases, Sotomayor can be expected to assume David Souter's current spot as the fourth member of the liberal bloc.

Future Fault Lines

But Sotomayor's unique background and views about race and gender are likely to become more important over time. In coming years, there may well be challenges to the death penalty, for example, on the grounds that it is imposed in a racially discriminatory way. The court rejected that claim in 1987, but Sotomayor might be sympathetic to it. In 1981, as a member of the board of directors of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, she was part of a committee that recommended that the fund oppose the reinstatement of the death penalty in New York State on the grounds that "capital punishment is associated with evident racism in our society."

Sotomayor's more liberal inclinations in immigration cases may also make a difference on a court that will increasingly have to wrestle with legal distinctions in the U.S. between citizens and aliens. As Obama disappoints civil libertarians by reaffirming aspects of President Bush's antiterrorism policies — including the claim that terrorism detainees held by U.S. forces in Afghanistan have no legal right to challenge their detention in U.S. courts — some of these policies may reach the Supreme Court. Sotomayor could prove skeptical of the claim often made by the government that the rights of aliens differ sharply from the rights of citizens in the war on terrorism and in other cases.

If Sotomayor is confirmed, as expected, the only thing one can confidently predict is that the cases involving race and diversity that she will confront are very different from the ones we are thinking about today. In that sense, the evolution of Sotomayor's thinking in the years ahead may be more consequential than what she has said in her past.

Rosen, a law professor at George Washington University, is the author of The Supreme Court: The Personalities and Rivalries

A Quiet Revolution Grows in the Muslim World

by Robin Wright

Three decades after Iran's upheaval established Islamic clerical rule for the first time in 14 centuries, a quieter and more profound revolution is transforming the Muslim world. Dalia Ziada is a part of it.

When Ziada was 8, her mother told her to don a white party dress for a surprise celebration. It turned out to be a painful circumcision. But Ziada decided to fight back. The young Egyptian spent years arguing with her father and uncles against the genital mutilation of her sister and cousins, a campaign she eventually developed into a wider movement. She now champions everything from freedom of speech to women's rights and political prisoners. To promote civil disobedience, Ziada last year translated into Arabic a comic-book history about Martin Luther King Jr. and distributed 2,000 copies from Morocco to Yemen. (See pictures of Islam's revolution.)

Now 26, Ziada organized Cairo's first human-rights film festival in November. The censorship board did not approve the films, so Ziada doorstopped its chairman at the elevator and rode up with him to plead her case. When the theater was suspiciously closed at the last minute, she rented a tourist boat on the Nile for opening night--waiting until it was offshore and beyond the arm of the law to start the movie.

Ziada shies away from little, including the grisly intimate details of her life. But she also wears a veil, a sign that her religious faith remains undimmed. "My ultimate interest," she wrote in her first blog entry, "is to please Allah with all I am doing in my own life."

That sentiment is echoed around the Muslim world. In many of the scores of countries that are predominantly Muslim, the latest generation of activists is redefining society in novel ways. This new soft revolution is distinct from three earlier waves of change--the Islamic revival of the 1970s, the rise of extremism in the 1980s and the growth of Muslim political parties in the 1990s.

Today's revolution is more vibrantly Islamic than ever. Yet it is also decidedly antijihadist and ambivalent about Islamist political parties. Culturally, it is deeply conservative, but its goal is to adapt to the 21st century. Politically, it rejects secularism and Westernization but craves changes compatible with modern global trends. The soft revolution is more about groping for identity and direction than expressing piety. The new revolutionaries are synthesizing Koranic values with the ways of life spawned by the Internet, satellite television and Facebook. For them, Islam, you might say, is the path to change rather than the goal itself. "It's a nonviolent revolution trying to mix modernity and religion," Ziada says, honking as she makes her way through Cairo's horrendous traffic for a meeting of one of the rights groups she works with.

The new Muslim activists, who take on diverse causes from one country to another, have emerged in reaction to the Sept. 11 attacks and all that has happened since. Navtej Dhillon, director of the Brookings Institution's Middle East Youth Initiative, says, "There's a generation between the ages of 15 and 35 driving this soft revolution--like the baby boomers in the U.S.--who are defined by a common experience. It should have been a generation outward looking in a positive way, with more education, access to technology and aspirations for economic mobility." Instead, he says, "it's become hostage to post-9/11 politics." Disillusioned with extremists who can destroy but who fail to construct alternatives that improve daily life, members of the post-9/11 generation are increasingly relying on Islamic values rather than on a religion-based ideology to advance their aims. And importantly, the soft revolution has generated a new self-confidence among Muslims and a sense that the answers to their problems lie within their own faith and community rather than in the outside world. The revolution is about reform in a conservative package.

Text-Messaging The Koran

The soft revolution is made concrete in hundreds of new schools from Turkey to Pakistan. Its themes echo in Palestinian hip-hop, Egyptian Facebook pages and the flurry of Koranic verses text-messaged between students. It is reflected in Bosnian streets honoring Muslim heroes and central Asian girls named after the holy city of Medina. Its role models are portrayed by action figures, each with one of the 99 attributes of God, in Kuwaiti comic books. It has even changed slang. Young Egyptians often now answer the telephone by saying "Salaam alaikum"--"Peace be upon you"--instead of "Hello." Many add the tagline "bi izn Allah"--"if God permits"--when discussing everything from the weather to politics. "They think they're getting a bonus with God," muses Ziada.

Even in Saudi Arabia, the most rigid Muslim state, the soft revolution is transforming public discourse. Consider Ahmad al-Shugairi, who worked in his family business until a friend recruited him in 2002 for a television program called Yallah Shabab (Hey, Young People). Al-Shugairi ended up as the host. Although he never had formal religious training, al-Shugairi quickly became one of the most popular TV preachers, broadcast by satellite to an audience across the Middle East and watched on YouTube. "The show explained that you could be a good Muslim and yet enjoy life," says Kaswara al-Khatib, a former producer of Yallah Shabab. "It used to be that you could be either devout or liberal, with no middle ground. The focus had been only on God's punishment. We focused on God's mercy."

In 2005, al-Shugairi began a TV series called Thoughts during the holy month of Ramadan, focusing on the practical problems of contemporary Muslim life, from cleanliness to charity. Sometimes clad in jeans and at other times a white Saudi robe and headdress, he often speaks informally from a couch. "I'm not reinventing the wheel or the faith," al-Shugairi explains in Jidda's Andalus Café, which he opened for the young. "But there is a need for someone to talk common sense." (See pictures of Ramadan.)

Al-Shugairi's own life mirrors the experimentation and evolution of many young Muslims. In the 1990s, he says, he bounced from "extreme pleasure" as a college student in California to "extreme belief." The shock of Sept. 11, an attack whose perpetrators were mostly Saudi, steered him to the middle.

Traditional clerics deride al-Shugairi, 35, and other televangelists for preaching "easy Islam," "yuppie Islam," even "Western Islam." But his message actually reflects a deepening conservatism in the Islamic world, even as activists use contemporary examples and modern technology to make their case. One of al-Shugairi's programs on happiness focused on Elvis Presley, a man with fame, talent and fortune but who died young. Life without deep spirituality, al-Shugairi preaches, is empty.

The soft revolution's voices are widening the Islamic political spectrum. Mostafa Nagar, 28, an Egyptian dentist, runs a blog called Waves in the Sea of Change, which is part of an Internet-based call for a renaissance in Islamic thinking. Yet Nagar belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest Islamist movement in the Middle East. His blog launched a wave of challenges from within the Brotherhood to its proposed manifesto, which limits the political rights of women and Christians. Nagar called for dividing the religious and political wings of the movement, a nod to the separation of mosque and state, and pressed the party to run technocrats rather than clerics for positions of party leadership and public office.

When Nagar and his colleagues were urged to leave the Brotherhood, they decided to stay. "As a public party," he says, "its decisions are relevant to the destiny of all Egyptians, so their thoughts should be open to all people." And indeed, his blog--and other criticism from the movement's youth wing--has caused the manifesto to be put on ice.

The flap underscores an emerging political trend. Since 9/11, polls have consistently shown that most Muslims do not want either an Iranian-style theocracy or a Western-style democracy. They want a blend, with clerics playing an advisory role in societies, not ruling them. As a consequence, Islamist parties are now under intense scrutiny. "Islamists, far from winning sweeping victories, are struggling to maintain even the modest gains they made earlier," says a recent survey by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In Iraq's recent elections, for example, secular parties solidly trumped the religious parties that had fared well four years ago.

Rethinking Tradition

Politics is not the only focus of the soft revolution. Its most fundamental impact, indeed, may be on the faith itself. In the shadows of Kocatepe Mosque in Ankara, Turkey, a team of 80 Turkish scholars has been meeting for the past three years to ponder Muslim traditions dating back 14 centuries. Known as the hadith, the traditions are based on the actions and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad and dictate behavior on everything from the conduct of war to personal hygiene. (See pictures of Iranians.)

Later this year, the Turkish scholars are expected to publish six volumes that reject thousands of Islam's most controversial practices, from stoning adulterers to honor killings. Some hadith, the scholars contend, are unsubstantiated; others were just invented to manipulate society. "There is one tradition which says ladies are religiously and rationally not complete and of lesser mind," says Ismail Hakki Unal of Ankara University's divinity school, a member of the commission. "We think this does not conform with the soul of the Koran. And when we look at the Prophet's behavior toward ladies, we don't think those insulting messages belong to him." Another hadith insists that women be obedient to their husbands if they are to enter paradise. "Again, this is incompatible with the Prophet," Unal says. "We think these are sentences put forth by men who were trying to impose their power over the ladies."

The Hadith Project is only one of many such investigations into Islam's role in the 21st century. This is perhaps the most intellectually active period for the faith since the height of Islamic scholarship in the Middle Ages. "There is more self-confidence in the Islamic world about dealing with reason, constitutionalism, science and other big issues that define modern society," says Ibrahim Kalin of the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research in Ankara. "The West is no longer the only worldview to look up to. There are other ways of sharing the world and negotiating your place in it."

Crucially, this latest wave of Islamic thought is not led only by men. Eman el-Marsafy is challenging one of the strictest male domains in the Muslim world--the mosque. For 14 centuries, women have largely been relegated to small side rooms for prayer and excluded from leadership. But el-Marsafy is one of hundreds of professional women who are memorizing the Koran and is even teaching at Cairo's al-Sadiq Mosque. "We're taking Islam to the new world," el-Marsafy says. "We can do everything everyone else does. We want to move forward too."

The young are in the vanguard. A graduate in business administration and a former banker, el-Marsafy donned the hijab when she was 26, despite fierce objections from her parents. (Her father was an Egyptian diplomat, her mother a society figure.) But last year, el-Marsafy's mother, now in her 60s, began wearing the veil too. That is a common story. Forty years ago, Islamic dress was rare in Egypt. Today, more than 80% of women are estimated to wear the hijab, and many put it on only after their daughters did.

Piety alone is not the explanation for the change in dress. "The veil is the mask of Egyptian woman in a power struggle against the dictatorship of men," says Nabil Abdel Fattah of Cairo's al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies and author of The Politics of Religion. "The veil gives women more power in a man's world." Ziada, the human-rights activist, says the hijab--her headscarves are in pinks, pastels, floral prints and plaids, not drab black--provides protective cover and legitimacy for her campaigns.

Read "Finding God on YouTube."

Waiting for Obama

The ferment in the Muslim world has a range of implications for President Barack Obama's outreach to Islam. Gallup polls in Islamic societies show that large majorities both reject militants and have serious reservations about the West. "They're saying, 'There's a plague on both your houses,'" says Richard Burkholder Jr., director of Gallup's international polls. Many young Muslims are angry at the outside world's support of corrupt and autocratic regimes despite pledges to push for democracy after 9/11. "Most of the young feel the West betrayed its promises," says Dhillon, of the Brookings Institution. Muslims fume that a few perpetrators of violence have led the outside world to suspect a whole generation of supporting terrorism. "The only source of identity they have is being attacked," Dhillon says. The post-9/11 generation has been further shaped by wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza, all of which Washington played a direct or indirect role in.

Although he is the first U.S. President to have lived in the Muslim world and to have Muslim relatives and a Muslim middle name, Obama is likely to face skepticism even among those who welcomed his election. In an open letter on the day of his Inauguration, the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference appealed for a "new partnership" with the Obama Administration. "Throughout the globe, Muslims hunger for a new era of peace, concordance and tranquility," wrote Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary-general of the conference. He then pointedly added, "We firmly believe that America, with your guidance, can help foster that peace, though real peace can only be shared--never imposed." (See pictures of Muslims in America.)

That is the key. Gallup polls show that by huge margins, Muslims reject the notion that the U.S. genuinely wants to help them. The new Administration, with a fresh eye on the world, wants to bolster the position of the U.S. But "Obama will have a narrow window to act," says Burkholder, "because the U.S. has failed so often in the past."

Ask Naif al-Mutawa, a clinical psychologist from Kuwait. Al-Mutawa is the publisher of The 99, glossy comic books popular from Morocco to Indonesia, with 99 male and female superheroes, each imbued with godly qualities such as mercy, wisdom and tolerance. In a recent article for the Chicago Tribune, Obama's hometown paper, al-Mutawa recounted a conversation with his father about his newborn son. Al-Mutawa's grandfather had recently died, and he expected his father to ask him to keep the name in the family. Instead, his father suggested the child be named after Obama. "I was stunned," al-Mutawa wrote. "Instead of asking me to hold on to the past, my conservative Arab Muslim father was asking me to make a bet on the future."

But al-Mutawa opted against it. "I want to see results, not just hope, before naming my children after a leader," he wrote. Such pragmatism is typical of the Muslim world's soft revolutionaries. They believe that their own governments, the Islamist extremists and the outside world alike have all failed to provide a satisfying narrative that synthesizes Islam and modernity. So they are taking on the task themselves. The soft revolution's combination of conservative symbols, like Islamic dress, with contemporary practices, like blogging, may confuse outsiders. But there are few social movements in the world today that are more important to understand.

Wright's most recent book is Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East

The Perfect Storm

By Eyal Press

This article appeared in the March 30, 2009 edition of The Nation.

In the days between Christmas and New Year's Eve, Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, sat at his desk in Lower Manhattan and reached out to people who had lavished generous donations on his organization during the long, benighted tenure of George W. Bush. It was a heady moment: the era of Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales was winding to a close, and Barack Obama was about to assume office, having vowed to rescind some of his predecessor's more egregious assaults on civil liberties.

But Romero wasn't phoning his supporters to share the joy--he was calling to plead for cash after a season (actually, several seasons) of thwarted solicitations. Throughout the spring and summer, would-be donors had explained, over and over again, that they were too busy writing checks to the Obama campaign. By the time Obama mounted the stage to deliver his acceptance speech in Chicago on election night, many had become preoccupied with something else: the implosion of the economy. As Romero worked the phone from his office on the nineteenth floor of the downtown high-rise, around the corner from the New York Stock Exchange, he could feel the aftershocks of the collapse.

"I'll come back, but I lost it all," one longtime donor told Romero.

"I love you guys, but it's gone--all gone," said another.

The most expensive presidential campaign in history and the cataclysmic financial meltdown of the past few months combined to produce a "perfect storm," Romero told me recently. The storm blew a $19 million hole in the ACLU's budget, resulting in a hiring freeze and the cancellation of various projects, followed by the announcement, in January, that 10 percent of the national staff was being let go. Employees with decades of experience were told to clear out their offices; no department was left unscathed.

Founded in 1920, the ACLU boasts a membership of 530,000 and assets of more than $200 million. However dire the economic downturn gets, Romero, who has weathered his share of controversy at the ACLU but also presided over a period of impressive achievements and growth, can rest assured his organization will be around in a couple of years. It's an assumption a growing number of his peers in the nonprofit world can't make. At a forum in New York City in November, Paul Light, a professor of public service at New York University, predicted that "at a minimum" more than 100,000 nonprofit organizations would be wiped out in the next two years. Light asked the audience members whether any of them had tuned in to the recent hearing in Washington on the impending nonprofit upheaval. The room fell silent. Light then admitted he'd missed the deliberations as well, because, alas, there hadn't been any. "We should demand a hearing immediately on the state of the nonprofit sector--immediately," he declared.

Not everyone believes the fallout will be quite so cataclysmic--historically, the nonprofit sector has proved surprisingly resilient, even growing during some recent recessions--but the scale and scope of the current downturn is clearly different. And its reverberations will likely extend far beyond the world of high-profile advocacy organizations like the ACLU. From the arts to education, soup kitchens to housing organizations, nonprofits perform an array of functions that shape the texture of daily life in communities across the country, often by helping people whose situations were precarious even before the economy crashed. Now, with foundations watching their endowments shrivel, many individual donors maxed out and states across the country staring at massive budget deficits, nonprofits are scaling back their services at the very moment when the need for them is escalating.

The Greater Hartford Legal Aid agency occupies the third floor of a boxy glass-and-concrete building a few blocks down from the University of Connecticut School of Law. Its executive director, Elam Lantz Jr., doesn't like to talk about the ripple effects that the financial crisis has had on his agency. "I would not use the word 'ripple'--it's more like a tsunami," Lantz, a mild-mannered man with a clipped gray beard and wire-frame glasses, tells me. "It's more dire than it's ever been--this is a sharp plummet, not a decline."

The main cause of the sharp plummet is a seemingly unrelated development--the decline in interest rates to near zero--that has taken a disastrous toll on legal aid organizations, which, in Connecticut and many other states, receive a substantial share of their funding from the interest on temporary trusts that lawyers hold for clients while carrying out transactions such as real estate deals. This might seem like an odd way to finance such an essential social good, and it is, but the evisceration during the Reagan era of the Legal Services Corporation, the federal agency created in the 1970s to fund legal aid programs and a longstanding target of Republicans, forced states to find creative alternatives. Back when interest rates were 3 to 4 percent, the creativity seemed to be paying off. Now that they've nose-dived, agencies from Ohio to Oregon are scrambling to survive. In Connecticut, the interest on lawyer trusts generated $21 million in 2007; the figure will plunge to under $4 million this year. At Greater Hartford Legal Aid, six attorneys have been let go and more cuts may soon follow. "I have to raise $500,000 somehow," says Lantz glumly, "and then spend some of our operating reserves. That will take us to 2010, and we're just going to have to take it one year at a time."

All this means an already overburdened legal aid system will be that much less likely to help people like Evelyn Colon. A single mother with two young daughters, last year Colon dialed the 800 number in Connecticut that refers low-income residents to attorneys who might be willing to represent them. Colon had just received an eviction notice, even though she'd kept up with her rent, after her landlord's property went into foreclosure. Her case fell to Stephanie D'Ambrose, an attorney at Greater Hartford Legal Aid. D'Ambrose discovered that the author of the eviction notice, Fannie Mae, which weeks earlier had been bailed out by the government, was obligated to treat renters more leniently under the terms of the conservatorship it had entered. After the Hartford Courant ran a story about the case, calls began pouring in from lawyers across the country representing people in similar situations. The mounting legal challenges eventually prompted Fannie Mae to announce a moratorium on all post-foreclosure evictions. At the time, there were 10,000 such cases pending nationwide.

D'Ambrose, a former Peace Corps volunteer whose desk is cluttered with manila folders and thank-you cards from various clients she's served, beams with pride when talking about the case. But she hasn't had much time to savor her success: she is among the lawyers at Greater Hartford Legal Aid who were recently laid off, and she is searching for work while trying to stomach leaving an agency swamped with need. "We already turn away a lot of people; now we'll turn away that many more," she says.

Unlike D'Ambrose, Sudha Acharya, executive director of the South Asian Council for Social Services, hasn't had to thumb through any help-wanted ads lately. She's just taken a 50 percent pay cut that, along with a 15 percent cut imposed on her staff, has enabled her agency to keep its doors open, for now. Located on the ground floor of a brick building on a noisy commercial drag in Flushing, Queens, SACSS is the sort of agency most at risk of not making it through the downturn: a shoestring operation that could disappear tomorrow with few people noticing, save for the hundreds of South Asian immigrants who rely on it for job training courses and healthcare workshops that help clients navigate a byzantine system even many native New Yorkers find impenetrable. (Among people in the state without health benefits, fully half are eligible but either don't know they are or can't figure out how to apply.)

Acharya says her organization stays afloat on a mix of foundation support, corporate donations, individual contributions and community funds but is seeing money from all sources dry up. The agency recently had to scrap an English-language class it had been offering in the Bronx; it has kept other services intact despite receiving no money for them. I ask her who else in her circles is feeling strained. "Everybody," she says with a sigh. One of the groups with which Acharya's agency partners is the Community Service Society (CSS) of New York, a 160-year-old advocacy and direct service organization for low-income residents. Its president, David Jones, describes the forces that are making the work of charitable groups like his seem like an increasingly Sisyphean task: on the one hand, cash-strapped cities and states slashing programs; on the other, private foundations reducing outlays by as much or more. Jones's colleague Frank Kortright works with a network of nonprofits that help tenants in New York City avoid eviction. The network has been fielding more and more calls lately from high-income residents it rarely heard from in the past. Yet CSS recently had its city funding sliced in half. Jones says similar cuts are "in the offing" from foundations. He sits on the board of one that "just voted for a 60 percent cut in their amounts."

Some of the losses that soup kitchens, homeless shelters and job training centers are experiencing may soon be offset as money from the stimulus bill trickles down from Washington to agencies that contract with state and local government, says Lester Salamon, director of the Center for Civil Society Studies at Johns Hopkins University. But the relief won't spread to everyone: cultural institutions such as museums and orchestras rely mainly on charitable donations and the sale of tickets and subscriptions. Many are canceling exhibits and shows. The situation is similarly dire for advocacy organizations that don't take government money and are now competing for a limited--in some cases, nonexistent--pool of funds. A few months ago, Madeline deLone, director of the Innocence Project, which has pioneered the use of DNA technology to overturn wrongful convictions, was sitting in a meeting when her communications director burst through the door. It was mid-December, and the details of Bernard Madoff's spectacular $50 billion Ponzi scheme were just coming to light. On the phone was a reporter who wanted the Innocence Project's reaction to the revelation that among Madoff's victims was the JEHT Foundation, a leading funder of criminal justice reform. The news was a surprise to deLone, who rushed to her computer, clicked on an e-mail that had landed in her in-box that morning and learned that nearly half the Innocence Project's foundation support--12 percent of its overall budget--was gone. With it went the possibility that some prisoners serving time for crimes they did not commit would ever get the chance to prove it. "What we do is DNA testing, and many states don't have evidence-retention statutes," says deLone, "so the longer it takes for us to get to cases, the less likely the evidence will be there. Clearly, there will be cases where the biological evidence we could have tested will be destroyed between today and the time we can get to the case."

Elisa Massimino, executive director of Human Rights First, learned about the collapse of JEHT a few days after receiving a multiyear, $2.4 million grant from the foundation. "It was an earthquake," she tells me. Days later came the equally jolting news that the Picower Foundation, with an endowment of $1 billion, was also shutting down, likewise courtesy of Madoff. It had just pledged $250,000 to Human Rights First to fund a program for indigent refugees seeking asylum. "We're not disappearing, but we've got to find a way to do more with less," says Massimino. "Every organization I've talked to is going through this."

Thanks to the transformation of the political landscape, the work of many liberal advocacy groups has lately become easier. As the ACLU's Romero puts it, "Ashcroft never met with me; [Attorney General Michael] Mukasey never met with me." Now, he says, "the lines are hugely open...it's night and day." On the other hand, to the extent that their voices are muted because of a lack of resources, advocates of progressive change risk missing an opportunity that might not come around again. This is the concern of Gara LaMarche, head of The Atlantic Philanthropies, one of the largest, most socially progressive foundations in the country. LaMarche cites healthcare as an example. "If healthcare reform is going to pass, it will probably be this year," he says. "Healthcare is not something you can say, 'OK, it's a bad year; we'll put it off until 2010 or 2011'--it's now or never." On this and a host of other issues, the early months of the Obama administration are likely to be critical, which is why, despite losses suffered by his foundation's endowment, LaMarche plans to increase giving in the short term and to lend support to advocacy organizations reeling from the collapse of other foundations. As part of this effort, The Atlantic Philanthropies and the Open Society Institute agreed in December to match donations made by members of MoveOn.org to four groups--Human Rights Watch, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Brennan Center for Justice and the Advancement Project--that had lost money through investment funds Madoff controlled.

The initiative, which raised $1.2 million, could inspire similar collaborations, though it just as easily may not. The Atlantic Philanthropies is a "spend down" foundation whose mandate is to give away all its assets by 2018. The Open Society Institute is the philanthropic arm of billionaire financier George Soros. Neither operates off an asset base designed to last in perpetuity, as is the case with many foundations that have seen their endowments shrink by 20 to 30 percent over the past few months. Some of these foundations are calling for the creation of a revolving-loans fund, backed by the government, that would provide urgently needed capital to social service and cultural institutions they can't support. Among the speakers at a recent Congressional briefing where this idea was aired was Diana Aviv, president of the Independent Sector, a coalition of foundations and charities, and Ford Bell, president of the American Association of Museums.

At a time when taxpayer dollars have been showered on banks, such a fund seems like the least the government could do for a sector whose leaders did not push for reckless deregulation or pay themselves exorbitant bonuses in recent years. But others argue that the responsibility for supporting endangered nonprofits should fall to foundations, which still command billions of dollars in assets and are accorded nonprofit status in part because it is assumed that self-preservation is not their primary goal. "Large institutions have choices," says Rick Cohen, former head of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. "Do they husband their resources for their own purposes, or do they say, 'At this time we are called on to do more'? As social institutions, aren't they obligated to step up to the plate?"

Pablo Eisenberg, a professor at Georgetown University and columnist for The Chronicle of Philanthropy, echoes this view, pointing to Bill Gates. "In his recent letter, Gates said he's going to increase his giving to 7 percent of net returns," says Eisenberg, "yet the foundation world opposes mandating that everyone must give at least 6 percent because they have to exist in perpetuity. Says who? The frontline defense of nonprofits should be foundations that support nonprofits."

Some prominent foundations are heeding these calls. The MacArthur Foundation has disbursed $68 million in emergency grants to mitigate the subprime mortgage crisis in Chicago, boosted funding for the arts and front-loaded donations to human rights organizations even as its endowment has been depleted, a response Jonathan Fanton, its president, declines to depict as outsize in its generosity. "In 2003 we had about $3.8 billion in assets," Fanton tells me. "We got up to nearly $7 billion, and now we're at $5.2 billion. So the endowment is off maybe 20 percent, but if you see a starting point of 3.8 and you're now at 5.2, you don't feel so poor."

"We're giving back some of the extraordinary gains we earned," he continues, "and I think it's important for some institutions to hold steady and say, 'You can count on us; we're not going to reduce our investment in human rights, affordable housing, all the rest.' Maybe if other foundations did the same, it would begin to ease the fear and panic."

Some fallout in the nonprofit sector may be inevitable. And there may even be some benefit in forcing grant recipients to think hard about how to use their resources, a question that was easy to put off when the inflated stock market caused the level of giving to swell. Nonprofit agencies love to portray themselves as mission-driven operations staffed by underpaid idealists who never think about themselves, but the field also has its share of organizations that lack a clear mission and sometimes seem more concerned with burnishing their image than advancing social change or meeting their clients' needs. If such groups are forced to rethink their priorities or close their doors, it might not be a bad thing. "Has there been a nonprofit bubble along the lines of the market bubble?" asks Gara LaMarche. "Probably, and it's beginning to burst. Are there too many small groups? Are the bigger groups as creative and intelligent with their resources as they could be? Do turf issues tend to get in the way of joint ventures? These conversations may be driven by crisis, but out of it could come some more effective ways of doing things."

There is another question people tend to put off when too much money is swishing around--namely, how much even a wealthy society like the United States can realistically expect of the nonprofit sector. Few politicians in recent years issued warnings about the danger of relying too much on private charities to help the poor--these charities were, after all, the widely heralded alternative to the welfare system, whose defects came to represent the evils of big government. But today, the number of Americans receiving cash assistance through what remains of the welfare system has fallen to a forty-year low despite spiraling unemployment, a disparity that prompted Ron Haskins, a former Republican Congressional aide who helped craft the welfare reform law, to tell the New York Times that even he has become "concerned." The Times story appeared the day I met with David Jones of the Community Service Society, who shared this concern but was not surprised. "Responsibility for the poor was a government function in the Great Depression and Roosevelt's time," said Jones. "Now more and more people who lose their jobs turn to charity because we've off-loaded the responsibility to not-for-profits and made it so difficult and cumbersome for people to receive benefits."

A few days after I saw Jones, I spoke to Doris Koo, president of Enterprise Community Partners, a nonprofit that provides development capital and expertise to help build affordable low-income housing. Until the Reagan era, this, too, had been a responsibility of government. As funding for public housing dwindled, an alternative system of tax credits was established that offered investors incentives to float capital to nonprofit developers constructing housing for the poor. A $9 billion industry quietly arose that has poured the concrete, hung the drywall and placed hundreds of thousands of tenants in decentralized low-income housing units, hardly enough to meet the overall demand but a significant achievement that many view as an improvement over the large, crime-infested projects that used to be the only option for the poor.

Last year, however, the flow of capital suddenly dried up, turning a $9 billion industry into a $4 billion one and leaving nonprofit developers with half-finished projects that are in limbo. "What we've got are these diligent community-based organizations in New Orleans, Harlem and the Bronx that are in a twilight zone situation," said Koo. "They have a debt obligation, and they've acquired land that can produce no income because they can't finish the project--there's zero capital."

"So groups are panicking," she went on. "Some are coming to us to ask for extensions on loans, some are selling anything they can to raise capital to finish their projects--many of which are shovel-ready--and some have gone under." The story illustrates how much community-based nonprofits can achieve, but also how vulnerable they can be to the vagaries of the market. What might save some of those shovel-ready projects? As it happens, $2.25 billion will soon begin flowing to states through something called the HOME Investment Partnerships Program, which draws its funding from a much-vilified source that many bankers and investors have lately come to view in a more positive light: the federal government.

About Eyal Press

Eyal Press is a Nation contributing writer and the author of Absolute Convictions: My Father, a City, and the Conflict That Divided America (Picador)

Tips for Traveling with Twitter

Twitter—and its logo—are often seen on travelers' laptops and phones.

By Janelle Nanos

Photo by Simon Oxley/iStockphoto.com

The popular micro-blogging site is a handy tool for world roamers.

Twitter is a bona fide phenomenon, an obsession of Ashton and Oprah, and, as it happens, a terrific tool for travel. The free online social network service not only allows you to pose travel questions to your followers, but it's also been known to subvert communist firewalls and served as a lifeline for sharing information during the recent post-election conflict in Iran. As of this summer, the site was getting 20 million U.S. visitors a month. Here's how to tap into its travel potential.

What is it anyway? Twitter is a free micro-blogging platform that allows you to post short 140-character updates (that's about 25 words) to the Web for your "followers" to see. The site also lets you "follow" other people. So instead of making an expensive phone call to Mom letting her know you landed safely in Peru, you can update her, and your followers, in real time. ("Crying baby next to me on flight, but arrived in Lima in one piece.")

Before You Leave Get insider information about your destination by finding experts or groups to follow. You can search for the place either by typing its name into the search under the "Find People" tab, or by using a hashtag, which attaches a hash symbol as a prefix to any topic, allowing people to search for it easily (for example, #peru, or #travel). This will help you identify local experts and official tourism bureaus such as Portland, Oregon, which has set up a Twisitor Center—@travelportland—that allows travelers to pose questions and get recommendations from staffers.

Finding the Deals Many travel companies and airlines now use Twitter to broadcast discounts and deals, especially late-breaking ones. Marriott (@MarriottIntl) has offered Twitter-specific contests and giveaways to promote deals.

Getting the Tweet Out There are many ways to update your Twitter feed while traveling. One method is to set up your Twitter account to accept updates via text messages from your phone. (If you're traveling internationally, check Twitter's help pages to find out how to send messages when abroad and what your phone carrier charges for international text messaging.) You can beat some of those costs by downloading a free application for Web-enabled phones, like TwitterBerry for the BlackBerry and Twitterfon for the iPhone. Similarly, TwitPic is an application that allows you to send photos to Twitter.

The New Guidebook? Some travelers are setting guidebooks aside and relying instead on the tweeting masses to plan their itineraries. Earlier this year, Guardian reporter Benji Lanyado embarked on a "TwiTrip," asking his Twitter followers to guide him on hotel reservations, coffee shops, and museums around Paris, while Paul Smith became a Twitchiker, using the kindness of those on Twitter to put him up as he traveled from the U.K. to New Zealand. You need not take things as far, but Twitter can be helpful if you're looking for recommendations, whether for restaurants or local events. Of course, it's best not to become too dependent on technology. "You've got to find the balance," says Twitter user Sheila Beal (@GoVisitHawaii), who warns of "twittering so much that you're not living the moment, which is akin to seeing your vacation through the camera viewfinder." Don't focus so much on the small screen that you miss the big picture.

Follow Us on Twitter Get travel news and tips from the Traveler staff and other departments of the Society: @NatGeoTraveler, @IntelligentTrav, @Marilyn_Res,@NorieCicerone, @Elliottdotorg,@AmyTravels ,@Janelle_IT_Blog, @SOKeefeTrav, @NGSTravelEditor, @Stefan_Art, @Don_George, @NatGeoSociety@NatGeoMusic,@NatGeoMaps.