Obama Offers Tribute to ‘a Defender of a Dream’

By JEFF ZELENY

OAK BLUFFS, Mass. — President Obama on Wednesday praised the life and legacy of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, calling him “one of the most accomplished Americans ever to serve our democracy.”

“His ideas and ideals are stamped on scores of laws, reflected in millions of lives,” Mr. Obama said. “In seniors who know new dignity, in families who know new opportunity, in children who know education’s promise — and in all who can pursue their dream in an America that is more equal and more just, including myself.”

Meanwhile, other tributes poured in from across the political spectrum and from around the world.

An era of Democratic politics and 30 years separated Mr. Obama and Mr. Kennedy, but they grew exceedingly close during the presidential race last year, when Mr. Kennedy’s endorsement provided a critical lift to Mr. Obama’s candidacy. They last saw each other nearly five months ago, but aides said they spoke occasionally by phone, largely about the president’s challenge in remaking the nation’s health care system.

The president did not mention legislation during a brief televised statement. It was premature, administration officials said, to know if the senator’s death would change the course of a bitter Congressional debate on health care.

“His extraordinary life on this earth has come to an end. His extraordinary work lives on,” Mr. Obama said, speaking from the Blue Heron Farm in the town of Chilmark. “For his family, he was a guardian. For America, he was a defender of a dream.”

Word that Mr. Kennedy had succumbed to brain cancer reached Mr. Obama as he vacationed on Martha’s Vineyard, just across the Nantucket Sound from the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port. An aide woke up the president with the news shortly after 2 a.m. He conveyed his condolences in a telephone call to Mr. Kennedy’s wife, Vicki, at about 2:25 a.m., said Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary.

An American flag, which was lowered to half-staff shortly after sunrise in Oak Bluffs, waved in the breeze against the backdrop of the rippling Atlantic. Residents and tourists on this tiny Massachusetts island gathered around televisions in cafes to watch coverage of the senator’s death.

“His fight has given us the opportunity that was denied us when his brothers John and Robert were taken from us,” Mr. Obama said, “the blessing of time to say thank you and goodbye.”

Funeral arrangements have not been announced, but aides said Mr. Obama would deliver a eulogy at the funeral Mass. It is a bookend to his first appearance with Mr. Kennedy at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, when Mr. Obama was preceded on stage in Boston for his national political debut by Mr. Kennedy in a symbolic showcase of the party’s dean and its new generation.

“I valued his wise counsel in the Senate, where, regardless of the swirl of events, he always had time for a new colleague,” Mr. Obama said earlier Wednesday in a statement. “I cherished his confidence and momentous support in my race for the presidency.”

The decision by Mr. Kennedy, the patriarch of the Democratic Party, to support Mr. Obama’s candidacy served as a critical moment in the long primary fight with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. For weeks, the Clintons had implored Mr. Kennedy to stay neutral in the race, but on Jan. 28, 2008, he said he grew troubled by the tone of the campaign and issued his endorsement before campaigning across the country on Mr. Obama’s behalf.

His decision to back Mr. Obama created a significant rift with former President Bill Clinton, associates of both men have said, which forever changed their relationship. Mr. Kennedy appeared with Mr. Obama at American University in Washington, asking Democrats “to turn the page on the old politics of misrepresentation and distortion.”

“He will be a president who refuses to be trapped in the patterns of the past,” Mr. Kennedy said that day, interrupting his speech more than once to embrace Mr. Obama. “He is a leader who sees the world clearly without being cynical.”

Mr. Obama told friends that appearing with Mr. Kennedy and other members of the family at American University was among his favorite moments of the campaign.

As Mr. Kennedy’s battle with brain cancer wore on in recent months, he would occasionally speak by telephone to Mr. Obama. There was considerable speculation that during Mr. Obama’s vacation to Martha’s Vineyard this week, he would visit Mr. Kennedy and his family, but aides said the senator’s condition was too grave and a presidential visit would be too disruptive.

“For five decades, virtually every major piece of legislation to advance the civil rights, health and economic well being of the American people bore his name and resulted from his efforts,” Mr. Obama said in his statement on Wednesday morning. He added, “The Kennedy family has lost their patriarch, a tower of strength and support through good times and bad.”

Mr. Obama is scheduled to vacation on Martha’s Vineyard through Sunday. Aides said that there were no immediate plans for him to visit the Kennedy family, but his schedule was pending until funeral arrangements for the senator were announced.

Others across the political landscape, both in the U.S. and abroad, echoed the president’s sentiments early Wednesday.

Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada and the Senate majority leader, said: “The Kennedy family and the Senate family have together lost our patriarch... . The liberal lion’s mighty roar may now fall silent, but his dream shall never die.”

But Mr. Kennedy’s death also evoked impassioned expressions of sympathy and respect from across the aisle.

A senior Senate Republican, Orrin Hatch of Utah, said, “I have to say there are very few people in my lifetime that I’ve had more respect, and now reverence, for, than Ted Kennedy.” He called the late lawmaker “an iconic, larger-than-life United States senator whose influence cannot be overstated.”

Former President Jimmy Carter, who won the 1980 Democratic presidential nomination after a bitter contest with Mr. Kennedy, called the senator “a passionate voice for the citizens of Massachusetts and an unwavering advocate for the millions of less fortunate in our country”; another former president, George H.W. Bush, called him “a seminal figure in the United States Senate.” And Nancy Reagan, wife of former President Ronald Reagan, said: “Given our political differences, people are sometimes surprised by how close Ronnie and I have been to the Kennedy family. But Ronnie and Ted could always find common ground, and they had great respect for one another. In recent years, Ted and I found our common ground in stem cell research, and I considered him an ally and a dear friend. I will miss him.”

Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain lauded Mr. Kennedy for his devotion to public service, even in the face of adversity. “Even facing illness and death he never stopped fighting for the causes which were his life’s work,” he said.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of Australia said Mr. Kennedy had “made an extraordinary contribution to American politics, an extraordinary contribution to America’s role in the world.”

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain called Senator Kennedy “a great and good man” who had inspired “admiration, respect and devotion, not just in America but around the world.”

He lauded Mr. Kennedy for his efforts to promote peace in Northern Ireland: “I saw his focus and determination firsthand in Northern Ireland, where his passionate commitment was matched with a practical understanding of what needed to be done to bring about peace and to sustain it. I was delighted he could join us in Belfast the day devolved government was restored. My thoughts and prayers today are with all his family and friends as they reflect on the loss of a great and good man.”

Ted Kennedy: Family senator, patriarch, dead at 77

By DAVID ESPO (AP) – 35 minutes ago

WASHINGTON — In the quiet of a Capitol elevator, one of Edward M. Kennedy's fellow lawmakers asked whether he had plans for a family Thanksgiving away from the nation's capital. No, the Massachusetts senator said with a shake of his head, and mentioned something about visiting his brothers' gravesites at Arlington National Cemetery.

In his half-century in the public glare, Kennedy was, above all, heir to a legacy — as well as a hero to liberals, a foil to conservatives, a legislator with few peers.

Alone of the Kennedy men of his generation, he lived to comb gray hair, as the Irish poet had it. It was a blessing and a curse, as he surely knew, and assured that his defeats and human foibles as well as many triumphs played out in public at greater length than his brothers ever experienced.

He was the only Kennedy brother to run for the White House and lose. His brother John was president when he was assassinated in 1963 a few days before Thanksgiving; Robert fell to a gunman in mid-campaign five years later. An older brother, Joseph Jr., was killed piloting a plane in World War II.

Runner-up in a two-man race for the Democratic nomination in 1980, this Kennedy closed out his failed candidacy with a speech that brought tears to the eyes of many in a packed Madison Square Garden.

"For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end," he said. "For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die."

He was 48, older than any of his brothers at the time of their deaths. He lived nearly three more decades, before succumbing to a brain tumor late Tuesday at age 77.

___

That convention speech was a political summons, for sure. But to what?

Kennedy made plans to run for president again in 1984 before deciding against it. By 1988, his moment had passed and he knew it.

He turned his public energies toward his congressional career, now judged one of the most accomplished in the history of the Senate.

"I'm a Senate man and a leader of the institution," he said more than a year ago in an Associated Press interview. He left his imprint on every major piece of social legislation to pass Congress over a span of decades. Health care, immigration, civil rights, education and more. Republicans and Democrats alike lamented his absence as they struggled inconclusively in recent months with President Barack Obama's health care legislation.

He was in the front ranks of Democrats in 1987 who torpedoed one of President Ronald Reagan's Supreme Court nominees. "Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, children could not be taught about evolution," he said at the time.

It was a single sentence that catalogued many of the issues he — and Democrats — devoted their careers to over the second half of the 20th century.

A postscript: More than a decade later, President Clinton nominated a former Kennedy aide, Stephen Breyer, to the high court. He was confirmed easily.

___

There were humiliations along the way, drinking and womanizing, coupled with the triumphs that the Kennedy image-makers were always polishing. After the 1980 presidential campaign, Camelot took another hit when he divorced. He later remarried, happily.

In later years came grumbling from fellow Democrats that his political touch had failed him, and that he was too eager to strike a deal with President George W. Bush on education and Medicare.

"I believe a president can make a difference," he said over and over in that campaign of 1980, at a time the country was suffering from crushing combination of high interest rates, inflation and unemployment.

But it wasn't necessary to be a president to make a difference, or to try.

He once startled a Republican senator's aide, tracking her down by phone in Poland, part of an attempt to complete a bipartisan compromise.

For years, he left the Capitol once a week to read to a student at a nearby public school as part of a literacy program.

When a longtime Senate reporter fell terminally ill, Kennedy dispatched one of his watercolors to her room in a nursing home, and cheered her with chatty phone calls.

___

Kennedy took up painting in earnest after a plane crash that broke his back in the mid-1960s and led to a lengthy convalescence. Much of his work hangs in his Senate office, several seascapes or images of sailboats of the type he piloted in the waters off Cape Cod.

The walls of other rooms are filled with political and personal memorabilia, family photographs or letters or some combination of the two that hint at the passage of time and power.

In one room hangs a photo showing Kennedy and his siblings and parents in a family portrait taken in the 1930s, at a time their father, Joseph P. Kennedy, was U.S. ambassador to England.

In another hangs a plaque from the USS John F. Kennedy, the Navy vessel commissioned in 1968 and named for the slain president.

In another, the letter he wrote his mother, Rose, teasingly accusing her of having covered up a deficiency in math. No, she wrote back firmly in pencil, she always got an A.

Elsewhere, this:

"To Dad. Thank you for helping me get ahold of that first rung," wrote his son, Patrick, after winning a seat in the Rhode Island Legislature in 1990. The parent had dispatched aides to Providence to help assure victory for the child, now an eighth-term member of Congress.

___

There were other, far more public ways that Kennedy became the family standard bearer.

Robert Kennedy had spoken of the assassinated president at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. Four years later, he, too, was dead, and this time the last surviving brother delivered the eulogy.

"My brother need not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life," his voice trembled at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York. "He should be remembered simply as a good and decent man who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it."

A generation later, John Kennedy Jr., who had been a toddler when his father was in the White House, died in a small plane crash off Martha's Vineyard. This eulogy invoked the words of William Butler Yeats, the poet: "We dared to think, in that other Irish phrase, that this John Kennedy would live to comb gray hair. But like his father, he had every gift but the gift of years."

___

"Thank you my friend for your many courtesies. If the world only knew," reads a letter hanging on one wall of the office. It came from Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi, once the Senate's top Republican.

As the most prominent liberal of his day, Kennedy was long an easy and popular target for Republicans. The automobile accident that resulted in the death of a young Pennsylvania woman, Mary Jo Kopechne, drew snickers both before and after it shadowed his presidential campaign in 1980. Kennedy was driving the car in the accident at Chappaquiddick.

It is a cliche, yet true, that if his name was invaluable in Democratic fundraising, conservatives long ago discovered they could generate cash simply by telling donors they were doing battle with Kennedy.

Kennedy understood that, and knew how to turn it to his own advantage.

When a Moral Majority fundraising appeal somehow arrived at his office one day in the early 1980s, word leaked to the public, and the conservative group issued an invitation for him to come to Liberty Baptist College if he was ever in the neighborhood.

Pleased to accept, was the word from Kennedy.

"So I told Jerry (Falwell) and he almost turned white as a sheet," said Cal Thomas, then an aide to the conservative leader.

Dinner at the Falwell home was described as friendly.

Dessert was a political sermon on tolerance, delivered by the liberal from Massachusetts.

"I believe there surely is such a thing as truth, but who among us can claim a monopoly?" Kennedy said from the podium that night. "There are those who do, and their own words testify to their intolerance."

___

More than a quarter-century later, he was still eager to make a difference. At a critical point in the 2008 presidential race, he endorsed Barack Obama over Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination, then embarked on an ambitious schedule of campaign appearances.

He cast his endorsement in terms that linked Obama to the Kennedys.

"There was another time, when another young candidate was running for president and challenging America to cross a new frontier," he said.

"He faced criticism from the preceding Democratic president, who was widely respected in the party," Kennedy said.

"And John Kennedy replied: 'The world is changing. The old ways will not do. ... It is time for a new generation of leadership.'"

___

That endorsement came a few months before the seizure that signaled the presence of a deadly brain tumor. There were memorable public moments ahead, a surprise visit to the Senate to cast the decisive vote on a Medicare bill and, before that, a turn at the podium at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

"As I look ahead, I am strengthened by family and friendship," he said there last summer. "So many of you have been with me in the happiest days and the hardest days. Together we have known success and seen setbacks, victory and defeat.

"But we have never lost our belief that we are all called to a better country and a newer world," he said. "And I pledge to you, I pledge to you that I will be there next January on the floor of the United States Senate when we begin the great test."

His time in the Senate was growing short, though. He smiled broadly as he took his seat outdoors at Obama's inauguration on Jan. 20, then suffered a seizure a few hours later at a luncheon inside the capitol.

"He was there when the Voting Rights Act passed" in the mid-1960s, the nation's first black president said moments later in his remarks. "And so I would be lying to you if I did not say that right now a part of me is with him. And I think that's true for all of us."

___

Generations of aides recall Kennedy telling them the biggest mistake of his career was turning down a deal that President Richard M. Nixon offered for universal health care. It seemed not generous enough at the time. Having missed the opportunity then, Kennedy spent the rest of his career hoping for an elusive second chance.

Now, some Democrats wonder privately if the party can learn from that lesson, and take what is achievable rather than risk everything by reaching for what it uncertain. Republicans and Democrats alike say Kennedy's absence has affected the debate on Obama's signature issue, with unknown consequences.

It was the issue that motivated him even after he was no longer able to travel to the Capitol to cast a vote. He called it "the cause of my life."

And in July, in a reflection on his own mortality, he worried that his precarious health might mean Massachusetts would have only one senator for a brief while, and Democrats would be handicapped as they tried to pass health care legislation.

After 47 years in the Senate — in a seat held by his brother before him — Kennedy urged a change in state law so the governor could appoint a temporary replacement "should a vacancy occur."

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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UMA LULIK: Inauguração do Acervo Bibliográfico do Instituto Internacional para o Intercâmbio e Estudos Asiáticos

Na imagem: Kirsty Sword Gusmão e A. Barbedo de Magalhães
(Foto © Uma Lulik | Margarida Az)

Síntese

"A Biblioteca da Faculdade de Engenharia do Porto passa a albergar cerca de 2500 obras sobre Timor Leste, a Indonésia e a Política Internacional relacionada com a questão Timorense. A inauguração do acervo decorre no dia 18 de Junho, pelas 11h00, e conta com a presença de Kirsty Sword Gusmão, presidente da ALOLA Foundation, Antoninho Baptista Alves, Director do Arquivo & Museu da Resistência Timorense, e representantes da Fundação Mário Soares [Alfredo Caldeira] e da Galp Energia [Fernando Gomes], entre outros. [...]" (site da Faculdade de Belas Artes | Universidade do Porto)

Na imagem: Professor A. Barbedo de Magalhães, Presidente do IASI; Professor Carlos Costa, Director da FEUP; Drª. Kirsty Sword Gusmão, ; Dr. Fernando Gomes, Administrador da GALP Energia; Antoninho Baptista Alves, "Hamar", Director do Arquivo & Museu da Resistência Timorense e; Dr.ª Ana Azevedo, Directora da Biblioteca da FEUP. (Foto © Uma Lulik | Margarida Az)

Discurso de

Kirsty Sword Gusmão *

pela altura da inauguração do Acervo Bibliográfico do IASI ** FEUP ***

Porto, 18 de Junho de 2009

"O papel da solidariedade portuguesa e da solidariedade australiana na luta pela autodeterminação e pela dignidade do Povo Timorense

É para mim um prazer e uma grande honra estar hoje aqui, na presença de um dos mais reverenciados e admirados amigos, o Professor António Barbedo de Magalhães, e na companhia dos estudantes da Universidade do Porto.

Os amigos de Timor-Leste e a sua aposta na autodeterminação são originários de muitas partes do mundo, incluindo Portugal e Austrália. No caso da Austrália, o principal alvo da nossa campanha pela justiça para o povo de Timor-Leste foi o nosso governo, e a sua cumplicidade na anexação e ocupação desde o princípio.

No caso de Portugal, sucessivos governos e o povo tinham um objectivo comum e ombreavam no seu objectivo de libertar Timor-Leste da opressão e ditadura. O movimento de solidariedade global uniu povos, comunidades e organizações de todo o mundo, fomentando amizades duradouras, parcerias e alianças, muitas delas intactas e florescentes ainda hoje.

A minha primeira visita a Portugal em 1995 aconteceu como resultado do meu envolvimento pessoal no movimento da resistência e deu origem a toda uma série de ligações, pessoais e organizacionais, que continuam a beneficiar-me e a Timor-Leste até hoje. O evento em que eu participei em 1995, em Lisboa, foi a Conferência Inter-Parlamentar sobre Timor -Leste, organizada pelo meu amigo António Barbedo de Magalhães.

Tal como a independência trouxe novos desafios ao povo e aos líderes de Timor-Leste, assim também ter amigos do país obriga a adaptar o seu apoio e intervenções a todo um conjunto de novas circunstâncias e necessidades. O meu marido tem dito, em muitas ocasiões ao longo dos últimos 10 anos, que a independência exige que o povo timorense desenvolva uma nova marca de patriotismo, uma melhor adequação às necessidades actuais do nosso país. Hoje em dia exigimos dos nossos amigos muito mais do que apenas paixão e indignação pelas injustiças sofridas no passado.

Precisamos de assistência concreta para o nosso processo de construção da nação sob a forma de assessoria técnica, formação e reforço das nossas instituições nacionais. Muitos de vós aqui presentes forneceram o apoio tão desesperadamente necessário, pelo qual vos agradeço em nome do povo do meu país de adopção. Desde a independência, alguns dos nossos amigos por todo o mundo convenceram-se de que as suas competências e orientação não combinavam com as nossas novas circunstâncias, e optaram por voltar a sua atenção para outras lutas nacionais pela paz e pela liberdade.

Infelizmente, muitas nações por todo o mundo ainda aspiram à libertação e nacionalidade alcançada pelo pequeno Timor-Leste e não faltam causas para apoiar.
Permitam-me, por um momento, focar-me na actualidade de Timor-Leste. Trata-se das realizações dos últimos 12 meses que eu gostaria de focar e partilhar convosco neste ponto. Como estou consciente de que, para alguns de vós, pelo menos, as últimas notícias que leram sobre Timor-Leste relatam histórias de turbulência, de raiva, de juventude descontente e toda uma litania de, aparentemente, irresolúveis problemas sociais.

No mês passado, Xanana, eu e os nossos filhos, juntamente com membros do Governo, funcionários públicos, jovens e crianças, fizemos uma marcha que começou no Palácio do Governo e terminou num parque no centro de Díli, em frente ao Hotel Timor, para celebrar a sua inauguração. Para aqueles de vós que estejam familiarizados com Díli, recordar-se-ão que este parque acolheu durante dois anos, a seguir à crise de 2006, muitas centenas de deslocados internos. Era um dos mais vergonhosos campos de IDP, com incidentes quase semanais, envolvendo jovens do campo que apedrejavam os transeuntes. Hoje, o parque denominado ‘Parque 5 de Maio’, é um belo e ajardinado local de diversões, com escorregas, baloiços e outros equipamentos para brincar, com recantos que convidam ao descanso e à reflexão. A transformação dum local evocativo de medo e conflitos numa zona de tranquilidade e recriação para as crianças e famílias é um símbolo das mais amplas mudanças e alterações ocorridas em Timor-Leste, que passa do conflito para a Paz e da Assistência de Emergência para o caminho do Desenvolvimento.

Em Timor-Leste, hoje, existe uma nova e crescente confiança pública nas nossas instituições democráticas.

Embora eu considere não ser minha função fazer a promoção do governo do meu marido, acho justo dizer que ele e os membros do 4º Governo Constitucional de Timor-Leste estão a fazer um bom trabalho. O país apresenta um crescimento sem precedentes de 12%, apesar da crise económica global, uma realização impressionante para um país que apenas tinha conhecido taxas de crescimento negativas ou muito baixas desde 2002. O Governo conseguiu executar mais do seu orçamento em um ano e meio do que a combinação de todos os governos ao longo dos cinco anos anteriores. Um sistema de acreditação das nossas instituições terciárias foi posto em prática e um plano de descentralização da administração do governo em todos os sectores tem sido gradualmente implementado. A formação de professores tem sido implementada a nível nacional e um programa escolar obrigatório de 9 anos foi anunciado. O Investimento em saúde, educação e agricultura duplicou em 2008.

Mas, o mais significativo de tudo tem sido a estabilidade do Governo para consolidar a Paz.

Agora, permitam-me voltar, por um minuto, ao assunto das mulheres e crianças em Timor-Leste uma vez que são a minha principal preocupação e paixão hoje em dia.
Existem enormes expectativas sobre as mulheres e as suas capacidades de contribuir para a vida económica e social das suas famílias e comunidades mas ainda não lhes são concedidos o reconhecimento e poder na vida pública e política. Desiguais relações de género, dentro da família, perpetuadas por valores tradicionais e patriarcais e costumes que contribuem também, significativamente, para a grande incidência de violência doméstica. Medo, falta de confiança no sistema judicial, falta de conhecimento dos direitos das vítimas e serviços de apoio limitados, tudo contribui para o facto de um largo número de casos de violência doméstica tendam a não ser divulgados. Tendo dito isto, a violência dentro de casa é hoje o mais reportado crime em Timor-Leste, representando aproximadamente 50% de todos os crimes que são alvo da atenção da nossa Força de Polícia Nacional. Eu fundei a Fundação Alola em Março de 2001com o objectivo de chamar a atenção local e internacional para os problemas da violência baseada no género em Timor-Leste. Entre outras coisas, a Fundação procura impulsionar a capacidade de um largo número de organizações de mulheres de aceder aos fundos e recursos que necessitam para responder às necessidades imediatas das mulheres na comunidade.

Como mãe de três filhos pequenos, tenho lutado contra a alta taxa de mortalidade materno-infantil, outra prioridade das minhas actividades. Como meio de apoio aos esforços do nosso Governo para melhorar a saúde das mães e crianças, fundei a Associação Nacional da Amamentação de Timor-Leste em Novembro de 2003. As vidas de um largo número de recém-nascidos podem ser salvas, todos os anos, se for praticada a amamentação exclusiva, uma vez que muitos deles morrem com má nutrição e infecções gastrointestinais causadas pela preparação de substitutos do leite materno em condições de insalubridade.

Como professora de formação e agora como Embaixadora da Boa-Vontade para a Educação, tenho dado particular atenção ao sector da educação no nosso país, em particular no que toca à participação das raparigas na escolaridade. Infelizmente, devido a pressões económicas e culturais, uma larga percentagem de raparigas não completam a escolaridade secundária. O programa de bolsas de estudo da Fundação Alola já apoiou centenas de jovens mulheres, por todo o país, para obterem uma educação básica e, portanto, competirem em pé de igualdade, com os homens, no mercado de trabalho e em lugares de educação superior.

Constitui uma grande preocupação minha e do nosso Ministro da Educação a qualidade dos serviços de educação que são prestados aos nossos jovens, que são a grande parte da população de Timor-Leste. Juntamente com o problema de infra-estruturas e recursos de ensino inadequados, enfrentamos um enorme desafio na capacitação dos nossos professores. Aproximadamente 85% dos nossos professores não têm formação ou qualificação formais, foram recrutados à pressa em 2000, para preencher o vazio deixado pelo êxodo no final de 1999 da maioria dos professores de origem indonésia. A complexidade da nossa realidade linguística também constitui um enorme impedimento para que as nossas crianças obtenham óptimos rendimentos educacionais. A nossa Constituição define o Português e o Tétum como as duas línguas oficiais da nossa nação, e ainda só uma pequena percentagem da nossa população, incluindo os nossos professores, fala, lê e escreve bem um destes idiomas. Para a maioria das crianças de Timor-Leste, o Português é a terceira ou quarta língua, e embora o desejo de aprender Português seja enorme entre os nossos professores e jovens, a realidade é que levará talvez uma geração para que a língua de Camões se enraíze na nossa sociedade e nas nossas escolas. Pela primeira vez na história o nosso povo está a ser encorajado a escrever e ler na sua língua nacional, Tétum. Uma ortografia normalizada para o Tétum tem sido desenvolvida pelo nosso Instituto Nacional de Linguística, mas os nossos jornalistas, professores, funcionários públicos e estudantes só agora estão a começar a aplicá-la.

Existe uma falta de recursos escolares de toda a espécie, mas particularmente trágica, a meu ver, é a escassez de materiais de leitura para jovens, em Tétum, a língua franca entre as nossas 16 línguas nacionais. Variadas instituições, principalmente em Portugal e na Austrália, estão a ajudar-nos a resolver esta situação, com currículos e textos relacionados e manuais de ensino desenvolvidos nos seus países para as nossas escolas primárias e secundárias e um conjunto de leituras para os alunos da pré-primária publicadas na Austrália pelo Instituto Mary MacKillop. Em Janeiro passado, a Fundação Alola publicou uma edição traduzida para Tétum do livro infantil, da famosa autora Australiana, Mem Fox, “Quem quer que sejas”. É nosso objectivo publicar pelo menos um título em cada ano, incluindo algumas edições bilingues de Tétum-Português. Os membros da nossa equipa do Programa de Educação conduzem acções de formação com professores de todo o país ensinando a ler para crianças e a usar livros na sala de aula. Mas, ainda temos um longo caminho a percorrer até que as nossas crianças e jovens tenham acesso a toda a gama de materiais de leitura e de aprendizagem que eles necessitam para fomentar uma cultura de leitura, para abrir os seus olhos para o mundo à sua volta e para melhorar drasticamente a qualidade da sua experiência educacional. Isto é vital se quisermos atingir os Objectivos de Desenvolvimento do Milénium com a inscrição universal em e conclusão da escolaridade primária até 2015.

Como Australiana de nascimento, preocupa-me que estes problemas da língua, escolhas de língua e desenvolvimento da língua parece ter conduzido a uma clivagem entre Austrália e Portugal, pelo menos no que diz respeito às relações e cooperação com Timor-Leste. A Austrália é frequentemente entendida como querendo impor a língua Inglesa em Timor-Leste e a verdade é que muitos australianos, na sua ignorância sobre a importância do legado do Português em termos culturais, históricos e linguísticos para o nosso povo, questionam a escolha do Português como língua oficial. Contudo, como dois dos mais importantes parceiros de Timor-Leste, as duas nações beneficiarão se abandonarem este debate e explorarem vias em que ambos possam cooperar mais eficazmente em direcção à conquista daquilo que é o nosso objectivo e sonho comum para Timor-Leste: uma vida de dignidade e verdadeira independência para o seu povo.

Obrigada."

_____________

* Drª. Kirsty Sword Gusmão, fundadora e presidente da Fundação Alola, Embaixadora de Timor para a Educação, presidente da Comissão Nacional da UNESCO de Timor-Leste, activista e defensora de Timor-Leste, companheira e mulher de Kai Rala Xanana Gusmão.

** International Institute for Asian Studies and Interchange/ Instituto Internacional para o Intercâmbio e Estudos Asiáticos

*** Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto

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Por: Margarida Az

Car bomb wounds 42 in Southern Thailand

Writer: AFP

Published: 25/08/2009

A powerful car bomb ripped through a restaurant packed with government officials in the southern province of Narathiwat on Tuesday, injuring at least 42 people, the army said.

The blast, about 12.30pm, was one of the most serious attacks for months in the insurgency-plagued provinces bordering Malaysia, where a violent separatist islamic rebellion has been raging for more than five years.

The 50-kilogramme device was hidden inside a stolen Toyota pick-up truck and exploded during the busy lunch hour in the centre of Narathiwat township, officials said.

"It's very horrible. We had intelligence that militants would mount a large-scale attack,'' Lt-General Pichet Wisaichorn, the southern region army commander, told reporters.

He said that seven of the 42 people injured in the blast were in a critical condition. Most of the wounded were Buddhist government officials and included the local government chief..

Police and rescue workers rushed the wounded to hospitals.

The timing of the attack just after the start of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan was "very interesting", said Sunai Phasuk, an analyst for Human Rights Watch in Thailand.

"We are in the holy month of Ramadan and the bomb went off clearly to harm the non-Muslim population,'' he said. "It shows the insurgents are avoiding causing collateral damage to their fellow Muslims, because they would come after the end of fasting [in the evening].''

He said this Ramadan was "marked with violence from day one''. Over the weekend, eight people, including two soldiers and three security volunteers, were killed by insurgents.

"It seems they use Ramadan to symbolise the cleansing of non-Malay Muslims,'' Mr Sunai added.

More than 3,700 people have been killed and thousands more injured since the insurgency erupted in January 2004, led by shadowy insurgents who have never publicly stated their goals.

The far South has seen a recent upsurge in attacks, many of which involve shootings of Buddhists and Muslims alike. There have also been gruesome killings such as crucifixions and beheadings.

Gunmen stormed a mosque in Narathiwat province in June, killing 11 people as they held evening prayers. A man whose familoy was killed by insurgents has been arrested.

While there were no immediate reports of deaths in Tuesday's attack, it was the biggest bomb attack in the south since twin blasts killed one person and wounded 70 in Narathiwat in November.

Thailand's four southernmost provinces made up an autonomous Malay Muslim sultanate until the region was annexed by predominantly Buddhist Thailand in 1902, sparking decades of tension.

Red Cross Officials Begin Talks with N. Korea

Red Cross officials from the two Koreas will meet today for three-day talks on arranging reunions between divided families after the North accepted South Korea's proposal yesterday amid thawing inter-Korean relations.

The reunion -- suspended for almost two years -- has been tentatively set for Chuseok, a traditional Korean holiday falling on Oct. 3 this year.

A South Korean delegation will be traveling to a hotel in North Korea's Mount Geumgang resort today for the meeting with their counterparts, according to Chun Hae-sung, spokesman for the Unification Ministry here.

The talks will mostly center on determining the number of participating families and also other related procedures, he said.

The North communicated its decision via a hotline at the truce village of Panmunjeom a week after Seoul attempted to follow up on North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's agreement to reunite families that were separated in the aftermath of the 1950-53 Korean War.

The Red Cross hotline, which had been severed under frayed inter-Korean ties, appears to have been permanently normalized, according to the Unification Ministry.

"The Red Cross talks, although perhaps not central to inter-Korean relations, will definitely help grease the wheels," said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies here.

He added that further high-level dialogue -- which he predicted to be imminent -- are necessary to touch on the more critical issues between the two Koreas, such as humanitarian aid.

"The Red Cross talks will be strictly limited to the reunions," Yang said.

The meeting -- the first of its kind in almost two years -- is a part of the series of signals North Korea has been transmitting to indicate its willingness to recover estranged ties with Seoul.

Reunions between the divided families of the two Koreas started following the landmark summit between late former President Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong-il in 2000.

Arranged by the Red Cross, the most recent round of reunions occurred in October 2007.

They were left suspended since then after relations between Seoul and Pyongyang languished under President Lee Myung-bak whose North Korean policies have demanded more reciprocity from Pyongyang.

The North further exacerbated the situation by executing a controversial rocket launch and conducting its second nuclear test -- all during this past year.

The tension seemed to subside after Pyongyang and Washington leaned toward mending fences starting in late July, with both sides now open for talks.

"The North knows it needs the South to better its ties with the United States," Professor Yang pointed out.

President Lee Myung-bak made similar remarks when a North Korean delegation arrived here last week for a rare visit to pay their respects to former president Kim Dae-jung.

So far, the Koreas have conducted 16 rounds of face-to-face reunions and seven rounds of video reunions to temporarily reunite over 23,000 South Koreans and around 12,500 North Koreans.

About 600,000 South Koreans reportedly have relatives north of the border.

Kim Jong-il, during a meeting with Hyundai Group Chairwoman Hyun Jeong-eun earlier this month, agreed to five clauses for resuscitating inter-Korean business collaboration including the family reunions.

Hyundai, the operator of key projects, suffered financial troubles after the tours to Mount Geumgang were shut down by the South Korean government following the death of a South Korean tourist who was shot down by a North Korean soldier in the resort.

The Gaeseong Industrial Complex also came under strain with South Korean companies becoming jittery on security concerns that were exacerbated when Pyongyang issued hefty monetary demands for providing land and workers for the complex.

Seoul is likely to give the green light for agreements between Hyundai and the North, especially since Washington expressed its willingness to accept the two projects via Philip Goldberg, its key coordinator on the implementation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1874.

Goldberg on Monday told reporters here that the projects will unlikely "impede" the implementation of the resolution, which was designed to repress the North with stringent sanctions for its second nuclear test.

But both Seoul and Washington continue to underscore their unwavering commitment to achieve complete and irreversible denuclearization of the North, indicating their determination not to repeat past mistakes by granting Pyongyang talks and easing sanctions too soon.

(jemmie@heraldm.com)

By Kim Ji-hyun

2009.08.26

LDP, DPJ using Net in campaign

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Both the Liberal Democratic Party and the Democratic Party of Japan have been using their Web sites to campaign for the House of Representatives election, despite the fact using the Internet for such purposes during an election is, in principle, prohibited under the Public Offices Election Law.

The ongoing situation poses the question of whether use of the Internet should be allowed for election campaigns, against a backdrop in which the Net has become an indispensible tool for exchanging information.

Article 142 of the law effectively bans the use of the Internet for election purposes during official campaign periods, stipulating that displaying campaign-related information on Web sites constitutes a dissemination of documents and images. The law prohibits distributing such material during campaign periods, except for party manifestos and certain kinds of leaflets.

However, the LDP, which currently is trailing in the election polls, has used its Web site to conduct negative campaigns targeting the DPJ.

The site has repeatedly been updated since Aug. 18, when the election was officially announced.

Many parts of LDP's Web site harshly criticize the DPJ, under such headings as "Are you aware that DPJ members' opinions differ widely?" "Is the DPJ really all right?" and "The DPJ and the Japan Teachers Union are firmly united. We can't entrust Japan to them."

Printed copies of these articles are distributed at LDP candidates' election offices and during speech meetings.

The LDP also has uploaded a new promotional video to its Web site since campaigning officially began.

"The DPJ's policies are full of faults," the LDP's chief public relations official said. "We can't allow such issues to go unaddressed."

Regarding the election law, the official said: "The material [on the Web site] is usually just policy promotion and [news of] political activities, so there's no problem. We're extremely careful not to display candidates' names."

The DPJ, too, has used its Web site to trace party activities, including following its top three party executives as they pay supportive visits to candidates across the nation and featuring photos of such events.

The site's "news" section has been renewed on a daily basis and transcriptions of the executives' speeches have been published on the site.

The DPJ's public relations chief said, "[As these items are] part of the party's political activities, we don't see that we're doing anything wrong."

Both the LDP and the DPJ interpret the election law to mean that their respective Web site activities do not constitute election campaigning as long as specific candidates are not mentioned.

The two parties will thus likely continue to use the Internet for campaign-related purposes.

Prior to the official announcement of the election, New Komeito published 16 video clips comprising five series on its Web site.

However, the party has said it has refrained from updating its site since the official start of the campaign, as it did during previous polls.

When asked about the parties' Net-based promotional activities, an official of the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry said: "Under the election law, it's only problematic if the parties ask the public to vote for a specific candidate or party.

"If the sites only address issues within the range of normal political activities, we can't immediately say that this constitutes an illegal act. The police decide whether such activities are against the law," the official added.

A bill to revise the law to liberalize the use of the Internet for election campaigns had been slated for submission as lawmaker-sponsored legislation during this year's ordinary Diet session. However, the bill was dropped, because LDP members failed to agree on it.

(Aug. 25, 2009)

Humanitarian Situation in N. Yemen Worsening

By Lisa Schlein Geneva 25 August 2009

Schlein report - Download (MP3)
Schlein report - Listen (MP3)

U.N. aid agencies report the humanitarian situation in Northern Yemen is worsening. They say fighting between Yemeni government forces and al Houthi rebels is continuing to escalate and approximately 119,000 people have been displaced.

U.N. aid agencies say insecurity in the conflict areas of Northern Yemen is making it very difficult for humanitarian workers to gain access to the needy population. They say it is difficult to obtain accurate information on the needs, the numbers and whereabouts of the displaced population.

They say the number of people who have been forced from their homes by fighting might be as high as 150,000.

U.N. refugee spokesman Andrej Mahecic says a dire and complex humanitarian emergency has worsened during the past few days. He says the UNHCR is particularly worried about the situation in Sa'ada city.

"UNHCR team in Sa'ada city reports there is not water and no electricity in the city since 10 August. There is also a shortage of fuel and it is becoming increasingly dangerous and hard for the people to reach the market and get food," said Mahecic. "Our staff on the ground had registered some 700 newly displaced families over the past two weeks. However, registration has been suspended due to the security situation inside the city and the 24 hour curfew."

Mahecic says the UNHCR is working with local authorities and other partners in building a new camp.

He says his agency distributed tents, plastic sheeting, blankets and jerry cans to some 6,000 people Monday and more relief items are expected to arrive in the area later in the week.

U.N. Children's Fund spokeswoman Miranda Eeles says, as in all conflicts, children and women are most affected by the escalation of fighting.

"With 73 children out of 1,000 live births dying before their 5th anniversary, Yemen has one of the highest under-five mortality rates in the Middle East and North Africa region," she said. "Malnutrition rates are also high, with 46 percent of under fives underweight and 53 percent suffering from stunting. So, as you can see, the conflict is exacerbating an already difficult situation for children in Yemen," she added.

The Sa'ada airport is closed, except for military operations and the United Nations says travel between the Yemeni capital San'a and Sa'ada is hampered by insecurity and road blocks.

The government recently announced it is considering establishing humanitarian corridors so aid agencies can bring relief supplies to the inaccessible conflict zones.

The United Nations has released from its emergency fund $1.2 million to Yemen. It plans to issue a much larger emergency appeal in the coming days.

Initial Afghan Election Results Show Incumbent President with Slight Lead

By Steve Herman Kabul 25 August 2009

Herman report - Download (MP3)
Herman report - Listen (MP3)
Video: Afghan Election Results - Download (WM)
Video: Afghan Election Results - Watch (WM)

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai is leading by just two percent, according to official, partial election results five days after millions of voters braved Taliban threats to cast ballots. Mr. Karzai has 40.6 percent of votes tabulated, while his closest challenger has 38.7 percent.

Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission says President Karzai is leading his closest rival by only 10,000 votes. The tallies released cover only 10 percent of the total and are partial results of 21 provinces, including the capital, Kabul.

Mr. Karzai has just under 213,000 votes while former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah has nearly 203,000 votes.

IEC spokesman Nur Mohammad Nur tells VOA News these initial results do not give any candidate a basis to declare victory.

"No, it is impossible because these are partial results," he said. "From today we start and we will update the media and the candidates. It is impossible to judge [who is the winner]."

Election officials say they will release more partial tallies each day this week.

Abdullah, in the meantime, is claiming he has videotape and documents that demonstrate that there were "millions" of fake ballots cast last Thursday.

"We will not allow a big fraud to decide the outcome of the elections. There is no doubt that state-crafted and engineered fraud has been under way," he said.

Abdullah urged his followers to remain calm and not resort to violence.

Six longshot presidential candidates are warning fraud claims threaten to undermine the election and could trigger violence in this country already torn by a Taliban insurgency.

One of the disgruntled contenders, former finance minister Ashraf Ghani, who is touted as a possible chief executive in the next administration, alleges gunmen told people to vote for Abdullah and officials stuffed ballot boxes in favor of the president.

VOA News asked presidential spokesman Humayun Hamidzada for the Karzai administration's reaction to the accusations.

"The allegations of fraud or any wrongdoing will be addressed by those competent authorities," he said. "We are not the ones addressing that. We will be providing the environment that the elections commission can do its job. So we will leave that to the elections commission."

Afghan voters will not receive word until September 3, at the earliest, as to who won the presidential election. The credibility of the announcement will depend greatly on the reported level of voter turnout in key parts of the country and the seriousness of claims of electoral fraud.

In southern Afghanistan, four American servicemen died when a roadside bomb exploded. The latest casualties make this year the deadliest for foreign forces in the country since the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban.

Chechen attack kills four police

Four police officers have been killed by a suicide bomber in the Russian republic of Chechnya, officials say.

The bomber reportedly walked up to a police car and blew himself in Mesker-Yurt, a town around 20km (12 miles) from the regional capital, Grozny.

Violence has continued despite Russian claims in April this year following a military campaign that Chechen rebels had been quelled.

Russian forces have been fighting separatists in Chechnya since 1994.

Chechen Interior Minister Ruslan Alkhanov said: "A suicide bomber blew up an improvised explosive device near a petrol station in Mesker-Yurt, in Shalinskiy District.

"His name is Magomed Shakhidov, who we detained in 2004, and who having served his time became engaged in terrorist activities."

The police officers who were killed were from the external security department in the town of Argun.

Three died at the scene and a fourth succumbed to his injuries later in hospital, said police.

Last Friday, two suicide bombers on bicycles killed four policemen in Grozny, in what the Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, said could have been aimed at killing him at a ceremony to mark his birthday.

Also, in neighbouring Ingushetia last week, suicide bombers killed 20 people and injured around 140 others.

Figures compiled by the BBC show that more than 400 people have died so far this year in the largely Muslim areas of Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan.

One regional expert says there is no doubt the insurgencies in Chechnya and Ingushetia are now on the rise, with increasing numbers of young men, some still teenagers, joining militant organisations.

Bodies found in Pakistan valley

The bodies of 22 suspected militants have been found in Pakistan's Swat valley in the past day, officials say.

Corpses allegedly began appearing several weeks ago. Officials said 18 were found in the region last week.

Local residents say the Pakistani security forces have been carrying out extra-judicial killings as part of their offensive against the Taliban.

The army and police have denied the accusations, saying locals could be behind the killings for "revenge".

A leading Pakistani human rights watchdog says it has received "credible reports of numerous extra-judicial killings and reprisals carried out by security forces".

"We call for a proper investigation to find out who killed them, who were the dead, whether they were militants, innocent people or bystander," IA Rehman, of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, told the Reuters news agency.

"We've already demanded an investigation but nothing has happened. It's a serious matter and must be looked into," he said.

'Blindfolded'

Three bodies were found in the Danagram area on the outskirts of Swat's central town of Mingora on Tuesday morning, a security official told BBC Urdu, bringing the total number discovered in the past day to 22.

“ Previously we were afraid of the Taliban. Now, we're afraid of the army ”
Mingora resident

He said the victims had not yet been identified.

On Monday, local officials said 19 corpses had been recovered from areas around the Malam Jabba road, north of Mingora.

Witnesses said most of the victims had been shot, some several times. They were blindfolded with their hands tied behind their backs, and dumped in fields or alleys.

"Previously we were afraid of the Taliban. Now, we're afraid of the army," one man told the Associated Press news agency.

Military officials have confirmed that the army has been conducting operations in areas where the bodies have been found.

A top government official in the region, Malakand division commissioner Fazal Karim Khattak, told the BBC that the appearance of the bodies had become a "puzzle".

But he rejected the local view that the security forces had been killing suspected Taliban fighters extra-judicially after detaining them.

"I have recommended to the provincial government to hold an inquiry into the circumstances that have led to these deaths," he said.

A military spokesman, Maj Gen Athar Abbas, said he believed the killings could have been the "result of revenge by local people".

"It could be a reaction to all that happened to the people in Swat," he said.

While the Taliban controlled the valley, militants dumped bodies of alleged collaborators on the streets to terrify people into submission, correspondents say.

Officials say people have been discovering unidentified bodies dumped in the Swat valley since mid-July, when internal refugees who had fled the area in April in the wake of the army offensive returned.

According to one estimate, more than 120 corpses have been found in total. Other officials believe the figure could be as high as 200.

Aid appeal

At the beginning of this year, the Pakistani government reached a peace deal with the Taliban, under which the militants were supposed to disarm in exchange for the implementation of Sharia law throughout the Malakand division, which includes the Swat valley.

But fighting erupted in April after the Taliban expanded their operations into districts only 96km (60 miles) from the capital, Islamabad, and the army accused them of reneging on the pact.

As the fighting intensified some two million people were displaced. Many of those started returning home in July after the army said it had largely secured the valley. Isolated skirmishes are continuing.

The government says more than 1,700 militants and 170 troops were killed in the fighting, and that the local militant leader, Maulana Fazullah, was seriously injured. The Taliban have denied the report, but not provided any evidence to prove that he is alive.

Earlier, Pakistan's foreign minister urged a group of donor countries to release billions of dollars in promised aid to help the government hold on to recent gains against the Taliban by winning hearts and minds.

Shah Mehmood Qureshi said the displaced had to be helped to return home and opportunities created for starting a new life - all of which required resources.

Meanwhile, the former French permanent representative at the United Nations in New York, Jean-Maurice Ripert, has been appointed the UN's special envoy for assistance to Pakistan.

Yahoo Retools Email, Messaging

By SCOTT MORRISON

SAN FRANCISCO -- Yahoo Inc. unveiled a series of upgrades to its email, instant messaging and Internet search pages, as the Internet portal tries to make its core Web properties more compelling to users.

Yahoo said Monday its redesigned email page will have more photo-sharing capabilities and social-networking functions, such as helping users monitor what friends and family are sharing online.

Yahoo said its new Messenger instant-messaging product has high-quality video calling capabilities that let users connect though full-screen, face-to-face chats.

Digits

• Yahoo Tries to Make Email More Social

The company also said it is working to develop a new search-page design to deliver results that are more relevant to users' queries.

For example, a query for "how to make sushi" will return organic search results and sponsored results, as well as a column containing links to sites that specifically provide information on how to prepare sushi dishes, says Larry Cornett, Yahoo's vice president of search products and design. This could include "how to" videos from Google Inc.'s YouTube, viewable within Yahoo's search results page.

Yahoo has been under pressure to respond to the rapidly growing popularity of social networking sites, such as Facebook Inc. Despite attracting nearly 500 million unique users a month, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company said in July its second-quarter revenue fell 13% as its online advertising business continued to deteriorate.

Yahoo said upgrades to email were being rolled out to U.S. users Monday and to the rest of the world in coming weeks. The latest Messenger version is being launched globally Monday. Yahoo's redesigned search is still being tested and will be rolled out later this year. The upgrades are all free to users.

Write to Scott Morrison at scott.morrison@dowjones.com

China Outdoes U.S. in Making Solar Products

By KEITH BRADSHER

WUXI, China — President Obama wants to make the United States “the world’s leading exporter of renewable energy,” but in his seven months in office, it is China that has stepped on the gas in an effort to become the dominant player in green energy — especially in solar power, and even in the United States.

Chinese companies have already played a leading role in pushing down the price of solar panels by almost half over the last year. Shi Zhengrong, the chief executive and founder of China’s biggest solar panel manufacturer, Suntech Power Holdings, said in an interview here that Suntech, to build market share, is selling solar panels on the American market for less than the cost of the materials, assembly and shipping.

Backed by lavish government support, the Chinese are preparing to build plants to assemble their products in the United States to bypass protectionist legislation. As Japanese automakers did decades ago, Chinese solar companies are encouraging their United States executives to join industry trade groups to tamp down anti-Chinese sentiment before it takes root.

The Obama administration is determined to help the American industry. The energy and Treasury departments announced this month that they would give $2.3 billion in tax credits to clean energy equipment manufacturers. But even in the solar industry, many worry that Western companies may have fragile prospects when competing with Chinese companies that have cheap loans, electricity and labor, paying recent college graduates in engineering $7,000 a year.

“I don’t see Europe or the United States becoming major producers of solar products — they’ll be consumers,” said Thomas M. Zarrella, the chief executive of GT Solar International, a company in Merrimack, N.H., that sells specialized factory equipment to solar panel makers around the world.

Since March, Chinese governments at the national, provincial and even local level have been competing with one another to offer solar companies ever more generous subsidies, including free land, and cash for research and development. State-owned banks are flooding the industry with loans at considerably lower interest rates than available in Europe or the United States.

Suntech, based here in Wuxi, is on track this year to pass Q-Cells of Germany, to become the world’s second-largest supplier of photovoltaic cells, which would put it behind only First Solar in Tempe, Ariz.

Hot on Suntech’s heels is a growing list of Chinese corporations backed by entrepreneurs, local governments and even the Chinese military, all seeking to capitalize on an industry deemed crucial by China’s top leadership.

Dr. Shi pointed out that other governments, including in the United States, also assist clean energy industries, including with factory construction incentives.

China’s commitment to solar energy is unlikely to make a difference soon to global warming. China’s energy consumption is growing faster than any other country’s, though the United States consumes more today. Beijing’s aim is to generate 20,000 megawatts of solar energy by 2020 — or less than half the capacity of coal-fired power plants that are built in China each year.

Solar energy remains far more expensive to generate than energy from coal, oil, natural gas or even wind. But in addition to heavy Chinese investment and low Chinese costs, the global economic downturn and a decline in European subsidies to buy panels have lowered prices.

The American economic stimulus plan requires any project receiving money to use steel and other construction materials, including solar panels, from countries that have signed the World Trade Organization’s agreement on free trade in government procurement. China has not.

In response to this, and to reduce shipping costs, Suntech plans to announce in the next month or two that it will build a solar panel assembly plant in the United States, said Steven Chan, its president for global sales and marketing.

“It’ll be to facilitate sales — ‘buy American’ and things like that,” Mr. Chan said, adding that the factory would have 75 to 150 workers and be located in Phoenix, or somewhere in Texas.

But 90 percent of the workers at the $30 million factory will be blue-collar laborers, welding together panels from solar wafers made in China, Dr. Shi said.

Yingli Solar, another large Chinese manufacturer, said on Thursday that it also had a “preliminary plan” to assemble panels in the United States.

Western rivals, meanwhile, are struggling. Q-Cells of Germany announced last week that it would lay off 500 of its 2,600 employees because of declining sales. It and two other German companies, Conergy and SolarWorld, are particularly indignant that German subsidies were the main source of demand for solar panels until recently.

“Politicians might ask whether this is still the right way to do this, German taxpayers paying for Asian products,” said Markus Wieser, a Q-Cells spokesman.

But organizing resistance to Chinese exports could be difficult, particularly as Chinese discounting makes green energy more affordable.

Even with Suntech acknowledging that it sells below the marginal cost of producing each additional solar panel — that is, the cost after administrative and development costs are subtracted — any antidumping case, in the United States, for example, would have to show that American companies were losing money as a result.

First Solar — the solar leader, in Tempe — using a different technology from many solar panel manufacturers, is actually profitable, while the new tax credits now becoming available may help other companies.

Even organizing a united American response to Chinese exports could be difficult. Suntech has encouraged executives at its United States operations to take the top posts at the two main American industry groups, partly to make sure that these groups do not rally opposition to imports, Dr. Shi said.

The efforts of Detroit automakers to win protection from Japanese competition in the 1980s were weakened by the presence of Honda in their main trade group; they expelled Honda in 1992.

Some analysts are less pessimistic about the prospects for solar panel manufacturers in the West. Joonki Song, a partner at Photon Consulting in Boston, said that while large Chinese solar panel manufacturers are gaining market share, smaller ones have been struggling.

Mr. Zarrella of GT Solar said that Western providers of factory equipment for solar panel manufacturers would remain competitive, and Dr. Shi said that German equipment providers “have made a lot of money, tons of money.”

The Chinese government is requiring that 80 percent of the equipment for China’s first municipal power plant to use solar energy, to be built in Dunhuang in northwestern China next year, be made in China.

Dr. Shi said his company would try to prevent similar rules in any future projects.

The reason is clear: almost 98 percent of Suntech’s production goes overseas.

Cleaning of Puget Sound Brings Tribes Full Circle

By WILLIAM YARDLEY

SEATTLE — When contractors were bidding for federal stimulus money designated to help clean up Puget Sound, a few skeptical competitors asked Jeff Choke how much experience his dive team had in addressing pollution here.

“I’d say, ‘We’ve been doing it since the day the settlers first showed up,’ ” Mr. Choke said as he steered an aluminum skiff out of Shilshole Bay on an overcast afternoon recently.

Mr. Choke is a member of the Nisqually Indian tribe, one of many tribes that fished for salmon in Puget Sound for centuries before Europeans arrived and began aggressively fishing with large commercial nets that depleted populations of Chinook, sockeye and other kinds of salmon. Now the Nisqually tribe has a dive team that is part of a $4.6 million stimulus-financed effort to remove fishing nets that were lost or discarded decades ago but can still kill fish, birds and other animals.

Mr. Choke said that although having Indians get involved in the project might make for compelling symbolism given the longstanding tensions over how their way of life was altered by settlers, what the project really offers is a chance for the storyline to move beyond old debates.

“We want to diversify,” Mr. Choke said, referring to the tribe’s expanding business interests, which include casino gambling and the harvesting of geoduck clams in the sound, a pursuit that first led the tribe to start its dive team.

“Everyone has had a part in this,” Mr. Choke said, “and to clean this up, it takes both sides.”

The net-removal project is being organized by the Northwest Straits Initiative, a conservation agency authorized by Congress. The project is being held up by its supporters as an example of environmental restoration that creates jobs — about 40 in the next 18 months, many of them for divers — and has a measurable impact.

Before being awarded the stimulus money, the initiative had spent seven years piecing together small grants to slowly remove nets that were lost to rocky seafloors or artificial structures in the area’s historic fishing grounds.

“In many cases, it’s layer upon layer of net,” said Ginny Broadhurst, the director of the initiative.

With more than 3,000 nets believed to be underwater, the project was expected to take many more years to complete. Now, however, Ms. Broadhurst said the group is getting four boats up and running at sites like the San Juan Islands in the north of the sound to tribal fishing grounds in the south. The work should be finished by the end of next year.

“The ocean faces lots of problems, from acidification, the ocean becoming more acidic, to the water temperature rising and a slew of other problems, but marine debris is something that we can do something about,” said Nir Barnea, a manager in the marine debris program for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agency that distributed the stimulus money. “This project, for example, we can complete the removal of just about all nets in Puget Sound.”

The project follows earlier net removal efforts in Alaska, Hawaii and other states.

In Puget Sound, the removal of the nets follows major changes; fish populations have declined, restrictions have increased and the fishing industry is a small fraction of what it was in the 1970s and 1980s.

Because the fishery is much smaller, Ms. Broadhurst said, the number of nets that will be lost in the future “is going to be really minimal as compared with that historic high.”

Her group has spent years surveying the sound to identify lost nets for removal. Jeff June, a field manager for the project, said the group has a database containing 584 locations of lost nets, with some locations containing several nets. Divers have found skeletons of harbor seals and porpoises tangled in nets; more often they encounter countless crabs, starfish and small fish trapped in the monofilament, which became more common in the 1970s. Those nets do not degrade the way older nets of hemp and other materials do.

When the nets are lost, said Mr. Barnea of the federal agency, “they keep on doing what they were designed to do.”

Steve Sigo owns the boat that the Nisqually tribe’s dive team has been using for its recent dives off Point Jefferson on the Kitsap Peninsula, across Puget Sound from Shilshole Bay in Seattle. Mr. Sigo, a member of the Squaxin Island tribe, said if he were not helping to remove nets he would probably be fishing for salmon, particularly given the strong runs reported this year. But Mr. Sigo, joined by his 12-year-old son, Andrew, said he planned to stick with the net-removal project as long as he could.

“My first year was ’74 fishing commercially, and so I’ve lost nets,” Mr. Sigo said. “I’ve fished up in this area, fished the San Juans, fished everything, so it’s kind of nice to be on the cleanup end of it instead of the losing-the-net end of it. It’s kind of neat because it’s kind of full circle to get this opportunity.”

With Libya Ties Strained, U.S. Has Limited Options

By ELISABETH BUMILLER

WASHINGTON — For days, members of the Obama administration have expressed outrage and threatened consequences for Libya’s welcoming celebration of the man convicted in the 1988 Lockerbie airline bombing that killed 189 Americans.

But United States officials conceded Monday that there was little they could do and that there remained the potential for an awkward encounter between President Obama and the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, at the United Nations General Assembly in September.

“It’s not like we can send in the 82nd Airborne,” said a United States official who, like others in this article, requested anonymity to speak about the limited options available to the Obama administration.

Administration officials said the Libyan welcome last week of Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the only person convicted in the Pan Am jet bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people, sharply strained the already uneasy American relationship with Libya. Yet the practical implications of the strain were unclear.

Ian C. Kelly, the State Department spokesman, told reporters on Monday that the United States was “going to be watching very closely how they receive this man and, if they continue to lionize him in a public fashion, that these kinds of public demonstrations can only have a profoundly negative effect on our relationship.”

Pressed on what he meant by a “profoundly negative effect” — and whether Washington was considering sanctions against Libya — Mr. Kelly replied that “it’s premature for me to say that we’re actually sitting down and considering concrete actions that we would take.”

A senior administration official characterized the Libyan welcome of the bomber as a setback in relations between the United States and Libya, but said that it was too early to determine how the Obama administration would respond beyond angry words. The official also noted that it was August and that much of the administration, including the president, was not in town.

The United States government lifted economic sanctions against Libya and restored diplomatic ties after Libya gave up its nuclear and chemical weapons program under the Bush administration in late 2003. An American Embassy was opened in Tripoli, and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited in 2008, the first time the nation’s top diplomat had been to the Libyan capital since a visit by John Foster Dulles in 1953.

But Libyan officials have said recently that they are dissatisfied that the United States has not done more in return for Libyan concessions, like providing civilian nuclear technology and some conventional weapons systems. Libyans have also been upset about a State Department report that strongly criticized the country’s record on human rights.

Obama administration officials have responded that the Libyans are unrealistic in their expectations of how quickly the relationship will improve.

Mr. Megrahi, 57, a former Libyan intelligence agent who has terminal cancer, was released on compassionate grounds by Scotland last week and returned to Libya to a jubilant welcome, despite American demands that he not be treated like a hero.

Mr. Obama called the release a “mistake,” and Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, called the arrival scene in Tripoli “outrageous and disgusting.” Mr. Megrahi had served 8 years of a 27-year-minimum sentence.

Administration officials said the next hurdle for the United States would be at the United Nations on Sept. 24, when the 15-nation Security Council is to meet on the subject of nuclear proliferation and disarmament. As part of a regular rotation, the United States will lead the session; Libya is one of 10 nonpermanent members on the Council.

Administration officials said that Mr. Obama, who is to serve as the chairman of the meeting, had no plans to meet with Colonel Qaddafi, who is expected to represent Libya at the session. But they predicted discussions within the administration about how to manage the choreography of the session. Part of the meeting is to be in an open chamber where every word and gesture will be covered by the news media.

“If he happens to be in the same forum, there’s very little we can do about it,” said another administration official.

Wikipedia Will Limit Changes on Articles About Living People

By NOAM COHEN

Wikipedia, one of the 10 most popular sites on the Web, was founded about eight years ago as a long-shot experiment to create a free encyclopedia from the contributions of volunteers, all with the power to edit, and presumably improve, the content.

Now, as the English-language version of Wikipedia has just surpassed three million articles, that freewheeling ethos is about to be curbed.

Officials at the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit in San Francisco that governs Wikipedia, say that within weeks, the English-language Wikipedia will begin imposing a layer of editorial review on articles about living people.

The new feature, called “flagged revisions,” will require that an experienced volunteer editor for Wikipedia sign off on any change made by the public before it can go live. Until the change is approved — or in Wikispeak, flagged — it will sit invisibly on Wikipedia’s servers, and visitors will be directed to the earlier version.

The change is part of a growing realization on the part of Wikipedia’s leaders that as the site grows more influential, they must transform its embrace-the-chaos culture into something more mature and dependable.

Roughly 60 million Americans visit Wikipedia every month. It is the first reference point for many Web inquiries — not least because its pages often lead the search results on Google, Yahoo and Bing. Since Michael Jackson died on June 25, for example, the Wikipedia article about him has been viewed more than 30 million times, with 6 million of those in the first 24 hours.

“We are no longer at the point that it is acceptable to throw things at the wall and see what sticks,” said Michael Snow, a lawyer in Seattle who is the chairman of the Wikimedia board. “There was a time probably when the community was more forgiving of things that were inaccurate or fudged in some fashion — whether simply misunderstood or an author had some ax to grind. There is less tolerance for that sort of problem now.”

The new editing procedures, which have been applied to the entire German-language version of Wikipedia during the last year, are certain to be a topic of discussion this week when Wikipedia’s volunteer editors gather in Buenos Aires for their annual Wikimania conference. Much of the agenda is focused on the implications of the encyclopedia’s size and influence.

Although Wikipedia has prevented anonymous users from creating new articles for several years now, the new flagging system crosses a psychological Rubicon. It will divide Wikipedia’s contributors into two classes — experienced, trusted editors, and everyone else — altering Wikipedia’s implicit notion that everyone has an equal right to edit entries.

That right was never absolute, and the policy changes are an extension of earlier struggles between control and openness.

For example, certain popular or controversial pages, like the ones for the singer Britney Spears and for President Obama, are frequently “protected” or “semi-protected,” limiting who, if anyone, can edit the articles.

And for seven months beginning in November, The New York Times worked with Wikipedia administrators to suppress information about the kidnapping of David Rohde, a correspondent in Afghanistan, from the article about him. The Times argued that the censorship would improve his chances of survival. Mr. Rohde escaped from his Taliban captors in June, but the episode dismayed some Wikipedia contributors.

The new system comes as some recent studies have found Wikipedia is no longer as attractive to first-time or infrequent contributors as it once was.

Ed H. Chi of the Palo Alto Research Center in California, which specializes in research for commercial endeavors, recently completed a study of the millions of changes made to Wikipedia in a month. He concluded that the site’s growth (whether in new articles, new edits or new contributors) hit a plateau in 2007-8.

For some active Wikipedia editors, this was an expected development — after so many articles, naturally there are fewer topics to uncover, and those new topics are not necessarily of general interest.

But Mr. Chi also found that the changes made by more experienced editors were more likely to stay up on the site, whereas one-time editors had a much higher chance of having their edits reversed. He concluded that there was “growing resistance from the Wikipedia community to new content.”

To other observers, the new flagging system reflects Wikipedia’s necessary acceptance of the responsibility that comes with its vast influence.

“Wikipedia now has the ability to alter the world that it attempts to document,” said Joseph Reagle, an adjunct professor of communications at New York University whose Ph.D. thesis was about the history of Wikipedia.

Under the current system, it is not difficult to insert false information into a Wikipedia entry, at least for a short time. In March, for example, a 22-year-old Irish student planted a false quotation attributed to the French composer Maurice Jarre shortly after Mr. Jarre’s death. It was promptly included in obituaries about Mr. Jarre in several newspapers, including The Guardian and The Independent in Britain. And on Jan. 20, vandals changed the entries for two ailing senators, Edward M. Kennedy and Robert C. Byrd, to report falsely that they had died.

Flagged revisions, advocates say, could offer one more chance to catch such hoaxes and improve the overall accuracy of Wikipedia’s entries.

Foundation officials intend to put the system into effect first with articles about living people because those pieces are ripe for vandalism and because malicious information within them can be devastating to those individuals.

Exactly who will have flagging privileges has not yet been determined, but the editors will number in the thousands, Wikipedia officials say. With German Wikipedia, nearly 7,500 people have the right to approve a change. The English version, which has more than three times as many articles, would presumably need even more editors to ensure that changes do not languish before approval.

“It is a test,” said Jimmy Wales, a founder of Wikipedia. “We will be interested to see all the questions raised. How long will it take for something to be approved? Will it take a couple of minutes, days, weeks?”

Mr. Wales began pushing for the policy after the Kennedy and Byrd hoaxes, but discussions about a review system date back to one of the darkest episodes in Wikipedia’s history, known as the Seigenthaler incident.

In 2005, the prominent author and journalist John Seigenthaler Sr. discovered that Wikipedia’s biographical article connected him to the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy, a particularly scurrilous thing to report because he was personally close to the Kennedy family.

Since then, Wikipedians have been fanatical about providing sources for facts, with teams of editors adding the label “citation needed” to any sentence without a footnote.

“We have really become part of the infrastructure of how people get information,” Mr. Wales said. “There is a serious responsibility we have.”