Starting Points

Sep 8, 2009

British Court Convicts Three in Plot to Blow Up Airliners - NYTimes.com

LONDON — After two trials and the largest counterterrorism investigation in Britain’s history, three men were found guilty on Monday of plotting to bomb at least seven trans-Atlantic airliners on a single day with liquid explosives smuggled aboard in soft-drink bottles and detonated by devices powered with AA batteries.

The convictions came three years after the global airline industry was thrown into chaos by the plot. The bombers’ plan to drain plastic soft-drink bottles with syringes and refill them with concentrated hydrogen peroxide, a bleaching agent also used as a propellant for rockets, led to new measures prohibiting passengers from carrying all but small quantities of liquids and creams onto flights.

With those measures still in force and causing backups at airport security checkpoints around the world, the police and intelligence agencies in Britain and the United States had waited anxiously for verdicts in the six-month trial at Woolwich Crown Court in London, where eight men were accused of conspiracy to stage the airliner bombings.

Prosecutors said the plot could have killed at least 1,500 people aboard the targeted planes, which by that measure would have made it second only to the Sept. 11 attacks as the most serious terrorist plot in modern history.

“Apart from massive loss of life, these attacks would have had enormous worldwide economic and political significance,” John McDowall, Scotland Yard’s counterterrorism chief, said after the verdicts.

In Washington, the Obama administration praised the verdict on Monday.

“British authorities have worked diligently to investigate and prosecute those involved in the 2006 aviation plot,” Mike Hammer, a National Security Council spokesman, said via e-mail. “We congratulate them on those efforts and extend our thanks to the British government for seeing these efforts through to today’s conclusion.”

Last year, a trial failed to reach verdicts on the airliner-bombing charges against the defendants then being tried. So the stakes were especially high in the second trial for the main agencies involved in uncovering the London plot, including Scotland Yard and Britain’s secret intelligence agencies, MI5 and MI6, as well as the C.I.A., the National Security Agency and the F.B.I., among American agencies involved.

The significance was all the greater because there have been no trials yet of anyone directly involved in the Sept. 11 attacks.

After arrests in the liquid-explosives case were made in August 2006, documents found at the plotters’ homes and on a computer memory stick belonging to the plot ringleader showed that they had earmarked airline schedules for seven flights leaving London for New York, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, Montreal and Toronto, with aircraft operated by American Airlines, United Airlines and Air Canada. Evidence at the trial showed that the plot aimed to detonate the bombs nearly simultaneously, with the aircraft over the Atlantic.

The plotters’ intent, intelligence officials said, was to show that security measures adopted after Sept. 11 were insufficient to foil the kind of low-technology, “asymmetric” attacks favored by Islamic extremists in their war with the West. Evidence at the London trial showed that several of the plotters, like those of Sept. 11, had traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan for indoctrination and training by extremist groups linked to Al Qaeda.

The jury found three men guilty of conspiring to kill passengers and crew members aboard the flights: Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 28, named by prosecutors as the plot’s ringleader; Tanvir Hussain, 28; and Assad Sarwar, 29, who was identified at the trial as the “quartermaster” of the plot, responsible for acquiring the explosives, detonators and other equipment and assembling them at a “bomb factory” in a London suburb.

A total of eight men were in the dock during the six-month trial. Four of the eight — Ibrahim Savant, 28; Arafat Waheed Khan, 28; Waheed Zaman, 25; and Donald Stewart-Whyte, 23 — were found not guilty of plotting to bomb the airliners. The eighth man, Umar Islam, 31, was found guilty of an alternative charge of conspiracy to commit murder, the charge on which Mr. Ali, Mr. Hussain and Mr. Sarwar were convicted at the first trial that ended in September 2008.

The men who were convicted will be sentenced Monday.

The jury in the second trial failed to reach a verdict on the charge of conspiracy to commit murder in the case of Mr. Savant, Mr. Khan and Mr. Zaman. It acquitted Mr. Stewart-Whyte, who was said by defense lawyers at the trial to have converted from Christianity to Islam only four months before his arrest.

The Crown Prosecution Service, responsible for filing charges in criminal cases, said after the verdicts that it would review the jury’s failure to reach verdicts in the three cases of conspiracy to commit murder, and decide whether to seek a third trial in the case.

Scotland Yard officials estimated the total cost of the case at more than $60 million, another factor that weighed heavily as the verdicts came in. Over the weekend, there had been fears the trial would end, like the first, with a hung jury on the key charges of plotting to bomb airliners. As the jury reached the end of a second week of deliberations, the judge called the jurors into court on Friday and told them he would accept 10-to-2 majority verdicts if they were unable to reach unanimous decisions, allowable under British law.

Behind the scenes, the case caused major strains between American and British intelligence agencies and investigators. The Americans were deeply involved from the start because of the role that American electronic intercepts played in uncovering the plot, and because the principal targets were American planes and passengers.

But officials familiar with the case said there were bitter disputes over the arrests in 2006, with the Americans saying they believed that the British, who staked out the conspirators for months, waited too long to round them up, raising the risk of an attack. The British, by contrast, were angered by the American pressure, which they said forced them to make the arrests before they had all the evidence necessary to ensure convictions.

A major stumbling block at both trials was that British court procedures do not allow the use of intercepted telephone conversations and other electronic intercepts. Television documentaries shown in Britain have included secret police videotapes showing some of the plotters engaged in what appeared to be preparatory work on the bombs at the suburban London bomb factory and discussing the destructive potential of the bombs.

Mr. Ali and several other defendants testified at the trial that they had never intended to bomb airliners, but planned what they called “a political stunt,” involving setting off minor explosions in garbage bins outside airline offices in Terminal Three of Heathrow airport, the London base for the three airlines they earmarked in the flight schedules. Their purpose, they said, was to frighten people, not to kill them.

But experiments by British explosives experts cited in court found that the bombs the plotters planned to use could blow aircraft apart at 30,000 feet.

Prosecutors showed the court extensive evidence showing how the men bought material for the bombs, and how some of it, including the hydrogen peroxide, was hidden in woods outside a town northwest of London. The jury was also shown so-called martyrdom videos prepared by two of the plotters, Mr. Ali and Mr. Hussain.

A common theme in the videos was exacting revenge on Britain and the United States for their interference in Muslim countries, especially the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“We have warned you enough,” Mr. Ali said. “We have warned you again and again to leave our lands.” In his video, Mr. Hussain said his only regret was that “I can’t come back and do this again and again until people come to their senses and realize, ‘Don’t mess with the Muslims.’ ”

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington.

Sep 7, 2009

4500 Filipino Child Laborers Harvest Sugar for U.S. Markets (End Human Trafficking - Change.org)

By Amanda Kloer

Published September 07, 2009 @ 08:06AM PT

This week, over 6800 child laborers were rescued in the Philippines. They were exploited in a number of industries, from domestic service to commercial sex to selling drugs. But the vast majority -- over 4500 -- were being exploited on sugarcane plantations. Filipino authorities say these kids are only a tiny fraction of the over 4 million estimated to be enslaved or exploited in labor in the Philippines, in part to sell cheaper sugar to the U.S.

Sugarcane plantations can be extremely dangerous for children, and many work brutally long days with no breaks and little to eat. They cannot go to school, thus ensuring the plantation owners whole generations of workers who have no options other than the plantation and feel increasingly trapped in their situation. They are often take away from their families and forced to live on the plantations. Some of the children are slaves -- trapped by debt or the threat of violence and unable to leave. Others have the freedom to leave, but nowhere to go and no other viable ways to feed themselves and their families. Either way, it's exploitation of children that allows plantations to churn out cheaper sugar.

So where is all this sugar harvested by these Filipino kids going? Well, at least 500,000 metric tons of it are going to the U.S. every year. In fact, earlier this year the U.S. agree to import more sugar from the Philippines than ever before. This was good news for Filipino Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) head Rafael Coscolluela, who said in December 2008 that the Philippines is "in for hard times in the next two years and it’s time for belt tightening for the sugar sector.” He also said the Philippine sugar industry must “become more efficient to lower production cost.” I have to wonder if there is a connection between the "belt-tightening" measures the Filipino sugar industry put into place last year in order to sell more to the U.S. and the 4500 kids who were rescued from plantations several months later. How many plantation owners and operators cut costs by cutting the pay or food of children? How many cut costs by firing paid adult workers and enslaving children to take their places?

Filipino sugar is grown by exploited child laborers, and sold to U.S. markets. This isn't abuse taking place overseas and far away, it's abuse being packaged into a bag of sugar and sold in U.S. supermarkets. Maybe it's being sold in your supermarket. This is exactly why it's important to know where your products come from and ask pointed questions of companies and governments. You have a right to demand sugar produced without exploitation of children. And when you exercise that right? Well now that's sweet.

Photo credit: Raw sugar bowl by Ayelie

VOA News - Jakarta May Be Largely Protected From Indonesia's Deadly Quakes

By Katie Hamann
Jakarta
07 September 2009

Hamann report - Download (MP3)

Hamann report - Listen (MP3)

As the hunt for those killed in last week's Indonesian earthquake continues, residents of the capital, Jakarta, are wondering if their city could be at risk for bigger, more dangerous quakes. Despite the sharp, frightening shaking that the city experienced last week, experts say massive damage is unlikely.

Indonesian geologist stands near LCD screens displaying one of the aftershocks following a 7.2-magnitude quake, at Meteorology and Geophysics Agency in Jakarta (File)

Jakarta has been rattled by earthquakes on numerous occasions. They may cause pulses to quicken but usually they are greeted with nervous laughter and calm evacuations.

But for some the quake on September 2 was very different. The intensity of the quake, which rocked the city for more than a minute, caught many off guard.

At least 18 people were admitted to hospitals in Jakarta, some of them with injuries sustained as they evacuated buildings. Legs were broken and one person was severely injured during stampede as panicked shoppers and office workers surged out of buildings.

But the crowded city is more fortunate than much of the country, which sits atop tectonic plates that frequently slam together to cause massive earthquakes. Indonesia's 18,000 islands are part of the Pacific Rim of Fire, which stretches from the North and South American western coasts across the Pacific. It is particularly vulnerable to earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis.

Jakarta itself does not sit on a geological fault line. Geologists say that means it is likely the city will only ever feel the effects of earthquakes with epicenters more than 100 miles away.

Fauzi, who goes by one name, heads the earthquake and tsunami unit of Indonesia's Meteorology and Geophysics Agency. He says it is unlikely that quakes in the capital would be catastrophic.

"The center of the earthquake is not available in Jakarta," said Fauzi. "What we have is only receiving impact from the source of the earthquake somewhere south in parts of Java."

Fauzi says many people panicked unnecessarily last week and public education campaigns are needed to teach people how to respond to earthquakes.

Jakarta requires buildings over four stories to be able to withstand magnitude 7 quakes.

Adang Surahman, an earthquake engineering expert at Indonesia's Bandung Institute of Technology, says most of Jakarta's high-rises have been built to withstand what scientists refer to as the once in 500-year quake.

"Buildings in Jakarta are built to withstand horizontal acceleration of about 10 percent of gravity and this earthquake which just happened yesterday maybe about five percent of gravity," said Surahman.

Visions of soaring high-rises crumbling may grip the imagination but Surahman says it is the smaller one and two storey dwellings that are most vulnerable in places like Indonesia.

"Majority of buildings in Indonesia are non-engineered buildings, including maybe in Jakarta," added Surahman. "Let's say one-, maybe two-story buildings are not necessarily designed properly. That is my concern."

It is in these dwellings that most Indonesians live and, when large earthquakes strike, often die.

Most of those killed in last week's earthquake died when a landslide triggered by the quake swept boulders as big as trucks across a dozen homes in the village of Cikangkareng. More than 30 people remain missing there.

The government says as many as 88,000 people have been displaced by the disaster.

Raw Data: Obama Speech to American School Children - Political News - FOXNews.com

Image by Christopher S. Penn via Flickr

The following are prepared remarks from President Obama's Back to School Event scheduled for Tuesday in Arlington, Virginia:

The President: Hello everyone - how's everybody doing today? I'm here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we've got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I'm glad you all could join us today.

I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it's your first day in a new school, so it's understandable if you're a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you're in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could've stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.

I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn't have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday - at 4:30 in the morning. Now I wasn't too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I'd fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I'd complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, "This is no picnic for me either, buster."

So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I'm here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I'm here because I want to talk with you about your education and what's expected of all of you in this new school year.

Now I've given a lot of speeches about education. And I've talked a lot about responsibility.
I've talked about your teachers' responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn. I've talked about your parents' responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don't spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.

I've talked a lot about your government's responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren't working where students aren't getting the opportunities they deserve.

But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world - and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.
And that's what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.

Every single one of you has something you're good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That's the opportunity an education can provide.

Maybe you could be a good writer - maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper - but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor - maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine - but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.

And no matter what you want to do with your life - I guarantee that you'll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You're going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can't drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You've got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.

And this isn't just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you're learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.

You'll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You'll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You'll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.

We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don't do that - if you quit on school - you're not just quitting on yourself, you're quitting on your country.

Now I know it's not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.

I get it. I know what that's like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn't always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn't fit in.

So I wasn't always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I'm not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.

But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn't have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.

Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don't have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there's not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don't feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren't right.

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life - what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you've got going on at home - that's no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That's no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That's no excuse for not trying.

Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up. No one's written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future. That's what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.

Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn't speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.

I'm thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who's fought brain cancer since he was three. He's endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer - hundreds of extra hours - to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he's headed to college this fall.

And then there's Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she's on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.

Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren't any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.

That's why today, I'm calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education - and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book.

Maybe you'll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you'll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you'll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn.

And along those lines, I hope you'll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don't feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.

Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.
I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you're not going to be any of those things.

But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won't love every subject you study. You won't click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won't necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

That's OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who've had the most failures. JK Rowling's first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

These people succeeded because they understand that you can't let your failures define you - you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn't mean you're a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn't mean you're stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.

No one's born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You're not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don't hit every note the first time you sing a song. You've got to practice. It's the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it's good enough to hand in.

Don't be afraid to ask questions. Don't be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn't a sign of weakness, it's a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don't know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust - a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor - and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.

And even when you're struggling, even when you're discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you - don't ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.

The story of America isn't about people who quit when things got tough. It's about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.

It's the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.

So today, I want to ask you, what's your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country? Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I'm working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you've got to do your part too.

So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don't let us down - don't let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

In Wake of Election Protests, Iranian Officials Canceling Major Ramadan Events - washingtonpost.com

Image by Nariman-Gh via Flickr

By Thomas Erdbrink
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, September 7, 2009

TEHRAN, Sept. 6 -- Iranian officials have canceled or downgraded major Shiite religious events during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, suggesting fear that the opposition might use them to stage protests.

A typically massive evening celebration scheduled for next weekend at the South Tehran mausoleum of the Islamic republic's founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, was canceled "due to problems," the site's public relations department said in a statement.

A traditional speech by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, marking the end of Ramadan, meanwhile, was changed from a large venue to one that is much smaller, the Ettemaad newspaper, which is critical of the government, reported Sunday.

And in Qom, the nation's center for religious education, several famous clerics who silently support the opposition were told they had been barred from speaking at an event Wednesday in the city's most important shrine, the semiofficial Mehr News Agency reported.

Although there have been no mass demonstrations since July, the cancellations and venue changes show that Iranian leaders are still worried about protests by followers of the defeated presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi.

The two men and their supporters say President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's landslide victory in the June 12 election was rigged, an allegation the government denies. Protests in June and July badly shook the government, but a massive crackdown has kept streets relatively quiet for more than a month.

In a statement released Saturday, Mousavi urged his followers to take on the "cheaters," while Karroubi has called for Iranians to protest on Sept. 18, when official demonstrations against Israel are planned.

"On Quds Day you will once again see the power of the people and realize which side the people support," he said last week, invoking the official name of the yearly demonstration, according to the Sarmayeh newspaper.

Former president Mohammad Khatami, a supporter of Mousavi, was scheduled to speak during religious ceremonies starting Wednesday at Khomeini's tomb, but has been barred from doing so. According to Ettemaad, millions of people were planning to attend. The event is organized annually by Khomeini's grandson Hassan, a 37-year-old cleric who supports Mousavi. He is the official custodian of the shrine.

Ahmadinejad's supporters among Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders, prayer leaders and hard-line lawmakers have repeatedly called for the arrest of Mousavi, Karroubi and Khatami, who they say are the leaders in a foreign-backed plot to bring down the government.

On Wednesday, in the most direct attack on Khatami to date, the commander in chief of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, Mohammad Ali Jafari, accused the former president of being one of the organizers of the protests and said they were targeted at Khamenei, the supreme leader. Jafari quoted what he said was the transcript of a phone conversation involving Khatami. "If we win," Jafari quoted Khatami as saying, "we reach a regime with a weakened, or without, a supreme leader." Jafari also said his forces had had information about a plot six months before the election.

On Sunday, Khatami struck back. "We are against those who, in the name of opposing Western liberalism, are trying to force people down their own preferred path with fascist methods and totalitarian ideas," Khatami said, according to Parlemannews, which is affiliated with the parliament faction controlled by his supporters. "I warn all the system's supporters to rebuild public trust before all chances are completely lost."

Japan's Health-Care System Has Many Advantages, but May Not Be Sustainable - washingtonpost.com

By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, September 7, 2009

TOKYO -- Half a world away from the U.S. health-care debate, Japan has a system that costs half as much and often achieves better medical outcomes than its American counterpart. It does so by banning insurance company profits, limiting doctor fees and accepting shortcomings in care that many well-insured Americans would find intolerable.

The Japanese visit a doctor nearly 14 times a year, more than four times as often as Americans. They can choose any primary care physician or specialist they want, and surveys show they are almost always seen on the day they want. All that medical care helps keep the Japanese alive longer than any other people on Earth while fostering one of the world's lowest infant mortality rates.

Health care in Japan -- a hybrid system funded by job-based insurance premiums and taxes -- is universal and mandatory, and consumes about 8 percent of the nation's gross domestic product, half as much as in the United States. Unlike in the U.S. system, no one is denied coverage because of a preexisting condition or goes bankrupt because a family member gets sick.

But many health-care economists say Japan's low-cost system is probably not sustainable without significant change. Japan already has the world's oldest population; by 2050, 40 percent will be 65 or older. The disease mix is becoming more expensive to treat, as rates of cancer, stroke and Alzheimer's disease steadily increase. Demand for medical care will triple in the next 25 years, according to a recent analysis by McKinsey & Co., a consulting firm.

Japan has a stagnant economy, with a shortage of young people that hobbles prospects for growth and strangles the capacity of the debt-strapped government to increase health-care spending. Without reform, costs are projected to double, reaching current U.S. levels in a decade, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

For generations, Japan has achieved its successes by maintaining a vise-like grip on costs. After hard bargaining with medical providers every two years, the government sets a price for treatment and drugs -- and tolerates no fudging.

As a result, most Japanese doctors make far less money than their U.S. counterparts. Administrative costs are four times lower than they are in the United States, in part because insurance companies do not set rates for treatment or deny claims. By law, they cannot make profits or advertise to attract low-risk, high-profit clients.

To keep costs down, Japan has made tradeoffs in other areas -- sometimes to the detriment of patients. Some are merely irritating, such as routine hour-long waits before doctor appointments. But others involve worrisome questions about quality control and gaps in treatment for urgent care.

Japanese hospitals experience a "crowding out" effect, with space for emergency care and serious medical conditions sometimes overwhelmed by a flood of patients seeking routine treatment, said Naohiro Yashiro, a professor of economics and health-care expert at International Christian University in Tokyo.

"Patients are treated too equally," he said. "Beds are occupied by less-urgent cases, and there are no penalties for those who over-use the system."

The government has largely been unable to reduce the length of hospital stays, which are four times as long in Japan as in the United States. Hospital doctors are often overworked and cannot hone specialized life-saving skills, according to recent reports by McKinsey. Statistics show that the Japanese are much less likely to have heart attacks than people in the United States, but that when they do, their chance of dying is twice as high.

There are shortages of obstetricians, anesthesiologists and emergency room specialists because of relatively low pay, long hours and high stress at many hospitals, doctors and health-care analysts said. Emergency room service is often spotty, as ER beds in many hospitals are limited and diagnostic expertise is sometimes lacking. In a highly publicized but not unprecedented incident, a pregnant woman complaining of a severe headache was refused admission last year to seven Tokyo hospitals. She died of an undiagnosed brain hemorrhage after giving birth.

"We are in a hospital desert at night," said Yashiro, citing insufficient pay incentives for the robust 24-hour staffing common at large U.S. hospitals.

Skilled doctors tend to leave Japanese hospitals for the higher pay and predictable hours of private clinics. There, they become primary-care doctors, making up for low treatment fees with astonishingly high volume, seeing patients in an assembly-line process that leaves little time for questions.

Toshihiko Oba had spent most of his medical career in hospitals. As an ear, nose and throat specialist, he worked 80-hour weeks for 13 years, with an annual salary of $100,000. The average salary for a hospital-based doctor in Japan is about $150,000, according to the Ministry of Health.

"The money was not so good and you have lots of responsibility and pressure," said Oba, 47.

Five years ago, he made a career change common for Japanese doctors at the pinnacle of their careers. He left the hospital and opened a private clinic, and now treats mainly colds and allergies.

In his office in Tokyo's upscale Ginza district, Oba works from 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., five days a week. He said he works fast, typically treating 150 patients a day, usually for about three minutes each.

Volume has allowed him to increase his income severalfold, Oba said, although he declined to be specific. Most doctors in Japan who jump from hospitals to private clinics double their income, according to the Ministry of Health. Medical malpractice insurance in Japan is not a major expense for many doctors, in part because there are relatively few lawyers. Oba pays only about $1,000 a year.

One of the great strengths of Japan's health-care system -- the ability to see the doctor of one's choice and be seen quickly -- has become one of the greatest curses for controlling health-care quality and costs, experts here agree.

There is no gatekeeper for medical care or for hospital stays.

"The government has been trying for more than 20 years to put up gates," said Naoki Ikegami, professor of health policy and management at the Keio University School of Medicine in Tokyo. "But we don't train general practitioners to be gatekeepers."

Japan also has about three times as many hospitals per capita as the United States does. The government has tried to limit hospital beds, but with little success because of institutional inertia and a cultural preference for in-patient treatment. New mothers in Japan often stay in a hospital five days after a routine delivery; in the United States, they rarely stay for more than one or two.

Japan's health-care system mixes socialism with individual responsibility and market forces. The government pays one-quarter of the total health-care bill, and employers and workers pay the rest through mandatory insurance.

"More than one-third of the workers' premiums are used to transfer wealth from the young, healthy and rich to the old, unhealthy and poor," Ikegami said.

Workers at major corporations pay about 4 percent of their salary to a company-based insurance provider. These premiums are limited to $6,000 a year, but the average salary worker pays $1,931, the government says. Job-based insurance in the United States costs the typical employee $3,354 a year, according to the U.S.-based National Coalition on Health Care.

In Japan, employers pay premiums that match each employee's contribution. In the United States, where health insurance is far more expensive, employers pay private insurers three or four times the amount contributed by each employee.

The self-employed and the unemployed in Japan must pay about $1,600 a year for insurance coverage. In addition, working-age patients are required to make a 30-percent co-payment for treatment and drugs -- the highest such fee in the world. But those payments tend to be relatively low because of the tight lid on costs. If the co-payment exceeds $863 in any month, it drops to 1 percent of additional medical bills.

Hana Mukai, a fashion merchandiser in Tokyo, said she cannot think of anything wrong with health care in Japan.

She takes her son Yugo, 4, to an ear, nose and throat specialist nearly every week during the cold and flu season. They go about 12 times a year, often when her son has a runny nose. She does not need to make an appointment, but has to wait about 75 minutes to see the doctor.

The doctor checks his ears, irrigates his nose and prescribes medicine. The visit usually lasts a few minutes, and it is free. There is supposed to be a co-payment, but Mukai's local ward government covers all medical costs for children, which is common in much of Japan. Mukai says she never buys over-the-counter drugs for Yugo, because prescribed drugs for children are also free.

As for her own health-care costs, she says they are either invisible or negligible. She has never checked to see how much she pays through payroll deductions for health-care premiums. The co-payment for doctor visits is insignificant, she says, since the total bill for most visits comes to less than $30, including drugs.

"I know my medical fee is going to be cheap, so I have never, ever thought about how much it will cost me to go to the doctor," said Mukai, 39.

The health of Mukai, her husband and her son -- and of nearly everyone in Japan -- also benefits from free annual checkups. Japan requires companies to pay for annual physicals for employees.

Local and national governments also push preventative care. Since Mukai is nearly 40, her local ward government has notified her that she can sign up for a comprehensive, and free, battery of tests. Doctors will examine her eyes and teeth, and they will test for colon, stomach and cervical cancer. She will also receive a free gynecological workup.

For her son, an internal medicine specialist and a dentist visit his public day-care center twice a year to conduct free examinations. Once a year at day care, he is examined at no cost by two other doctors for potential eye, nose and ear problems.

The health-care system, though, does not deserve all the credit for the relatively robust health of the Japanese. Diet and lifestyle are generally healthier than they are in the United States. There is less violent crime, fewer car accidents and much less obesity. Only about 3 percent of Japanese are obese, compared with more than 30 percent of Americans, according to the OECD.

Still, Western food has encroached on the diet and there are increasing numbers of sedentary, overweight Japanese. As part of the preventative focus of health care, the government is pushing back against obesity-related health problems -- known here as "metabolic syndrome" -- in ways that probably would astonish Americans.

There is compulsory obesity screening for 70 percent of the population. If people are found to be too fat around the waist, they are required to receive counseling on exercise and diet.

The law was passed three years ago, so it is too soon to know whether screening and counseling are effective. But health-care experts agree that the government has succeeded in making nearly everyone worry about fat, while thinking more about what they eat and how often they exercise.

It puzzles Mukai that the United States does not imitate the best parts of her country's health-care system, particularly preventive care, universal coverage and free treatment for children.

"If the Japanese can do it, why can't the Americans?" she said.

Special correspondent Akiko Yamamoto contributed to this report.

Pace of Change Under Obama Frustrates Unions - NYTimes.com

Image via Wikipedia

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and STEVEN GREENHOUSE

WASHINGTON — For eight years under George W. Bush, union officials barely set foot inside the White House. But 10 days after President Obama took office, the nation’s most powerful labor leaders mingled in the Blue Room, moments after the new president, a man they helped put there, signed a string of executive orders undoing Mr. Bush’s policies.

The mood was euphoric. “He walked in with the biggest smile,” James P. Hoffa, president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said of Mr. Obama, “saying, ‘Welcome back to your White House.’ ”

Today that euphoria is giving way to a mixture of frustration and unease, as union leaders are growing concerned that the Obama White House has not delivered as much as they had expected. Some criticize him for not pushing hard enough or moving fast enough on their issues, while others blame the deep recession and Republican opposition for his failure to do more.

Mr. Obama has delayed a push for the unions’ No. 1 legislative priority, a measure to make it easier for workers to organize. He faces potential conflict with unions on trade, and on how fast to push for immigration reform. And on health care, friction between labor and the White House is suddenly spilling out into the open.

In response, Mr. Obama is renewing his courtship of the labor movement, whose members worked as foot soldiers in his campaign and spent August doggedly defending his health plan at town-hall-style meetings across the country. On Monday, the president will mark Labor Day by speaking at an A.F.L.-C.I.O. picnic in Cincinnati. During his visit, he is expected to name Ron Bloom, who heads the president’s automotive task force, to a second role in the administration as manufacturing czar. The next week, Mr. Obama will address the A.F.L.-C.I.O. convention in Pittsburgh.

“He gets an A for effort, and an incomplete for results,” the incoming president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., Richard L. Trumka.

While labor leaders, including the current A.F.L.-C.I.O. president, John J. Sweeney, say they remain extremely supportive of the president — especially his handling of the economic crisis — Mr. Trumka set off an uproar last week when he warned that unions would not support a health care bill that lacks a government-backed insurance plan. It was a shot across the bow to the White House, which is weighing whether to compromise on the so-called public option.

Another top union leader, Gerald W. McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, cautioned that if Mr. Obama abandons the public option, “it will be harder to gin our people up on other issues.” Mr. McEntee said he had noticed a shift in sentiment even since July, when 14 union leaders spent 45 minutes in the White House Roosevelt Room with the president and top aides like David Axelrod.

“He said, ‘You’ve stood shoulder to shoulder with me’ — and I’m paraphrasing here — ‘I want you there, and I’m going to fight for you,’ ” Mr. McEntee said. “When we left, I think we were all on maybe not cloud nine, but cloud four. I shook hands with all the staff, Axelrod was there. This was the person we elected; this was our president with a voice. It felt good.” And now? Mr. McEntee paused. “Well,” he said, “not as good.”

Blue-collar workers have long been a little bit suspicious of Mr. Obama, who has never quite been able to demonstrate that he is one of them. Still, they stood strongly behind him once he became the Democratic presidential nominee, contributing money, running phone banks and knocking on doors in critical swing states like Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

The two main labor federations, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and Change to Win, said unions and their political action committees had spent nearly $450 million in the presidential race. The addition of Joseph R. Biden Jr. to the ticket as Mr. Obama’s running mate helped with his union bona fides. So did the endorsement of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts.

Today, Mr. Biden continues to play an important role as a link between the unions and the president. But Mr. Kennedy’s death is a significant loss, one that may force Mr. Obama to work that much harder to win union support for any health care compromise he might make, said Geoff Garin, a Democratic strategist.

“Ted Kennedy was an incredibly important Good Housekeeping seal of approval, and if he lent his prestige to whatever compromise Obama felt he had to make, that would mean an awful lot to people in the labor movement,” Mr. Garin said. Mr. Obama, he added, must “persuade labor unions and others that his commitment is to getting it right in the interest of the average working person.”

He may have an easier time with some than others. Mr. Hoffa, for instance, said the public option was not a make-or-break provision for him; he is open to legislation containing a “a trigger” to create a public plan if private efforts to expand coverage fail. Mr. McEntee, by contrast, dismissed the trigger idea as “not a real public option.”

Dennis Rivera, the point man on health care for the Service Employees International Union, said simply that unions would have to be flexible. “Politics is the art of the possible,” he said, adding that Mr. Obama’s “heart is in the right place.”

Still, there are tensions between unions and the White House on matters beyond health care. Trade is an especially contentious issue; unions are irked that Mr. Obama has backed away from his campaign pledge to reopen the North American Free Trade Agreement. And the United Steelworkers, which represents tire workers, is pressing Mr. Obama to punish China now that the United States International Trade Commission has ruled that China is hurting American manufacturers by inundating the market with cheap tires.

Union leaders have also been patient with Mr. Obama, both on immigration (they want legislation offering a path to citizenship for an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants) and the Employee Free Choice Act, the bill to make organizing easier. In the July White House meeting, Mr. Obama made a strong pitch that health care should come first.

Labor leaders were willing to accept that strategy, said David E. Bonior, a former Michigan congressman who is the chairman of the National Labor Coordinating Committee, an umbrella group. But with Mr. Obama planning a major speech before Congress this week to lay out his priorities in a health bill, Mr. Bonior said, union members want reassurance that he will stick his neck out for their priorities.

“They don’t want him to leave it up to seven or eight committee chairmen,” Mr. Bonior said. “They want him to be the leader and to fight for this stuff.”

Europeans Seek to Shift Security Role to Afghan Government - NYTimes.com

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

By JUDY DEMPSEY

BERLIN — The leaders of France, Germany and Britain called Sunday night for an international conference to work out a plan to shift responsibility for security in Afghanistan to the Afghan government.

The call by the three governments, the largest contributors of troops to the war in Afghanistan after the United States, came as mounting military casualties and doubts about the mission there have fueled growing public opposition to the war in Europe.

In Washington, a State Department spokeswoman, Megan Mattson, said the department had no immediate comment on the proposed conference.

However, the proposal could increase tension in the Obama administration’s relationship with its most important European allies in Afghanistan. The strains were palpable over the weekend as a NATO investigating team continued its inquiry into how many civilians were killed in airstrikes last week aimed at two fuel tankers that had been hijacked by the Taliban near the northern city of Kunduz.

A senior American military official said Sunday that the German commander in the north who ordered the airstrikes had relied largely on the assessment of a lone Afghan informant, who said that everyone at the scene was an insurgent. The informant’s role was reported Sunday by The Washington Post.

The tankers were hit after they became stuck trying to cross the Kunduz River before dawn on Friday. Local officials have said that 70 people or more died, but it was unclear how many were militants and how many were villagers who had dashed to siphon fuel from the trucks. Many bodies were burned beyond recognition, and villagers buried some in a mass grave before Western military investigators could examine the scene or the corpses.

The German defense minister, Franz Josef Jung, defended the call for an airstrike on Sunday. “We had clear information that the Taliban had seized the fuel trucks about six kilometers away from our base in order to launch an attack against our soldiers in Kunduz,” he told the newspaper Bild am Sonntag.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan, tightened rules on airstrikes in June in the face of Afghan anger over high civilian casualties in NATO military operations. Questions have been raised about whether the call for the strike complied with those rules.

The proposed international conference, with its suggestion that key allies were looking for ways to reduce the number of their troops, could also complicate relations among allies. The United States, which has 68,000 troops in Afghanistan, is currently weighing whether to send more.

The proposal was announced by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain at a brief news conference here. A German government spokesman said that President Nicolas Sarkozy of France had also signed on to the idea.

Mrs. Merkel said the conference would try to find a way for “much more responsibility to be taken by the Afghan government” for its own security. The conference should involve the United Nations and NATO, she said, and should take place “sometime this year” and after the new Afghan government is in place.

Afghans voted for a new government last month, but the election was marred by accusations of widespread fraud. Officials said it could be months before a winner was determined.

Opinion polls show that well over two-thirds of Germans oppose the Afghan mission, while Mr. Brown is coming under increasing pressure in Britain to justify the presence of its 9,000 troops there. Britain has suffered 212 deaths in the war.

Mrs. Merkel’s government has been criticized by other NATO countries for not doing enough to help defeat the insurgency because Germany’s 4,200 troops are restricted by the German Parliament in what they can do and where they can be deployed.

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington.

South Africa’s Poor Demand Basic Services - NYTimes.com

By BARRY BEARAK

SIYATHEMBA, South Africa — This country’s rituals of protest most often call for the burning of tires, the barricading of streets and the throwing of rocks. So when the municipal mayor here went to address the crowd after three days of such agitation, the police thought it best to take him into the stadium in a blast-resistant armored vehicle.

Chastened by the continuing turmoil, the mayor, Mabalane Tsotetsi, known as Lefty, penitently explained that all of the protesters’ complaints would be given his full attention. But by then official promises were a deflated currency, and rocks and bottles were again flying as he retreated.

The reasons for this community’s wrath — unleashed first in late July and again briefly a month later — were ruefully familiar to many South Africans. “Water, electricity, unemployment: nothing has gotten better,” said Lifu Nhlapo, 26, a leader of the protests here in Siyathemba, a township 50 miles east of Johannesburg. “We feel an anger, and when we are ignored, what else is there to do but take to the streets?”

Civil unrest among this nation’s poor has recently gotten worldwide attention, and is often portrayed as unhappiness with South Africa’s new president, Jacob Zuma. Actually, these so-called service delivery protests have gone on with regularity for a long time. They vary in intensity — mild, medium and hot — and their frequency seems to rise and fall without a predictable pattern.

Oddly enough, the protests can be seen as a measure of progress as well as frustration. Since the arrival of democracy 15 years ago, the percentages of households with access to piped water, a flush toilet or a connection to the power grid have notably increased. Those people left waiting are often angry, and so far their ire has not usually been directed at the president — who has been able to use the protests to his political advantage — but at municipal officials they consider uncaring, incompetent and corrupt.

“No one wants to be worse off than their neighbor,” said Kevin Allan, managing director of Municipal IQ, a company that monitors the performance of local government. “People get impatient.”

The places most ripe for unrest are neither the poorest communities nor those with the longest backlog in setting up services, he said. Most commonly, the protests are rooted in informal settlements that have sprung up near urban areas, where the poor who do not receive government services rub up against the poor who do.

Whatever the causes for the protests, the governing African National Congress appears to take them quite seriously. Party leaders have been dispatched to hot spots, where they usually end up investigating their fellow party members. Local government, like national government, is largely dominated by the A.N.C.

In Siyathemba, the emissary from on high was Mr. Zuma himself. On the afternoon of Aug. 4, his helicopter set down on a rocky soccer field, with bodyguards and a BMW waiting. He eventually proceeded to the town of Balfour, the seat of municipal government. Mayor Tsotetsi, at home at the time, rushed back to the office to meet his unannounced visitor. Commentators had a good laugh about that, presuming the mayor a goldbrick who likes to knock off early.

“There is no place that will be hidden from me,” Mr. Zuma announced, leaving the impression he was now a sort of caped superhero who would pop up wherever malingerers were not earning their government paychecks.

Though the president also denounced lawbreaking by protesters, his visit seemed an endorsement to those here who had vented their anger. “Zuma agrees with us, that all these mayors and councilors who are not performing have to go,” said Zakhele Maya, 26, another leader of the demonstrations.

Siyathemba has a population of about 6,000 and an unemployment rate of 82 percent, more than triple the nation’s rate, according to official statistics. Most here live in shacks of corrugated metal, the roofs kept in place with strategically placed rocks. Many of the dwellings sag in the middle as if they were melting in the hot sun.

Clusters of shacks here look about the same, but some are settlements that have been “formalized,” which means that the hovels, however dilapidated, have electricity inside and a water tap and flush toilet nearby. Those people living in communities without this imprimatur must light their homes with kerosene or paraffin and wait in lines, pail in hand, at a single communal spigot.

“This is no way to live,” said Mercy Mbiza, 38. “We have to dig a pit for a toilet, and when it’s full, we dig another. They tell us we are on a waiting list to get services. Whether I will die first, I don’t know.”

Rumors — true or not — are dangerous combustibles in places like this. People are suspicious that money meant for them is being stolen or wasted by the big shots in Balfour. Some goings-on simply make no sense.

For instance, Arlene Moloi’s house has four pillars and a roof and only emptiness in between. The municipality paid someone to construct it in 1996, but the builder suddenly disappeared after starting the job.

“The officials tell me they are waiting for the same man to come back and finish,” said Ms. Moloi, a 54-year-old widow. “But it already has been 13 years.”

The Siyathemba protests began with a meeting of disgruntled young people, some of them members of political youth groups, others players on sports teams. They compiled a list of their many grievances. They wanted more water and electricity, yes. But they also wanted better roads, a local hospital and a police station. Beyond that, they wanted jobs.

This list of demands was left at the municipal hall in Balfour. “Some of these things — hospitals, police stations — these are matters to take up at the provincial level,” said the municipality’s spokesman, Mohlalefi Lebotha. “Where is the money for these things, not just to construct them but to sustain them?”

At first, Mr. Tsotetsi did not meet with the disgruntled. Nor did he call a special session of the municipal council as the protesters had demanded.

This slow, even indifferent response seemed to mock the petitioners’ seriousness. After a mass meeting on a Sunday, many protesters took to the streets. The police confronted them, relying on a rather indiscriminate spray of rubber bullets.

The crowd fought back, shouting “azikhwelwa,” meaning that everything must shut down: no one goes to work, no one attends school.

“People knew how to act from the days of the liberation struggle,” said Mr. Maya, the protest leader. “We sang the songs, telling those who are scared to step aside so the brave can move ahead and advance the struggle.

“In South Africa, the struggle is not yet over.”

Sudan Court to Define Indecent Dress for Women - NYTimes.com

Image by Rita Willaert via Flickr

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

NAIROBI, Kenya — This is not about pants, Lubna Hussein insists. It is about principles.

A woman should be able to wear what she wants and not be publicly whipped for it, says Mrs. Hussein, a defiant Sudanese journalist, and on Monday her belief will be put to the test.

Mrs. Hussein has been charged in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, with indecent dress, a crime that carries a $100 fine and 40 lashings. She was arrested in July, along with 12 other women, who were caught at a cafe wearing trousers.

Sudan is partially ruled by Islamic law, which emphasizes modest dress for women. Mrs. Hussein, 34, has pleaded not guilty and is daring the Sudanese authorities to punish her.

“I am Muslim; I understand Muslim law,” Mrs. Hussein said in an interview. “But I ask: what passage in the Koran says women can’t wear pants? This is not nice.”

Mrs. Hussein even printed up invitation cards for her initial court date in July and sent out e-mail messages asking people to witness her whipping, if it came to that. She said she wanted the world to see how Sudan treated women.

Hundreds of Sudanese women — many wearing pants — swarmed in front of the court where the trial was supposed to take place, protesting that the law was unfair. Twice now, the trial has been postponed. Some of the other women arrested with Mrs. Hussein have pleaded guilty and were lashed as a result. Past floggings have been carried out with plastic whips that leave permanent scars.

“The flogging, yes, it causes pain,” Mrs. Hussein said. “But more important, it is an insult. This is why I want to change the law.”

The law in contention here is Article 152 of Sudan’s penal code. Concisely stated, the law says that up to 40 lashes and a fine should be assessed anyone “who commits an indecent act which violates public morality or wears indecent clothing.”

The question is: what exactly is indecent clothing?

In Sudan, some women wear veils and loose fitting dresses; others do not. Northern Sudanese, who are mostly Muslim, are supposed to obey Islamic law, while southern Sudanese, who are mostly Christian, are not. Mrs. Hussein argues that Article 152 is intentionally vague, in part to punish women.

Rabie A. Atti, a Sudanese government spokesman, said the law was meant for the opposite reason, to “protect the people.”

“We have an act controlling the behavior of women and men so the behavior doesn’t harm others, whether it’s speech or dress or et cetera,” he said.

But, he insisted, Mrs. Hussein must have done something else to run afoul of the authorities, besides wearing pants.

“You come to Khartoum and you will see for yourself,” he said. “Many women, in offices and wedding ceremonies, wear trousers.”

“Thousands of girls wear the trousers,” he added.

Asked what other offenses Mrs. Hussein may have committed, Mr. Atti said that the case file was secret and that he did not know.

Mrs. Hussein countered that she did not do anything else that might have violated the law, and that countless people from inside and outside Sudan are supporting her.

“It’s well known that Sudanese women are pioneers in the history of women’s rights in this region, and that we won our rights a long time ago because of our awareness, open mind, good culture and struggle,” she said.

The last time Sudan’s courts handled a case that attracted such international attention, they found a compromise solution. A British schoolteacher faced up to 40 lashes and six months in prison for allowing her students to name a class teddy bear Muhammad, which was perceived as an insult to Islam. But after being sentenced to 15 days in jail, she was soon pardoned by the Sudanese president.

A widow with no children, Mrs. Hussein is a career journalist who recently worked as a public information assistant for the United Nations in Sudan. She quit, she said, because she did not want to get the United Nations embroiled in her case. But Sudan, given its renewed interest in normalizing relations with the United States, might be reluctant to draw much international ire by harshly punishing her.

Protesters are expected to come out on her behalf again when Mrs. Hussein returns to court Monday morning. She says her family is also behind her.

“My mother supports me,” she said, “but she is worried for me and prays for me.”