Inside Indonesia - Fighting over the land and forest

Century-old conflicts persist in the vast tracts of Indonesia that are designated as state forest

Sandra Moniaga

Well-maintained irrigated ricefields located in one of the Ministry of Forestry’s claimed ‘state forest areas’ Sandra Moniaga

Citorek Kasepuhan is a adat (customary) community in Lebak district, Banten, some 200 kilometres from Jakarta. Community members consider the 7400 hectares of land they live on to be theirs, adat land by right. But the Ministry of Forestry regards a large part of that area as state forest, because it is located within the boundaries of Mount Halimun-Salak National Park. The area has been contested since the early 1900s, when the Dutch colonial government gazetted two-thirds of Kasepuhan’s adat land as state forest, and designated the other third as enclaves of private land for the community within the park.

Today, the Citorek Kasepuhan adat community still has little land tenure security. For their livelihood, most community members conduct farming, fishery and forestry activities on lands that are formally state forest areas. Some fear losing these lands; others face intimidation and legal judgments on charges of illegal logging. Some village residents would like to make substantial investments in land improvements, but refrain because they lack the necessary tenure security.

As well as forestry, fishery and farming, some Kasepuhan community members secretively engage in gold and lead mining, an activity which is not regulated in their own adat, but considered illegal under state law. The officers of the National Park have an ambiguous attitude toward the Citorek Kasepuhan community, sometimes trying to restrict their activities, at other times recognising their customary rights. This ambiguity makes it difficult for the park managers to draw up park management plans. The legal status and future of activities in this national park are full of uncertainty for all stakeholders.

The Lebak district government and legislature are familiar with the issue. The community has asked them to recognise their adat land rights. However, overlapping government authorities and gaps in political will make it hard to resolve the problem. Some laws and regulations empower the district government to solve these land conflicts, while others assign that authority to the Ministry of Forestry. Because the bulk of Citorek’s adat lands overlap with state forest, the district government asserts that the Ministry of Forestry holds the authority to resolve land conflicts. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Forestry says it has to wait for a provincial or district regulation on adat communities and their lands.

Forests and land rights

There are many ways to define what is a ‘forest’. If asked to do so, most of us immediately think of a place with a lot of trees. But many areas in Indonesia that government agencies classify as forests are actually village home sites, irrigated rice fields, fruit groves, upland rainfed farms, fishponds, or grazing lands.

Why do government agencies claim these agricultural lands as state forest areas? The formal legal answer is that according to the 1999 Forestry Law, ‘forest area’ means a certain area designated or stipulated by the government to be retained as permanent forest, and ‘state forest’ means a forest located on ‘lands bearing no ownership rights’ (the Indonesian phrase is ‘tanah yang tidak dibebani hak atas tanah’). The Ministry of Forestry uses these legal definitions to continue claiming 134 million hectares across Indonesia as ‘state forest’. The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) estimates that in 2004 some 49 million people in Indonesia lived on lands classified as state forest.

Many areas in Indonesia that government agencies classify as forests are actually village home sites, irrigated rice fields, fruit groves, upland rainfed farms, fishponds, or grazing lands

Many adat communities in Indonesia have little tenure security for lands they have been living on, managing, or cultivating for generations. After the fall of the authoritarian Suharto regime in 1998, Indonesian reform advocates hoped the democratisation process would open up opportunities for formal recognition of adat communities’ customary land rights. Achievements by several adat communities in some districts, and by indigenous peoples in other countries, were a source of inspiration to the adat communities and their supporters. Yet, the government continues to consider many adat lands as state domain, state forest areas, or as no-man’s-land. Such centuries-old policies, dating to colonial times and even before in some cases, have resulted in adat communities losing control over their lands.

Why do adat communities still not enjoy legally secure rights over their lands? As part of Indonesia’s post-Suharto reforms, both human rights and adat rights were recognised in the constitution (the latter happened in 2002). This recognition should flow though to formal legal recognition of adat communities’ rights to their lands. Provisions in new legislation on human rights, regional autonomy and natural resources should have the same effect. In fact, little progress has been made. Why is this so, and what more must be done to provide secure land rights for Indonesia’s adat communities?

Colonial legacy and authoritarian continuity

Map of Lebak district showing the location of Citorek Kasepuhan Imam Hanafi

The state has ignored the land rights of adat communities since Dutch colonial times. The colonial government wanted land for commercial and conservation purposes, and appropriated land ‘that was not used by the local population’. The 1865 Forest Law gave the colonial state exclusive rights over forests, as did the Agrarian Law of 1870. Agrarian Decree No. 118 was the crucial implementing regulation of this law, and is still well known for its domein verklaring (declaration of state domain). The 1865 Forest Law was later replaced by the Forestry Decree of 1927 on Forestry in Java and Madura, which became the legal basis for delineating state forest and for gazetting state forest land in Java. This 1927 Forestry Decree legitimised turning adat community lands into state forest areas.

The Japanese colonial government during World War II did not restrict the use of state forest areas in Java by local populations. Communities used this moment of weakened control over forest areas to reclaim their lands, and they often did so with the support of local authorities. However, reclaimed lands were never legally registered. After Indonesia declared Independence in 1945, impoverished villagers continued to encroach into forest areas to grow crops and cut wood. In 1949, at least 400,000 hectares, or 14 per cent of Java’s state forest areas, were occupied by peasants, or deforested by civilian and military wood thieves.

The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) estimates that in 2004 some 49 million people in Indonesia lived on lands classified as state forest

The Basic Agrarian Law No. 5/1960 recognised the existence of adat law communities and communal adat land rights. However, in practice this did not have any effect on the status of adat lands or on people’s activities in the forest, as there were no implementing regulations for the Basic Agrarian Law that acknowledged adat lands. Implementing regulations that recognise adat lands were not issued until 1999, almost 40 years later.

Under the Suharto regime, Indonesia’s forestry administration became more powerful and centralised. The forest was a major source of revenue for the state, and for private businesses which cultivated close relationship with the powerholders. Law No. 5/1967 on Forestry and its implementing regulations set up a system of forest use designation and timber concessions that remained in place for over 30 years, reinforcing government claims to state forest areas. The Suharto regime then established the Ministry of Forestry and gave it administrative control over all state forest lands within a context of authoritarian rule and state-led economic growth. The Basic Agrarian Law, with its promises of redistribution and community control could only be applied outside of state forest areas. The 1967 Forestry Law, administered by the Ministry of Forestry, covered all the state forest areas the government claimed, some 61 per cent of Indonesia’s total land area.

Contrary to the spirit of reformasi, the new law explicitly validated the status of forest areas that had been designated before the 1999 law was enacted, thus confirming the Ministry of Forestry’s control over huge tracts of Indonesia

Community land rights supporters hoped for change after Suharto, especially during the early days of reformasi in the late 1990s. The 1945 Constitution was amended between 1999 and 2002. It recognised the existence of adat law communities and their rights (with conditions). A new Forestry Law (No. 41/1999) delegated the authority to identify adat communities and their rights to provincial governments and district legislatures. It turned recognition of customary communities and their land rights from a human right into a political decision. Contrary to the spirit of reformasi, the new law explicitly validated the status of forest areas that had been designated before the 1999 law was enacted, thus confirming the Ministry of Forestry’s control over huge tracts of Indonesia, including areas where customary communities and millions of farmers live.

Lesson learned

Since 1998, the Citorek Kasepuhan community and other adat communities in Lebak have had greater opportunity for advocacy and to put forward legal arguments for recognition of their land rights. But they have had little success. They have learned that laws that recognise customary land rights are inconsistent, unclear and incomplete, even after the constitutional amendments of 2002. These legal realities, together with political and economic changes within the district and lack of political will on the part of the central government, constitute major challenges for them. Other adat communities throughout Indonesia who seek formal legal recognition of their land rights face similar challenges.

But weak internal capacity and organisation also limit many groups’ ability to engage in political legal and advocacy. Some adat communities are not very good at promoting their cause to the wider public. This is certainly the case with the Kasepuhan adat community, including the Citorek. Local politicians and community leaders in Banten often comment that the Kasepuhan lack the public profile of other adat communities, like the Baduy. Because there is little sympathy for the Kasepuhan in the wider public, local politicians feel no sense of urgency in responding to their needs.

Adat communities and other forest peoples are some of Indonesia’s poorest and most marginalised people. They need support to enhance their livelihoods and one way to give them that support is through restitution of their land rights. At the same time, state institutions need a clear mandate to implement democratic governance in a way that benefits local communities, including those living is so-called ‘state forests’. And everyone knows that Indonesia’s natural resources are degrading quickly, and need to be managed properly by all parties.

These efforts require a critical review of all relevant laws and regulations, with revision or replacement where necessary. Government agencies, at the central, provincial and regional levels, need to talk to adat communities about how to find a common vision for such a thorough-going legal review.

However, reform of state law is not the only solution. Adat needs to be transformed as well, and adat communities should receive legal education and services in accordance with their wishes. Adat institutions and community economic resources need to be strengthened.

The challenges of preventing environmental degradation and promoting community empowerment in Indonesia’s so-called state forests are enormous. They require nothing less than the development of a new legal paradigm within the state apparatus and society at large. ii

Sandra Moniaga (sandram@cbn.net.id) is a scholar and activist who focuses on environmental justice and community rights advocacy. She works with various organizations in Indonesia. She joined the Van Vollenhoven Institute in the Faculty of Law, University of Leiden in 2003-2008, and is currently completing her Ph.D. with the same institution. It includes the Lebak research reported in this article.

Migrants Going North Now Risk Kidnappings - NYTimes.com

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By MARC LACEY

TECATE, Mexico — For 37 days, the Salvadoran immigrant was held captive in a crowded room near the border with scores of people, all of them Central Americans who had been kidnapped while heading north, hoping to cross into the United States. He finally got out in August, he said, after the Mexican Army raided the house in the middle of the night to free them.

“The army said: ‘Don’t run. We’re here to help you,’ ” recalled the migrant, a 30-year-old father of three who insisted that his name not be printed for fear of either being kidnapped again or deported. “I kept running.”

Getting to “el norte” has never been a cakewalk. Along with long treks through desert terrain, death-defying river crossings and perilous rides clinging onto trains, there have always been con men and crooked police officers preying on migrants along the way.

But Mexican human rights groups that monitor migration say the threats foreigners face as they cross Mexico for the United States have grown significantly in recent months. Organized crime groups have begun taking aim at migrants as major sources of illicit revenue, even as the financial crisis in the United States has reduced the number of people willing to risk the journey.

Kidnapping people for ransom is a pervasive problem in this country, although victims have typically been prosperous people with bank accounts that can be emptied at the nearest A.T.M., or those with relatives willing to hand over significant sums to save them.

Migrants may typically be poor, often with little in their pockets except the scrawled telephone numbers of relatives who have migrated before them, but they have usually notified friends or relatives in the United States that they are on their way. To kidnappers, those contacts are golden. “They beat me and kept beating me until I handed over my telephone numbers,” said the Salvadoran immigrant, interviewed at a center for migrants in Reynosa, just across the border with Texas.

In many ways, the man’s account was typical. A study by Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission released this year found 9,758 migrants who had been kidnapped as they tried to cross the border into the United States between September 2008 and February 2009. The commission noted that migrants were typically terrified to report such crimes out of fear of being deported by Mexican immigration authorities and that the actual number of victims was probably much higher.

The stories the commission heard in interviews with victims were alarming. There were frequent rapes of female migrants. Fierce beatings were carried out. As a lesson to other captives, the kidnappers killed some migrants who did not hand over the telephone numbers of their relatives.

“They said that if they did not receive payment, they would take away my kidney afterward and throw me into the river so the big lizards would eat me,” a Honduran man who was kidnapped in Tabasco State told commission investigators.

He said he had been kidnapped along with 60 or so others, all Central Americans. The men who took them said they were coyotes, or human smugglers, and promised to feed them and help them cross into the United States. Instead, the men forced the captives over 30 days to call relatives in the United States and extract thousands of dollars from them in order to be released.

The amounts demanded ranged from $1,500 to $10,000, sizable sums on top of the several thousand dollars that the migrants had already paid smugglers to make the crossing.

One victim, a Honduran man kidnapped in Nuevo Laredo at the Texas border, told investigators that he was close to reaching the United States when he fell for a swindle. Two women approached and offered him a day job for about $10, money that he desperately needed.

But there was no job awaiting him at the house where he was taken. Instead, he and a half dozen other migrants were beaten over the course of two weeks and frequently photographed. The captors demanded the e-mail addresses of relatives and sent the desperate-looking photos in order to extract ransoms, he said.

The man said his relatives paid what the kidnappers had demanded, so he and others who had come up with the ransom money were blindfolded one evening and taken to the bank of a river. Dumped alongside them was the body of a Salvadoran migrant whom the captors had killed. The kidnappers fired several rounds at the ground and demanded that everyone jump into the river, the man said. The group never made it across, though, and was later picked up by the Mexican authorities.

Human rights workers say Mexican migrants are not singled out by kidnappers as often as foreigners, mostly Central Americans, but also Ecuadoreans, Brazilians, Chileans and Peruvians. The foreigners are more vulnerable, less familiar with their surroundings and less likely to report what happened to them to the authorities, advocates say.

“If people don’t come forward, we don’t know the extent of the problem,” said Angélica Martínez, a state prosecutor in Tecate, a border town east of Tijuana, where the authorities were pursuing a kidnapper who goes by the nickname “El Gato,” who was believed to prey on migrants.

Complicating the problem, migrants complain that the police are sometimes in league with the kidnappers, rounding up victims and handing them over to kidnappers for a fee. Mexican law enforcement officials acknowledge that some individual officers may be involved in organized crime, but they say the problem is not as widespread as often portrayed and is being combated on a national level.

The Salvadoran victim who was kidnapped in Reynosa said he had first been to the United States in 1999. He had stayed three years, working in the fields and in a furniture store in North Carolina, before returning to El Salvador. After what he had endured, he said he was mulling whether to give up the opportunity of higher wages in the United States and return home.

“There was danger of robbery back then,” he said of his first crossing 10 years ago. “It’s always been dangerous. But now it’s gotten even worse. We’re poor and we’re trying to get ahead. We’re doing this for our kids. I’d advise people to be careful and to pray to God.”

Why South Waziristan offensive won't help US in Afghanistan - csmonitor.com

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The Pakistan Army is going after terrorists who target Pakistan. All the major terrorist networks attacking US forces in Afghanistan operate from other areas of Pakistan.

By Mark Sappenfield | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Pakistan's offensive into South Waziristan is targeting the terrorists who have wreaked havoc in Pakistan during recent weeks and not those attacking American troops in Afghanistan.

None of the three terror groups singled out as the greatest threat to American troops – according to the commander of US forces in Afghanistan – is based in South Waziristan.

This has been a notable feature of Pakistani antiterror efforts from 9/11 to today. The Army and its intelligence resources have focused their attention on terrorists seen to be a threat to the Pakistani state and done much less to curb those focusing on India or Afghanistan.

After 9/11, former Preisdent Pervez Musharraf turned over several top Al Qaeda leaders but refrained from cracking down on the Taliban. Now, one element of the Taliban, known as the Tehreek-i-Taliban, has turned against Pakistan, and the Pakistan Army is focusing on their stronghold in South Waziristan.

The same was true earlier this year, when the Pakistani Army routed terrorists attacking Pakistan from the Swat Valley.

The Quetta Shura Taliban

The greatest threat to US forces in Afghanistan comes from the faction of the Taliban still loyal to supreme leader Mullah Omar, according to Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top US general in Afghanistan.

Virtually all reports suggest that Omar is located in the Pakistani city of Quetta. In fact, the US is so sure that Omar is there – and is so frustrated by Pakistan's unwillingness to do anything about it – that it strongly intimated it might expand drone attacks to Quetta, the Sunday Times reported last month.

Pakistan responded that Quetta was off-limits to US drones.

When a New York Times journalist traveled to Quetta in 2007 to report on potential links between the Pakistani Army and the Taliban, plainclothes intelligence officers broke into her hotel room, confiscated her computer, and punched her twice.

In his assessment of Afghanistan, McChrystal calls the wing of the Taliban commanded by Omar the Quetta Shura Taliban, and reports that it "has been working to control [the southern Afghan] city of Kandahar and its approaches for several years and there are indications that their influence over the city and neighboring districts is significant and growing."

More broadly, it aims to return Afghanistan to Taliban rule.

The Haqqani Network

The second greatest threat to US forces in Afghainstan is the network run by Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son, Sirajuddin. Reports place them in North Waziristan.

A State Department document connects the Haqaani network to an attack in Kabul's only five-star hotel, the Serena, as well as to a failed assassination attempt against President Hamid Karzai.

The US recently shifted the focus of its drone attacks to North Waziristan from South Waziristan. It had concentrated on South Waziristan throughout the summer – apparently in an attempt to placate the Pakistanis. The attacks in South Waziristan were successful, killing the leader of the Tehreek-i-Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud.

But the renewed focus on North Waziristan – even as Pakistan invades the South – "indicates the US is now targeting the dangerous Haqqani Network and also al Qaeda's network, which operates in the agency," according to The Long War Journal.

The Haqqani Network's goal is "to regain eventually full control of its traditional base in [the three eastern Afghan provinces of] Khost, Paktia, and Paktika."

Hizb-i-Islami Gulbuddin

Third on McChrystal's list of Pakistan-based threats to troops in Afghanistan is the Hizb-i-Islami Gulbuddin network led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. This group is believed to be responsible for the recent firefight in Afghanistan's Nuristan Province that left eight American soldiers dead.

It operates in parts of tribal Pakistan much farther north than South Waziristan. According to McChrystal, it "aims to negotiate a major role in a future Taliban government."

The South Waziristan offensive is not irrelevant to American strategic interests. "Stability in Pakistan is essential, not just in its own right, but also to enable progress in Afghanistan," McChrystal writes.

But, in and of itself, it is unlikely to have any dramatic effect on the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan.

Inside Indonesia - Land and social justice

Communities struggle for access while reforms run aground

Judith Mayer

Land rights are crucial for social justice Judith Mayer

Questions of who controls land and how – and of who profits and who suffers as a result – are among the most contentious social and political issues facing Indonesia. Conflicts over land have seethed and erupted in Indonesia for decades. Successive governments have prioritised state development projects and the interests of corporate investors, plantations, timber and mining companies over local communities’ concerns for their own livelihoods and land heritage. Indonesia’s basic legal framework has often failed to protect the rights of local communities. The 1945 Constitution, for example, asserts that the nation’s land must be used for the benefit of Indonesia’s people, but fails to specify which people should benefit, or how the government will guarantee that promise.

The promise of reform

A decade ago the collapse of the Suharto regime and the subsequent reformasi period raised hopes that a new Indonesia would prioritise social justice and reinvigorate the land reform goals that had animated so many Indonesians during the country’s first years of independence. Reformers also hoped that new regional autonomy policies, which devolve revenue and administrative power to local governments, would create space for local people to influence decisions on who has access to land and natural resources.

There have been some real success stories. Experiments in local control and management of land, from urban riversides and sacred mountains in Java to forests and plantations in Kalimantan and Sumatra, draw on a mixture of contemporary interpretations of local adat (customary law), new models of community participation, and new enabling legislation, both national and regional.

Yet regional autonomy not only brought devolution of authority over land use and land allocation. It also shifted the locus of political patronage from the central government to the regional level. Many reforms that affect land ownership and land use are now ensnared in complex webs of local collusion, corruption and nepotism. Thousands of communities remain vulnerable to government-licensed appropriation of their lands, and to land and resource exploitation by private companies. Social movements across Indonesia have emerged to resist displacement and to promote a vision of land use that puts local communities first.

National issues, local struggles

This issue of Inside Indonesia presents a broad picture of recent struggles over land and social justice in Indonesia. The articles describe a range of local cases, and highlight some of the many social movements that aim to advance community land rights.

The first two articles, written by two of Indonesia’s most prominent activists on land and social justice issues, illustrate the interweaving of national context and local struggles that characterise most controversies over land in today’s Indonesia. Sandra Moniaga traces a century-old struggle for local land rights in rural Lebak (West Java) from colonial land laws through ongoing reforms, finding more continuity than change in state attitudes. Her article also introduces a basic history of structures, institutions and reform in Indonesian land law. Noer Fauzi calls for Indonesia to return to the fundamental goal of redistributing land to poor farmers that was proclaimed in the Basic Agrarian Law of 1960. Drawing attention to the government’s new efficiency in issuing land title certificates, he urges agrarian reform advocates not to confuse universal private land titles with the redistributive land reforms that poor people need.

Next are three accounts of local struggles. Alexandra Crosby recounts the Saminist movement’s resistance to efforts by a state-owned cement company to gain control of Central Java’s Kendeng Mountain as the site for a new cement factory and gravel quarries. Laurens Bakker moves the focus to East Kalimantan, showing how devolution of authority to make land use decisions has become an important source of political patronage for local elites. With inter-island immigrants added to East Kalimantan’s multi-ethnic ‘indigenous’ mix, ethnicity plays a key role in the complex politics of land in the province. Even so, Bakker is guardedly optimistic that decentralisation will contribute to land tenure security.

Afrizal presents contrasting pictures of government and company attempts to deal with local opposition to corporate oil palm plantations in the Sumatra provinces of West Sumatra and Riau. In West Sumatra, the provincial government’s recognition of local adat land rights appears to be helping companies and their government supporters negotiate with local communities and quell their opposition to plantation developments. By contrast, Riau officials’ failure to recognise adat land rights continues to frustrate local communities confronting oil palm corporations.

Urban land

The last four articles focus on social justice issues in urban and urbanising areas. Gustav Reerink and Tristam Moeliono both focus on controversies surrounding the recent development of elite gated communities in the outskirts of Bandung. These developments are similar to hundreds of others that are taking over huge swathes of recently-rural land surrounding dozens of Indonesian cities. Gated communities are both reactions against urban sprawl and perpetrators of it. The articles decry the failure of spatial planning to safeguard environmental quality in Bandung’s watershed area, and the rights of the farmers and slum dwellers evicted by these huge private developments. Spatial planning reforms, in these accounts, have been hijacked to generate government revenues and political patronage.

Deden Rukmana explains Jakarta’s paradoxical approach of expanding the city’s green spaces while failing to control the massive construction that is a major cause of the city’s notorious floods. Jakarta’s leaders have designated open space areas along the banks of several rivers, streams, and catchment basins to protect against floods. Thousands of poor people have been evicted from their homes and sources of livelihood in the process. Yet the city has allowed new fuel stations to operate in ‘green’ areas and developers of luxury apartment complexes, shopping centres, and office blocks disregard the land use designations in Jakarta’s spatial plan with impunity.

However, there are some signs of hope for both social justice and improved environmental quality in Indonesia’s cities. Architect Antonio Ismael Risianto works with disadvantaged urban communities around Indonesia to improve their living and working conditions, their broader physical environments and their security in the face of both physical hazards like flooding and threats of expropriation. While most architects follow an easier path toward money, Antonio Ismael Risianto facilitates participatory processes and trains ‘barefoot architects’ emphasising social justice rather than developers’ profits.

In urban and rural areas, in Java and beyond, the articles in this edition of Inside Indonesia show that struggles for social justice throughout Indonesia continue to focus on demands for equitable access to land. They suggest that a land reform agenda must remain a central concern for all people who want to advance progressive social and political change in Indonesia. ii

Judith Mayer (jmayer@humboldt1.com) is an environmental planner in northern California, USA. Currently Coordinator of The Borneo Project of Earth Island Institute, her recent research in Indonesia has focused on community based resource management in Kalimantan. Judith holds Masters and PhD degrees in planning, and has taught at Virginia Tech and Humboldt State University. She would like to acknowledge the assistance of Blair Palmer in editing this edition of Inside Indonesia.

Pakistan Attacks Show Tighter Militant Links - NYTimes.com

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By JANE PERLEZ

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A wave of attacks against top security installations over the last several days demonstrated that the Taliban, Al Qaeda and militant groups once nurtured by the government are tightening an alliance aimed at bringing down the Pakistani state, government officials and analysts said.

More than 30 people were killed Thursday in Lahore, the second largest city in Pakistan, as three teams of militants assaulted two police training centers and a federal investigations building. The dead included 19 police officers and at least 11 militants, police officials said.

Nine others were killed in two attacks at a police station in Kohat, in the northwest, and a residential complex in Peshawar, capital of North-West Frontier Province.

The assaults in Lahore, coming after a 20-hour siege at the army headquarters in Rawalpindi last weekend, showed the deepening reach of the militant network, as well as its rising sophistication and inside knowledge of the security forces, officials and analysts said.

The umbrella group for the Pakistani Taliban, Tehrik-e-Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attacks in Lahore, the independent television news channel Geo reported on its Web site.

But the style of the attacks also revealed the closer ties between the Taliban and Al Qaeda and what are known as jihadi groups, which operate out of southern Punjab, the country’s largest province, analysts said. The cooperation has made the militant threat to Pakistan more potent and insidious than ever, they said.

The government has tolerated the Punjabi groups, including Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, for years, and many Pakistanis consider them allies in just causes, including fighting India, the United States and Shiite Muslims. But they have become entwined with the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and have increasingly turned on the state.

The alliance has now stepped up attacks as the military prepares an assault on the Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan, where senior members of the Punjabi groups also find sanctuary and support.

“These are all Punjabi groups with a link to South Waziristan,” Aftab Ahmed Sherpao, a former interior minister, said, explaining the recent attacks.

In a rare acknowledgment of the lethal combination of forces, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said that a “syndicate” of militant groups wanted to see “Pakistan as a failed state.”

“The banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, Jaish-e-Muhammad, Al Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi are operating jointly in Pakistan,” Mr. Malik told journalists, pledging a more effective counterstrategy.

In Washington, senior intelligence officials said the multiple coordinated attacks were a characteristic of operations influenced by Al Qaeda. But the officials said they were still sifting through intelligence reports to determine whether the attacks indeed marked an attempt by Al Qaeda to assert more influence over the Pakistani Taliban’s operations.

They said the assaults also might have been orchestrated by the Taliban to avenge the death of Baitullah Mehsud, the Pakistani Taliban leader, and send a stark message that the insurgents could still carry out daring attacks without him.

The fresh violence highlights the expanding challenges as the Obama administration tries to bolster Pakistan’s civilian government and encourage the military to press its campaign against the Taliban.

On Thursday, President Obama signed a civilian aid package for Pakistan of $7.5 billion over five years. The package has prompted friction over conditions for the aid — like greater civilian oversight of the military and demands that Pakistan drop support for militant groups — which army officers and politicians considered infringements on Pakistan’s sovereignty.

The White House issued a statement on Thursday noting the shared interests of the countries. However, in a sign of scant sympathy for the unappreciative reaction to the money, there was no signing ceremony.

The rise in more penetrating terrorist attacks may now add its own pressure on the Pakistani government to crack down on the Punjabi militants. It is time for the government to come out in public and explain the nature of the enemy, said Khalid Aziz, a former chief secretary of North-West Frontier Province.

“The national narrative in support of jihad has confused the Pakistani mind,” Mr. Aziz said. “All along we’ve been saying these people are trying to fight a war of Islam, but there is a need for transforming the national narrative.”

The jihadi groups were formally banned by the former president, Pervez Musharraf, after the Sept. 11 attacks, when Pakistan joined the United States in the campaign against terrorism.

But the groups have entrenched domestic and political constituencies, as well as shadowy ties to former military officials and their families, analysts said. Even since the ban, they have been allowed to operate in Punjab, often in the open.

Punjab is the major recruiting center for the Pakistani Army and it hosts more army divisions than any other province. Yet “these groups proliferate and operate with impunity, literally under the nose of Pakistan’s army,” said Christine Fair, assistant professor at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

A large congregation of jihadi groups, including Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, met six months ago in Rawalpindi, the city where the army headquarters was attacked last Saturday, said Mr. Sherpao, the former interior minister.

The nature of the Lahore attacks drove home the point that the “war has come to Punjab,” and that the government can no longer hide the alliance between the Taliban in South Waziristan and the forces in Southern Punjab, said Zaffar Abbas, a prominent journalist at the English-language newspaper Dawn.

Until the people are told the real situation, the government will never win the support of the people “to fight this bloody war,” Mr. Abbas said.

In fact, many Pakistanis do not see the jihadi groups as the enemy, said Farrukh Saleem, the executive director for the Center for Research and Security Studies in Islamabad. “They feel America is in the region and the Pakistani Army is fighting for an American army and the jihadis have a right to retaliate,” he said.

The senior personnel in the security forces seem to understand the gravity of the militants’ strength and the durability of their network, Mr. Saleem said. But they cannot bring themselves to say publicly that those whom they created are coming back to bite them, he said.

The ringleader of the assault on the army headquarters on Saturday, identified as Muhammad Aqeel, was a member of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, according to the military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas. Mr. Aqeel, who was captured alive, is also a former soldier in the Army Medical Corps, a background that appeared to have helped in planning the attack.

Two of the facilities attacked in and near Lahore on Thursday — the six-story building of the federal investigations agency, and a police training unit in the suburb of Manawan — were hit by militants in deadly assaults in 2008 and earlier this year.

The coordination of the attacks by three teams between 9 and 10 a.m. startled police officials as they scrambled to send commandos to each of the sites.

The raid on the headquarters of the Punjab elite police training school was seen as particularly insulting because its graduates, trained in counterterrorism techniques, are considered the pride of the province.

Five militants scaled a wall of the elite training school, where more than 800 recruits had just started classes, said Maj. Gen. Shafqat Ahmed, the officer commanding security forces in Lahore.

Six police officers were killed and seven were wounded in a gun battle that lasted more than two hours, police officials said. All five of the attackers were killed, they said.

Reporting was contributed by Salman Masood from Islamabad, Waqar Gilani from Lahore, Pakistan, Pir Zubair Shah from Peshawar, Pakistan, and Eric Schmitt from Washington.

Obama Barred Constitutionally From Accepting Nobel - washingtonpost.com

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By Ronald D. Rotunda and J. Peter Pham
Friday, October 16, 2009

People can, and undoubtedly will, argue for some time about whether President Obama deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Meanwhile, though, there's a simpler and more immediate question: Does the Constitution allow him to accept the award?

Article I, Section 9, of the Constitution, the emolument clause, clearly stipulates: "And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State."

The award of the peace prize to a sitting president is not unprecedented. But Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson received the honor for their past actions: Roosevelt's efforts to end the Russo-Japanese War, and Wilson's work in establishing the League of Nations. Obama's award is different. It is intended to affect future action. As a member of the Nobel Committee explained, the prize should encourage Obama to meet his goal of nuclear disarmament. It raises important legal questions for the second time in less than 10 months -- questions not discussed, much less adequately addressed anywhere else.

The five-member Nobel commission is elected by the Storting, the parliament of Norway. Thus the award of the peace prize is made by a body representing the legislature of a sovereign foreign state. There is no doubt that the Nobel Peace Prize is an "emolument" ("gain from employment or position," according to Webster).

An opinion of the U.S. attorney general advised, in 1902, that "a simple remembrance," even "if merely a photograph, falls under the inclusion of 'any present of any kind whatever.' " President Clinton's Office of Legal Counsel, in 1993, reaffirmed the 1902 opinion, and explained that the text of the clause does not limit "its application solely to foreign governments acting as sovereigns." This opinion went on to say that the emolument clause applies even when the foreign government acts through instrumentalities. Thus the Nobel Prize is an emolument, and a foreign one to boot.

Second, the president has indicated that he will give the prize money to charity, but that does not solve his legal problem. Giving that $1.4 million to a charity could give him a deduction that would reduce his income taxes by $500,000 -- not a nominal amount. Moreover, the money is not his to give away. It belongs to the United States: A federal statute provides that if the president accepts a "tangible or intangible present" for more than a minimal value from any foreign government, the gift "shall become the property of the United States."

This is at least the second time that Obama has run afoul of the emolument clause. On June 3, 2009, the day before he gave his speech in Cairo on relations with the Muslim world, he accepted (and even donned) the bejeweled Collar of the King Abdul Aziz Order of Merit, Saudi Arabia's highest honor, from the hands of King Abdullah. (President Bush was awarded the Order in January last year.)

Aside from whether a president shows questionable judgment in accepting any preferment from the House of Saud named for its anti-Semitic modern founder, there is another issue: The Collar is clearly a chivalric "order" of the Saudi monarchy conferring a rank in that system of titled royalty and nobility. It is not a mere decoration or campaign ribbon. There does not seem to be any record of congressional permission asked for, much less granted, for the president to accept this bauble. Washington, Madison and Hamilton would have clearly understood that the Abdul Aziz Order falls under the same ban they had in mind for any public officials coveting awards made under the honors system of the British monarchy.

Taking President Obama at his word that the Nobel award is "an affirmation of American leadership," Congress should allow him to accept the award. The prize money, which legally belongs to the United States, ought to be applied by Congress to some worthy cause, such as reducing the deficit.

As for the Abdul Aziz Order, Congress should withhold approval and return the chain -- until the Saudis show their support for international peace by recognizing the right of Israel to live in peace within secure borders. That would honor Alfred Nobel's desire to promote "fraternity between nations" and fulfill the intent of the Framers that congressional approval would guard against attempts by foreign governments to meddle in American politics by dangling presents, titles or any other emoluments in front of our public officials.

Ronald D. Rotunda is distinguished professor of jurisprudence at Chapman University Law School. J. Peter Pham is senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Dana Milbank - Obama's War of Few Words - washingtonpost.com

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By Dana Milbank
Friday, October 16, 2009

Who will fill the Afghanistan vacuum?

Carl Levin would be happy to. "I do not think we should be committing additional combat forces to Afghanistan," the Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee said Thursday, just 15 seconds into a breakfast meeting with reporters.

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) would also be delighted to volunteer. "It's time to end the whole mess," the former presidential candidate announced an hour later at a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Duncan Hunter, a young military veteran who won his dad's seat in Congress, has some thoughts as well. "We can win this thing" if we send an additional "40,000 or more" troops, the California Republican said at a pep rally/news conference held by House conservatives Thursday afternoon.

Also offering their plans for Afghanistan are British Prime Minister Gordon Brown; Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.); Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan; and just about everybody else with access to a microphone. In fact, the only one who doesn't seem to have a plan for the conflict is the one who matters most: President Obama.

As the administration continues its extended deliberations in pursuit of a new strategy for the war, allies in Afghanistan have begun to grumble about American dithering. The pace of the policy review is causing worry in both parties on Capitol Hill.

"It has been 76 days since General McChrystal submitted his review to the administration requesting additional resources, and the clock continues to tick," Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Fla.), the ranking Republican on the Foreign Affairs Committee, said at the start of Thursday's hearing. "Delay endangers American lives."

Democrats are more discreet, but also alarmed. "Like my colleagues, I hope the president will make a decision soon," Rep. Al Green (Tex.) said at the same hearing.

There seems to be less urgency at the White House, where the president completed his fifth meeting on the subject this week. But the only thing that seems to emerge from these sessions are new adjectives the White House press office uses to describe the conversation.

After the Oct. 6 meeting, the words "rigorous and deliberate" were used. The Oct. 7 session was described as "comprehensive." The Oct. 9 meeting, by contrast, turned out to be "robust." The Oct. 14 meeting was described as "fairly comprehensive."

Obama's drawn-out talks have bought him time while Afghanistan tries to resolve its fraud-plagued presidential election. But the slow walk has come with an unwelcome consequence: It has caused Obama's Afghanistan policy to be made for him. Opponents of a troop buildup have had time to dig in. Leaks about the military's desire for more troops have made it difficult to reduce the U.S. presence. Obama is therefore left with various split-the-difference options that will please neither side -- not unlike the way the health-care legislation has developed.

But it will probably suit Carl Levin. "What the public is very nervous about is, quote, 'getting in deeper,' " the chairman reasoned at the breakfast with reporters at the St. Regis hotel, arranged by the Christian Science Monitor. By sending military hardware and training the Afghan army, he said, Americans can "show resolve without looking like you're going to get into something deeper."

Of course, that ignores McChrystal's call for more forces, but Levin claimed the general told him that "more important than numbers is to show resolve."

On Capitol Hill, conservative House Republicans were also invoking McChrystal, but for the opposite purpose: a big troop increase.

"What isn't so clear is whose opinion the president thinks is more important, our commander in Afghanistan or Democrats in Congress," Rep. Tom Price (Ga.), head of the conservative Republican Study Committee, told the TV cameras.

Young Rep. Hunter likened McChrystal and Central Command's Gen. David Petraeus to professional athletes. "What we're here today urging the president to do is let this dream team win," he said.

Over in the House Foreign Affairs hearing room in the Rayburn building, meanwhile, there were as many Afghanistan policies as there were lawmakers.

"The Taliban never did a thing to us," said Republican Paul, demanding a pullout.

"We either defeat the terrorists there, or we will see them again here," countered Rep. Joe "You Lie" Wilson (R-S.C.).

The only thing they could agree on was that Obama needs to come up with his plan soon.

"I believe that the administration should be providing much-needed information about where we are and where we're going in Afghanistan," argued Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.). "The uncertainty is very disconcerting."

Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), too, wanted some "clear goals" and timelines. "Absent such clarity, I believe that Afghanistan potentially becomes another quagmire of nightmarish proportions."

Quagmire of nightmarish proportions? Sounds like those robust and comprehensive deliberations at the White House.

Obama Criticized as Too Cautious, Slow on Judicial Posts - washingtonpost.com

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By Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 16, 2009

President Obama has not made significant progress in his plan to infuse federal courts with a new cadre of judges, and liberal activists are beginning to blame his administration for moving too tentatively on what they consider a key priority.

During his first nine months in office, Obama has won confirmation in the Democratic-controlled Senate for just three of his 23 nominations for federal judgeships, largely because Republicans have used anonymous holds and filibuster threats to slow the proceedings to a crawl.

But some Democrats attribute that GOP success partly to the administration's reluctance to fight, arguing that Obama's emphasis on easing partisan rancor over judgeships has backfired and only emboldened Senate Republicans.

Some Republicans contend that the White House has hurt itself by its slow pace in sending over nominations for Senate consideration. President George W. Bush sent 95 names to the Senate in the same period that Obama has forwarded 23.

"I commend the president's effort to change the tone in Washington," said Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. "I recognize that he is extending an olive branch to Republicans on the Judiciary Committee and in the Senate overall. But so far, his efforts at reconciliation have been met with partisan hostility."

The delays are having a ripple effect in federal courts, where caseloads continue to back up, said Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.). Currently, about 90 judicial seats -- about 10 percent of the total -- remain vacant in appeals and district courts.

The White House predicts that nominations and confirmations will pick up soon. "The administration has been working closely with members of Congress to identify a set of uniquely qualified judicial nominees with diverse professional experiences," said Ben LaBolt, an Obama spokesman. "This process has been bipartisan and we have made every effort to make confirmation wars a thing of the past."

But liberal activists argue that Obama needs to quicken the pace, partly for political reasons. "It is incumbent on the Democrats and the White House to push as hard as they can to confirm judicial nominees, given that next year Republicans will make an all-out effort to block candidates as a means to gin up their base before the election," said Nan Aron, president of the Alliance for Justice, an advocacy organization.

Analysts say that unlike Bush, who saw judicial appointments as a way to advance a strict view of the Constitution, Obama has not sharply defined his judicial philosophy. Eric Posner, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, said that Republicans consider the federal courts crucial to furthering their policy aims by overturning current law, but that Obama is among Democrats who view court appointments mainly as a means of defending the legal status quo.

Obama has said he wants to appoint empathetic judges, but "beyond that, he hasn't said much. So it is hard to know exactly what he has in mind," Posner said.

Both the White House and its Republican detractors blame part of the delays on the intense focus early in Obama's term on the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. The White House devoted weeks of work to ensuring her smooth confirmation, and Republican senators and their staffs say they also concentrated on preparing for her August hearings.

While there is always intense focus on the Supreme Court, the lower court nominations offer a president the chance to find judges who share his views on hot-button issues, including abortion rights, affirmative action, the role of religion in public life and the reach of federal regulation.

But Republicans also note that the tables have turned for Democrats, who confirmed fewer of Bush's court nominees than those of any other two-term president in recent history. Many point out that as a senator, Obama voted against Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and John G. Roberts Jr., for what they see as ideological reasons.

In March, Senate Republicans urged Obama to renominate two of Bush's appeals court picks who were never confirmed as a gesture to improve a process that has grown "needlessly acrimonious." GOP senators also warned that if they were not consulted on judicial nominees, they would be "unable to support moving forward."

Obama made his first judicial nomination in March, naming Indiana federal District Court Judge David F. Hamilton for a vacancy on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit.

The White House said Hamilton -- a nephew of respected former congressman Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.) who had support from Republican Sen. Richard G. Lugar (Ind.) -- symbolized the president's intention to pick moderates.

Hamilton's nomination received a lukewarm response from some liberals, and he still encountered stiff opposition from Senate Republicans. Hamilton embraced Obama's "empathy" standard, which conservative legal thinkers reject as having nothing to do with a judge's work.

"Whatever the empathy standard is, it is not law, and we have courts of law in this country," said Sen. Jeff Sessions (Ala.), the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee.

Republicans also seized on several controversial cases decided by Hamilton. In 2005, he ruled that the daily invocation of the Indiana House too often referred to Jesus and a Christian god in violation of the Constitution. The decision was overturned on appeal.

In 2003, Hamilton struck down part of an Indiana law requiring abortion clinics to give women information about alternatives in the presence of a physician or nurse. That decision also was overturned on appeal.

Nearly seven months after his nomination, Hamilton's name has yet to be brought to the Senate floor.

Last month, the Senate confirmed Judge Jeffrey L. Viken, who will serve on the U.S. District Court in South Dakota. He was the third Obama judicial nominee to win Senate confirmation, following Sotomayor and Judge Gerard E. Lynch, who was confirmed last month to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. Despite ending in a lopsided 94 to 3 vote for confirmation, Lynch's nomination was delayed for three months.

On Tuesday, the White House forwarded another nomination to the Senate: Rosanna M. Peterson, who worked as a criminal lawyer before becoming a professor at Gonzaga University School of Law, to the federal District Court for the Eastern District of Washington. Last week, it announced two new appeals court nominees and one for the district court.

But nominees such as U.S. District Judge Andre M. Davis, Obama's choice to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, are still waiting for resolution. Davis was nominated in April and received a hearing within weeks, winning Judiciary Committee approval with a bipartisan vote of 16 to 3 on June 4.

Then, the anonymous holds began, thwarting a final vote on the Senate floor. The delays have annoyed Leahy, the panel chairman. In a statement following Viken's confirmation, he said: "We should not have to overcome filibusters and spend months seeking time agreements to consider these nominations."

“Lives Are For Sale In Europe”, Warns UNODC

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VIENNA, 16 October (UN Information Service) - In the run up to EU anti-trafficking day (18 October), the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has issued a report showing that trafficking in persons is an under-detected crime in Europe.

The report, based on UNODC's Global Report on Trafficking in Persons (launched in February 2009), says less people (1 in 100,000) are being convicted for human trafficking in Europe than for rare crimes like kidnapping. Only 9,000 victims were reported in 2006 - around 30 times less than the total estimated number. "Perhaps police are not finding the traffickers and victims because they are not looking for them", said the UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa.

The report shows a high degree of internal trafficking, both domestically within European countries and regionally within the European Union (predominantly from South-eastern to Western Europe). At the same time, European victims represent just a fraction of the total number of victims detected in Europe. Recent trends show a steady decline of flows from traditional sources, and a marked increase in victims from China and Central Asia.

Most identified victims of human trafficking in Europe are young women, trafficked for sexual exploitation. Around 10 per cent of trafficking victims in Europe are children. There are also detected cases of men in forced labour, like construction and agriculture. "Lives should not be for sale or for rent on a continent that prohibits slavery and forced labour, and prides itself on upholding human dignity", said Mr. Costa.

Most of the prosecuted traffickers are locals, predominantly men. Where foreign traffickers are present, they are often of the same nationality as the victims. Curiously, for a crime where most victims are women, the number of prosecuted female offenders is higher for human trafficking than for other crimes. "We need to better understand why people traffic their kin, and why women exploit other women", said the head of UNODC.

On a positive note, the report shows that in the past six years since the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children came into force in December 2003, most European countries have criminalized trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation and forced labour.

It also highlights the progress that has been made to improve collection of data on human trafficking within the European Union.

* *** *

A full copy of the report is available at:
http://www.unodc.org/documents/human-trafficking/Trafficking_in_Persons_in_Europe_09.pdf

Cracking Down on How Airlines Treat Travelers - WSJ.com

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DOT Presses Carriers To Comply With Rules On Delayed Luggage

• By SCOTT MCCARTNEY

Many airlines may be violating federal rules on reimbursing travelers for expenses when baggage is lost, delayed or damaged on domestic flights, and the federal government is finally cracking down to help consumers.

Taking a tougher stand on how airlines treat travelers, the Department of Transportation fined Spirit Airlines $375,000 last month for multiple violations of federal rules, including violations of domestic baggage-reimbursement requirements. Late last week, the DOT warned other carriers that their baggage-reimbursement policies appear to violate federal rules, too. "We have learned that a number of airlines have adopted policies that purport to limit reimbursement for such expenses in a variety of ways," the DOT said in its notice to airlines Friday.

A Wall Street Journal examination of practices at 14 airlines shows that many carriers have some of the same restrictions that resulted in the official censure of Spirit Airlines. One violation cited by the DOT was that Spirit made customers wait 24 hours after luggage was lost or delayed before covering any incidental costs travelers had to pay, such as toiletries or replacement clothes. DOT rules prohibit such waiting periods. The agency also said Spirit reimbursed customers for incidental expenses only if bags went missing on the outbound portion of a round-trip journey, yet the DOT's rule applies to "any flight segment."

"Travelers should not have to pay for toiletries or other necessities while they wait for baggage misplaced by airlines," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement. "We expect airlines to comply with all of our regulations and will take enforcement action if they do not."

The DOT gave airlines 90 days to modify their rules and practices before the agency would launch any enforcement actions.

Lost or delayed bags are relatively rare—about one traveler out of every 190 on domestic flights ended up at the baggage office empty-handed last year. And airlines say most people get their bags back within a day or two. Still, a large number of people are impacted by the uncertainty, inconvenience and expense of lost luggage. In 2008, more than three million mishandled-baggage reports were filed by airlines, and that just covers domestic flights.

Part of Spirit's response to the DOT was that its baggage policies were consistent with those of several other airlines. Indeed, Continental Airlines Inc., Hawaiian Airlines and Allegiant Air, for example, all say they pay for expenses only after the first 24 hours from a flight's arrival. UAL Corp.'s United Airlines says it reimburses expenses only on the outbound portion of a trip.

And many airlines put a limit on what they'll offer to pay passengers per day for expenses related to the lost luggage, which the DOT says is a violation of its domestic baggage-liability rule. The only limit allowed, the agency says, is that total liability for lost domestic baggage is $3,300 per passenger, including replacement costs and incidental expenses.

Long-Standing Gripes

Travelers have been complaining about such restrictions for years. In January 2007, this newspaper charted baggage-reimbursement policies at different airlines and reported on customer unhappiness with airline reimbursement. But the DOT didn't explore the issue until a few months ago.

In our latest survey over the past week, Continental said its reimbursement to travelers for delayed or lost luggage tops out at $200—$50 a day for four days after a 24-hour waiting period. United says it will pay $50 to $100 a day. US Airways Group Inc. has a less-generous limit of $25 a day for up to three days.

Alaska Airlines says it doesn't provide interim expenses to passengers for baggage delayed or lost because of bad weather or air-traffic-control problems. When it does pay, Alaska limits its liability to $25 for the first day a bag is missing, then ups that to $50 a day for the next four days.

Allegiant, a unit of Allegiant Travel Co., says it pays $25 a day for four days, but that only begins 24 hours after a bag has gone missing.

Hawaiian, a unit of Hawaiian Holdings Inc., limits payments to $30 a day for three days. JetBlue Airways Corp. says its "standard" payment is $25 per day, but like other airlines it considers higher amounts on a case-by-case basis.

Continental said it was evaluating what changes it may need to make to its policy to ensure it is in compliance with the DOT regulation. Virgin America, which said it reimburses $25 a day for five days, then amended that statement to say it may pay more if customers provide receipts; the airline said it asked the DOT on Monday for "further clarity" to determine if it is in compliance. Allegiant says it has asked the DOT "for clarification on a few items.'' Others said they believe they are in compliance.

AMR Corp.'s American Airlines says it has no daily limit and will negotiate with customers, but it does require customers to get prior approval from the airline for any expense. Southwest Airlines says it offers customers $50 on the spot when luggage goes missing, and will pay more if passengers file formal claims.

Case-By-Case Basis

After the DOT warning was issued, many airlines stressed that they consider their reimbursement limits, sometimes included in published materials given to passengers, to be only "guidelines" and that higher amounts can be paid on a case-by-case basis. That may be news to some customers who get told there's a tight limit to what the airline will pay.

In 2007, when The Wall Street Journal charted baggage-reimbursement policies, Delta Air Lines Inc. said it limited customers to $25 a day for five days. This week Delta spokeswoman Susan Elliott said that amount is offered "in many cases, but because we handle these types of issues on a case-by-case basis the compensation could be more depending on the situation."

Likewise in 2007, AirTran Airways said it had a limit of $25 a day for three days. After the DOT warning was issued Friday, a spokesman for AirTran said it had no arbitrary limit. Asked when the policy changed, AirTran, a unit of AirTran Holdings Inc., didn't respond.

Arbitrary Expense Limits

The DOT said it considers "any arbitrary limits on expense reimbursement incurred in cases involving lost, damaged or delayed baggage to violate" its baggage rule, 14 CFR Part 254. The rule says an airline can't "limit its liability for provable direct or consequential damages...to an amount less than $3,300 for each passenger." It applies to any flight with more than 60 seats, or any passenger whose itinerary includes a flight using an aircraft with more than 60 seats.

Airlines say they delay any help with incidental expenses for 24 hours because bags often show up during that first 24-hour period. However, excluding the first 24 hours can greatly reduce airline payments to customers for incidentals.

And that policy leaves travelers in the lurch—typically they don't know when or even if the bag will turn up. If you need a tie for your presentation in the morning, you may have to buy one even though your bag may be delivered to your hotel at 10 p.m.

Travelers complain they often have to battle with airlines to cover the cost of lost items.

Borrowing Clothes

David Pykon, a New York hedge-fund trader, says he was given conflicting information by different American Airlines supervisors on daily expenses after his bag was lost on a Thanksgiving trip to Dallas last year. Although he had no clothes or toiletries, he was first told he had to limit his spending to $25 a day. Then he was told $50 a day. Later another official said $75 a day. Mr. Pykon borrowed clothes from friends but still spent nearly $200 over his four-day trip, and the airline gave him a check before his flight home for $170.

"They said tough luck—it is what it is," he said.

American spokesman Tim Smith said some of Mr. Pykon's expenses may not have been pre-authorized.

The bag was never found and Mr. Pykon filed a claim for more than $2,600. He included credit-card statements showing purchases. American sent a check for $740, saying it accepted only actual store receipts, and didn't cover electronics (he had lost an iPod), medication and sunglasses, he said. The airline discounted the value of other items for depreciation.

Mr. Pykon said he wrote to American three times, called repeatedly and was never allowed to speak to the person who handled his claim. (His credit-card company covered much of the loss the airline refused to pay.)

"It's easier for them to frustrate me," Mr. Pykon said of the airline. "A person is only going to take it so far."

American says it hopes its processes aren't frustrating and inconsistent. "We try to be fair and listen to what the customer needs," Mr. Smith said.

Canning Foods at Home Makes a Comeback - WSJ.com

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By ANA CAMPOY

Pots are boiling on every burner and the kitchen counters are covered with a jumble of bowls, measuring cups and jars. Steam fills the house with the scent of vinegar and caramelizing sugar.

We're canning.

This two-century-old technique of preserving food—or "putting up," in canning-speak—is making a big comeback.

The worst recession in decades and a trend toward healthier eating are inspiring many Americans to grow their own food. Now the harvest season is turning many of these gardeners into canners looking to stretch the bounty of the garden into the winter.

Canning statistics are hard to come by, but Elizabeth Andress, project director of the National Center for Home Food Preservation, a government-funded program that advises consumers on how to safely preserve food, says requests for canning classes are flooding in at a rate not seen in many years.

Hundreds of cooks gathered at the end of August in simultaneous countrywide canning fests organized by Canning Across America, a new Web site for canning devotees (www.canningacrossamerica.com). At Jarden Corp.'s Jarden Home Brands—the maker of Kerr and Ball brand jars—sales of canning equipment are up 30% this year through mid-September, over the same period in 2008. And canning classes from Brooklyn, N.Y., to Boise, Idaho, report seeing skyrocketing enrollments this year.

Canning has been around since the dawn of the 19th century, when, at Napoleon's behest, a Frenchman developed a method of sealing food in bottles to prevent spoilage on long military campaigns. The process was later adapted to factory-sealed metal cans, but at home, "canning" is still practiced in thick glass jars.

Lately, canning has found new appeal as a healthier alternative to the chemicals and preservatives found in many prepared foods, says Brenda Schmidt, brand manager at Jarden. By preserving their own fruits and vegetables, people can also customize the amount of sugar or salt used. Canned foods will keep for varying lengths of time, depending on the recipe, but the National Center for Home Food Preservation says that you should can only what you plan to eat within a year.

In the weak economy, others are turning to it as a money saver. A few seeds planted in the spring can yield enough canned produce to last a year. But Ms. Andress, of the canning education program, warns that canning food isn't always cheaper than buying it from the grocery store.

I decided to take a class to find out for myself. I found a teacher through Slow Food Dallas, a chapter of an international organization that promotes traditional ingredients and food. I signed up for a private class with one other student, then bought supplies at my local farmer's market in Dallas, where I paid $8 for four pounds of fresh, firm cucumbers grown in Lipan, Texas, west of Fort Worth.

I bought vinegar, pickling salt, dill seeds and peppercorns at the supermarket and canning jars at the hardware store—all for $25.42. The canning teacher brought a big pot with a rack, which would have set me back another $25. My classmate showed up with $10 worth of peaches, some lemons and a bag of sugar. We were all set for our canning initiation.

I quickly discovered that preserving requires more rigor than my usual haphazard cooking method of tossing vegetables around in a sauté pan.

Our teacher devised an assembly line to process our two products, pickles and peach jam, to make the most of our limited counter space.

Strict Procedures

Canners must follow strict procedures, sticking to food safety guidelines issued by the U.S. Agriculture Department. The main threat is a microorganism called Clostridium botulinum, found on the surface of most produce. In a low-acid environment with no air, such as a food-filled jar, these bacteria can produce toxins that cause botulism, a deadly form of food poisoning.

One way to prevent that is by using a pressure cooker to heat food to a high temperature. The other is by adding vinegar or lemon juice to the food during canning. We used the latter technique, stuffing our fruit and vegetables into jars and then boiling them in a big pot of water.

First we washed our containers—pint and half-pint Ball brand glass jars, which have been made since 1884—in the dishwasher. Then we made the brine—a mixture of salt, water and vinegar for the pickles—and heated it on the stove. The peaches were blanched and peeled.

At my station, I chopped a mound of cucumbers as best I could. I had already cut my finger by the second or third cucumber, and the slices ranged from fat to skinny. Although their irregularity was not intentional, I liked to think it gave them an artisanal quality.

Meanwhile, my classmate stirred a mixture of sugar and peaches over the stove. Recent heavy rains had forced the grower to pull them early from the tree, so they were as hard as tennis balls and refused to disintegrate. Instead of jam, we decided, we would make chunky peach preserves.

The next stop was the packing station. We squeezed as many cucumbers as we could into the jars, which were piping hot from the dishwasher. (Heating the jars prevents them from shattering when you pour in hot brine and preserves.)

Once the jars were full, we placed round metallic lids on them and held them in place with a separate ring that was screwed on over them. Then we submerged the jars in boiling water in order to destroy any microorganisms and remove oxygen. Slowly, the counter filled with jars that emitted a satisfying popping sound as the lids sealed, ensuring the food will keep without spoiling.

The Verdict: Delicious

Before the last batch was done, we were spooning peach preserves onto pieces of a baguette. The verdict: delicious, sweet, tangy and rich, despite the unripe peaches. The dill pickles had a sharp, full flavor that made store-bought versions seem overly sweet and dull.

In about four hours we produced eight one-pint jars of pickles at a cost of $2.14 each, and seven $2.60 half-pint jars of preserves. Those figures do not include our teacher's $100 fee nor the energy, water and labor we expended, but they do include all our ingredients and the jars. That's less than the $2.43 I paid for dill pickles at the supermarket, and the $3.12 I paid for store-bought preserves.

Although home-canned goods are not exactly a bargain, their taste is dramatically better and, in my view, well worth the labor. I'm not motivated enough to tackle a canning session on my own, but I'm definitely interested in team canning, which was as much fun as a dinner party and more productive.

My next canning project is already in the works. I have a bountiful crop of gypsy peppers and a good recipe for pickled peppers. All I need now are a few fellow canners to put them up.