Gates Says Afghan Plan Will Mix Various Proposals - NYTimes.com

Image by \ Ryan via Flickr

By ELISABETH BUMILLER and MARK LANDLER

President Obama hopes to combine the best elements from among the several proposals he is studying on sending additional troops to Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said on Thursday.

“I would say it was more, how can we combine some of the best features of several of the options to maximum good effect?” Mr. Gates told reporters.. “So there is a little more work to do, but I think we’re getting toward the end of the process.”

The president is known to be weighing at least four options for deploying more soldiers to Afghanistan: sending 10,000 to 15,000 troops, 20,000, or as many as 30,000 or 40,000. But Mr. Gates’s remarks on a flight from Washington to Wisconsin, where he was to tour a factory that makes armored vehicles, were a strong signal that the president is leaning toward more flexibility than the speculation about specific numbers might indicate.

Mr. Gates said a central focus in Mr. Obama’s deliberations was “how do we signal resolve, and at the same time signal to the Afghans, as well as the American people, that this is not an open-ended commitment?”

The latest clues about the president’s thinking, as provided by Mr. Gates, came a day after it was disclosed that the United States ambassador to Afghanistan, who once served as the top American military commander there, has expressed in writing his reservations about deploying additional troops to the country.

The position of the ambassador, Karl W. Eikenberry, a retired lieutenant general, puts him in stark opposition to the current American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who has asked for 40,000 more troops.

General Eikenberry sent his reservations to Washington in a cable last week, three senior American officials said on Wednesday. In that same period, President Obama and his national security advisers have begun examining an option that would send relatively few troops to Afghanistan, about 10,000 to 15,000, with most designated as trainers for the Afghan security forces.

This low-end option was one of four alternatives under consideration by Mr. Obama and his war council at a meeting in the White House Situation Room on Wednesday afternoon. The other three options call for troop levels of around 20,000, 30,000 and 40,000, the three officials said.

Mr. Obama asked General Eikenberry about his concerns during the meeting on Wednesday, officials said, and raised questions about each of the four military options and how they might be tinkered with or changed. Mr. Gates’s comments on Thursday reinforced the impression that Mr. Obama’s eventual choice may involve far more than just picking a certain number.

A central focus of Mr. Obama’s questions, officials said, was how long it would take to see results and be able to withdraw.

“He wants to know where the off-ramps are,” one official said.

The president pushed for revisions in the options to clarify how — and when — American troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government. He raised questions, officials said, about the exit strategy for American troops and sought to make clear that the commitment by the Untied States would not be open-ended.

One of the biggest obstacles in reaching a decision, an official said, is uncertainty surrounding the credibility of the Afghan government.

The officials, who requested anonymity in order to discuss delicate White House deliberations, did not describe General Eikenberry’s reasons for opposing additional American forces, although he has recently expressed strong concerns about President Hamid Karzai’s reliability as a partner and corruption in his government. Mr. Obama appointed General Eikenberry as ambassador in January.

During two tours in Afghanistan — from 2005 to 2007, when he served as the top American commander, and from 2002 to 2003, when he was responsible for building and training the Afghan security forces — General Eikenberry encountered what he later described as the Afghan government’s dependence on Americans to do the job that then-President George W. Bush was urging the Afghans to begin doing themselves.

Pentagon officials said the low-end option of 10,000 to 15,000 more troops would mean little or no significant increase in American combat forces in Afghanistan. The bulk of the additional forces would go to train the Afghan Army, with a smaller number focused on hunting and killing terrorists, the officials said.

The low-end option would essentially reject the more ambitious counterinsurgency strategy envisioned by General McChrystal, which calls for a large number of forces to protect the Afghan population, work on development projects and build up the country’s civil institutions.

It would largely deprive General McChrystal of the ability to send large numbers of American forces to the southern provinces in Afghanistan where the Taliban control broad areas of territory. And it would limit the number of population centers the United States could secure, officials said.

General Eikenberry crossed paths with General McChrystal during his second tour in Afghanistan, when General McChrystal led the military’s Joint Special Operations Command, which conducted clandestine operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Their relationship, a senior military official said last year, was occasionally tense as General McChrystal pushed for approval for commando missions, and General Eikenberry was resistant because of concerns that the missions were too risky and could lead to civilian casualties.

It was unclear whether General Eikenberry, who participated in the Afghanistan policy meeting on Wednesday by video link from Kabul, the Afghan capital, had been asked by the White House to put his views in writing. It was also unclear how persuasive they will be with Mr. Obama.

A spokesman for the State Department declined to comment, while a spokesman for General Eikenberry in Kabul could not be reached for comment late Wednesday.

Administration officials say that in recent meetings on Afghanistan at the White House, the president has repeatedly asked whether a large American force might undercut the urgency of training the Afghan security forces and persuading them to fight more on their own.

As Mr. Obama nears a decision, the White House is sending officials to brief allies and other countries on an almost weekly basis. The administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard C. Holbrooke, is heading to Paris, Berlin and Moscow. Other officials in his office are meeting with Chinese officials in Beijing.

Mr. Obama is expected to mull over his options during a trip to Asia that begins Thursday. He is due back in Washington on Nov. 19 and could announce the policy before Thanksgiving, officials said, but is more likely to wait until early December.

General Eikenberry has been an energetic envoy, traveling widely around Afghanistan to meet with tribal leaders and to inspect American development projects.

He has been pushing the State Department for additional civilian personnel in the country, including in areas like agriculture, where the United States wants to help wean farmers off cultivating poppies. The State Department has tried to accommodate his requests, according to a senior official, but has turned down some because of budget constraints and its desire to cap the overall number of civilians in Afghanistan at roughly 1,000.

He played a significant role, along with Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, in persuading Mr. Karzai last month to accept the results of an election commission, which called for a runoff presidential ballot.

That vote never took place because Mr. Karzai’s main opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, subsequently withdrew from the contest.

But General Eikenberry also angered Mr. Karzai early in the campaign when he appeared at news conferences called by three of Mr. Karzai’s opponents. American officials said Mr. Karzai viewed that as an inappropriate intrusion into Afghanistan’s domestic politics.

The White House Afghanistan meeting lasted from 2:30 p.m. to 4:50 p.m., and was Mr. Obama’s eighth session in two months on the subject.

A few hours before the meeting began, the president walked through the rain-soaked grass at Arlington National Cemetery, stopping by Section 60, where troops from Iraq and Afghanistan are buried.

It was Mr. Obama’s first Veterans Day since taking office, and in an address at the cemetery he hailed the sacrifice and determination of the nation’s military.

“In this time of war, we gather here, mindful that the generation serving today already deserves a place alongside previous generations for the courage they have shown and the sacrifices that they have made,” Mr. Obama said.

Mark Mazzetti, David E. Sanger, Jeff Zeleny and Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.

The Nut Graph | “Forget about race”

By Deborah Loh
deborahloh@thenutgraph.com

Azran Osman-Rani

AZRAN Osman-Rani is Air Asia X's chief executive officer. Because he doesn't have an office to himself, for the interview with The Nut Graph on 11 Sept 2009, we sit down at a table in a corner of an open-floor office in full view of other staff at their work stations. Azran shares the same work space as his staff with no cubicles to separate each desk.

The atmosphere at the Air Asia X office in the Low-Cost Carrier Terminal in Sepang is casual and informal. But there's a hum of efficiency. Perhaps there is more to the airline's "no-frills" ethos than just budget flights. Doing away with the excess fat and bureaucracy does give one more time and space to develop the values that matter.

Speaking with heartfelt conviction about the values that matter to him, Azran talks about the need for concerted effort to shape a multicultural environment for his children and the company he works in.

TNG: Where were you born and where did you grow up?

Azran (at the back), with maternal grandmother Sajidah Salleh, parents Safiah Osman and Osman-Rani Hassan,
and siblings (all family pics courtesy of Azran Osman-Rani)

I was born in 1971 and I'm 110% KL, from the General Hospital to Kampung Pandan for my first couple of years, then Bangsar Telawi for four years, and then Taman Tun [Dr Ismail] from Standard One right up to Form Five.

I've also been lucky to have had a number of overseas living experiences. At age one to two, my dad did his PhD in Manila. When I was nine and 10, my mum did her PhD in New York. I studied in the United States and after coming back, I was able to spend a year working in Thailand, then a year in Indonesia, then Singapore and a year in Korea. It provided useful perspectives in seeing what's out there in the world and [allows one the ability] to appreciate [one's] own culture and roots when [one] is overseas.

What did your parents do and how did they influence your upbringing?

Azran, at age six

Dad was a former professor of economics at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and mum was a former professor of education at Universiti Malaya. They did their academic work regionally so our household had a lot of exposure to people of different cultures.

Our parents always allowed me and my siblings to engage with their friends. Our household was not one where kids were seen and not heard. We sat at the dinner table and had conversations with our parents' friends.

At age four, I got to talk to professors and academics from other countries. At that age I was really into art and drawing, and every painting I did I would show to my parents' friends. That gave me a lot of self-confidence as a kid. When you become familiar with differences, you can attract and talk to older people and people from diverse backgrounds. Some of my mum's friends today say they still remember my paintings.

Can you trace your ancestry?

Leftenan Hassan Yassin, Azran's paternal
grandfather

There is an element of multicultural heritage. On my maternal side, my grandfather is Indian-Ceylonese Muslim. But I don't know whether it was he who migrated or his parents who migrated. He died before I was born. He was a technician with a surveying department in the government.

My maternal grandmother is of Bugis descent and was from Linggi, Negeri Sembilan. She was an orphan and a second wife to my grandfather. They raised nine kids. In that environment raising kids during the Japanese occupation, all the older kids had to work and sacrifice so that the younger kids could get an education. My mum was number eight. Number seven, eight and nine were the ones who got full education all the way up to university.

Azran as a baby with paternal grandmotherOn my paternal side, my grandmother is an ethnic Chinese who was adopted by a Malay family. My paternal grandfather was considered a war hero, Leftenan Hassan Yassin, who fought during the Japanese occupation and against the communists in the 1948 insurgency. He died in a communist ambush in Gua Musang in 1948. They exhumed his body from Kelantan and brought it to Makhamah Pahlawan in Port Dickson where his whole regiment was buried. He died when my father, who was the eldest, was barely six years old.

So my young grandmother, who worked as a midwife, had three small kids and suddenly lost her husband. She raised them in Ipoh. Reflecting on both sides, I see how both my dad's and mum's parents and siblings did everything to get them into university.

Growing up, I wasn't very aware of my family history but knowing it now, it's a source of pride to say that I have Chinese, Indian, and Indonesian blood.

What memories do you have of inter-racial childhood friendships?

Azran (third from left) in Standard One at the Methodist primary school, with his "Rasa Sayang" concert troupe

Growing up in KL, we didn't talk about being inter-racial. It was just part and parcel of life. I went to the Methodist kindergarten in Section 5, Petaling Jaya. We had no issues about singing hymns at kindergarten. Now, we're a lot more conscious about race but growing up we were never aware of it. We judged our friends based on whether we shared the same activities.

When did you become aware of race and how did that happen?

When I came back from overseas. Malaysia in the last 10 years has become a lot more inward and ethnic-focused. It's come to a point where [my wife] Azreen and I pulled out our son from Sekolah Kebangsaan Bukit Damansara because it was a very different school environment from when we were in school 20 years ago. It's now very Malay-centric and very religious. We've put our son in Sri KDU.

As parents, our challenge is that government schools are a lot more polarised these days. We now have to actively look for environments to raise our kids which still provide a multi-racial and multi-cultural experience. You have to actively do this or your kids get sucked into the polarised mainstream.

Are there any aspects of being Malaysian that you struggle with?

None really except that these days we tend to be way too focused and sensitive about race. I think a lot of it has to do with the political system that's polarised and has labelled people. We are missing out on the vast opportunities that come from embracing diversity. Instead, we're becoming more homogenous in thinking and approach.

Azran (left) at age six, with brother Azrul and sister Azleen

That's why [I] actively ensure that [my kids] have friends from different races. In the work environment, in my years of working as a management consultant, I saw that a lot of companies were still very homogenous in their shareholding and management structure. There are very ingrained cultures, for example, the very Malay [Malaysian] government-linked companies and very Chinese [Malaysian]-centric banks and companies. I learnt that you have to actively address this.

Here, the Air Asia X team is very diverse but it is intentionally constructed that way. If I left it to everyone, as with most organisations, the finance team would probably be primarily Chinese [Malaysian], so would the IT team, and the engineering team would be very Malay [Malaysian].

Motto in the Air Asia X office

How do you implement diversity in Air Asia X, through quotas?

It's not done in a structured way, but rather than quotas, what's more important is the values that we live. What I stand for, what my team stands for, how we talk and how we interact. The softer parts for me are more important. It's how we govern ourselves rather than by policies or quotas.

For example, how do we inculcate in the heads of department to hire more women pilots and women engineers, and ensure that we have all races in all departments. And it doesn't end with hiring, because even if you hire them, people stick to their own little cliques. You still have to create the right forums, especially informally, so that people socialise together. Leaders have to do their part because if you rely on quotas and systems, you'll still get microcosms of homogeneity.

What do you think makes you Malaysian?

Actually, where I am now, I'm trying to break out from that. Rather than thinking of ourselves as Malaysians, let's embrace an Asean identity, or an Asian identity. Partly because that's Air Asia's business model. We've moved on beyond the whole Malay, Chinese or Indian thing. We're looking at how to make someone in Thailand think of Air Asia as a Thai airline, or making an Australian think that this is an Australian airline. Localisation is important.

Azran (right, seated), was a member of the ultimate Frisbee team at university in the United States

As Malaysians, we should be the ones more open to a multi-cultural set of values compared to more homogenous societies in neighbouring countries. We should be the ones leading that in terms of work, and socially.

Describe the kind of Malaysia you would like for your children and future generations.

To have openness, not just along ethnic and gender lines, but also regionally and globally. It's a matter of necessity.

We are acutely aware that Malaysia as a market is way too small. We're surrounded by huge markets like China, India and Indonesia. Even Thailand, Vietnam and Philippines are more than double the size of Malaysia, so as a matter of survival we have to reach out and participate actively on that scale. We've got to move away from being driven by political agenda in terms of the whole divide and conquer thing, and move on beyond race.

Forget about race. There's a bigger battle between Malaysia and the rest of the world. It means that in all our respective roles we have to consciously and actively create those opportunities. We have to shape and nurture a set of values among the people we are responsible for. It's a big part of my role as a parent, and in the company.

Malaysia needs to publish a lot more books

Image by anuarsalleh via Flickr

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia has to publish 27,000 book titles for general reading annually to become a knowledgeable, developed nation and be on par with other developed countries, Malaysian Book Contractors Association president Hasan Hamzah said.

He said that in countries like Japan, South Korea, Denmark, Sweden and Germany, the ratio was 1,000 book titles to one million population.

“Hence, Malaysia has to publish 27,000 book titles for its 27 million population a year, ” he said, adding that such an effort would require an allocation of about RM300mil.

Hasan said Malaysia currently published only 10,000 book titles every year, which is still very far behind from that in other developed countries.

Most of the books found in Malaysia were imported ones, despite the country having many local intellectuals, including about 350,000 teachers and more than 40,000 lecturers or professors, who were capable of producing books for general reading, he added.

However, he said it was not because there were not many locally-published books that reading was not a habit among Malaysians.

“Actually, our society loves knowledge and they like to read. It is because the books are expensive to buy,” he added.

Hasan said that for a book to be sold cheap, a publisher had to print at least 3,000 copies for each book title a year.

There would be an increase in demand for general books with support from the government through provision of special allocations for publication of books for general reading, he added. -- Bernama

Tiny car has big potential - washingtonpost.com

Image via Wikipedia

Thursday, November 12, 2009

The tiny Nano cars made by India's Tata Motors are starting to hit the road in that country after a land dispute forced the relocation of the car's manufacturing plant and delayed its launch. Analysts say the Nano could rock the international auto industry and put millions of new Indian drivers on the road. While Tata is producing only about 100 units a day, Tata director Jamshed J. Irani said it hopes to ramp up to about 1,000 vehicles a day next year. Tata has also started building low-cost homes, which the media have labeled Nano homes. Irani stopped by The Washington Post last week to talk to staff writer Steven Mufson about the $2,200 basic model, billed as the world's cheapest car. Here are excerpts of their conversation.

What is your strategy for the Nano?

We'll be concentrating on India, where quite a few people will buy it as a second or third car. It is a great car for the city, ideal for parking, [low] fuel consumption and safety. No one envisions them zipping along highways. There is no baggage space.

How much interest has there been in India?

We are distributing the cars by lottery. We took a lot of deposits, but [because of the long waiting list] we said those who wanted their money back could get it because even in March 2011, we are not sure they will get the car.

That sounds great for Tata Motors, but people worried about greenhouse gas emissions won't be happy.

It might even reduce emissions. If I drive my Tata, my Mercedes will be parked. So from an environmental point of view, pollution will be reduced because the consumption of fuel will be much less in the Nano. About 19 to 20 kilometers per liter [equal to about 50 miles a gallon].

What customers are you targeting?

We are looking at the segment between the two-wheeler just now and the cheapest car in India, which is three times the price of the Nano, which costs $2,200. That is the basic model. You can get air conditioning, power steering, with windows going up and down. The model with all the bells and whistles is 170,000 rupees [about $3,740]. Now Tata sells about 250,000 cars a year.

So the Nano could double your sales?

Easily.

Are you looking abroad?

We are testing the waters, but we have no plans to go abroad yet. The Indian market we think is inexhaustible. If you take the Indian population, there are 1.3 billion. There are about 3 million cars -- not even 1 percent. . . . But in the middle class, there are 300 million people, and quite a few will graduate from two-wheelers to four-wheelers. The only restrictive fact is the roads. We have to make more roads to move the cars.

What about competition from international car makers?

Years ago there were only two kinds of cars in India. Those who wanted a big car bought one, and those who wanted a small car bought the other. . . . For 50 years, India had no competition, whether in cool drinks or airlines or cars. . . . Five or eight years back, the Indian market was restructured to allow imported vehicles. Now Japanese and Korean companies are making vehicles in India. . . . As far as I know, they are far away from a [low-price] prototype.

What does the growth in the Indian economy and Tata's steel and car businesses mean for climate change on the eve of the international Copenhagen summit, where many in the international community hope to agree on emission caps?

We at Tata are aware, obviously. We will do the right thing. We will not wait for subsidies. If there is a viable technology, we will go for that. At the steel company, we have made it the lowest-cost steel producer in the world. Similarly, we will target greenhouse gases. I would be dishonest if I said that was on our agenda even five years ago. But now it is, and all our future buildings will be green buildings.

What will be negotiated in Copenhagen is the government's business. . . . We want a deal based on equity. No one in the world can say that developing countries, because they used less until now, must continue to use less and widen the gap between developed and developing countries. We will put more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It is necessary for development. You can't take India, where one-third of its population still don't have electricity in their homes, and say to those countries: 'Don't give more power because it would be putting more CO2 into the atmosphere.' Development is very important, and populations demand that. You cannot condemn those populations to living literally in darkness.

The softer hand - washingtonpost.com

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Ingushetia's president pledged to stop abuses against rebels, but violence on both sides persists

By Philip P. Pan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, November 12, 2009

MAGAS, RUSSIA -- When the Kremlin appointed him president of Ingushetia, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov promised a new approach to fighting the Islamist insurgency that has made this splinter of land the most volatile of Russia's Muslim republics.

His predecessor tried to crush the rebels with a campaign of torture, abductions and killings. But Yevkurov pledged to rein in the government's security forces, saying their abuses were helping the rebels attract recruits. He reached out to human rights groups and his pro-democracy critics. And he offered a limited amnesty to the militants.

Now, a year after taking office, Yevkurov and his experiment in moderation are at a crossroads. Instead of retreating, the insurgents have stepped up their attacks, while the security services continue to kidnap and kill with impunity, activists say. With the assassination of a leading opposition figure last month, public anger is climbing toward a boiling point.

There's a lot riding on Yevkurov, who represents an alternative to Moscow's traditional emphasis on heavy-handed security tactics in the troubled North Caucasus. If he falters, the government is likely to clamp down again, strengthening local autocrats such as Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin's strongman in neighboring Chechnya, and risking a full-scale war. But if he succeeds, Russia's leaders might see a way to end the cycle of violence that has made the region a human rights disaster zone and an obstacle to serious reform of the nation's security services.

Yevkurov himself acknowledges that he has yet to make much of a difference. "There is nothing special to boast of," he said at a news conference Tuesday devoted to his first year in office. "Everybody hoped that Yevkurov would come and it would all be settled. But, as we can see, this has not happened."

A career soldier, war hero and native son of Ingushetia, Yevkurov, 46, is one of the few regional governors in Russia appointed by President Dmitry Medvedev, who has struggled to set himself apart from his powerful patron and predecessor, Vladimir Putin, now the prime minister.

Hopes soared when Yevkurov took office, in part because his predecessor, Murat Zyazikov, a former KGB official with ties to Putin, was so unpopular. Yevkurov promised to attack rampant corruption, resettle refugees from the region's wars and investigate crimes by the security forces.

But in June, a suicide bomber struck Yevkurov's motorcade, putting him in a coma. Two months later, as he prepared to leave the hospital, another suicide attack leveled a police station, killing at least 24 people and injuring 200 others. The fate of his effort to defeat the insurgency by wooing the public suddenly seemed uncertain.

In an interview at his heavily guarded presidential palace, Yevkurov covered burns on his hands as he vowed to stay the course. "I don't have any anger or wish for revenge," he said softly. "On the contrary, I want to continue a dialogue with the public, including the criminals, so that they realize what they are doing and take the right track."

He said he will continue "doing things completely differently" from his predecessor, who employed harsh security measures and was fired by Medvedev after a public outcry over the killing of a prominent opposition figure.

After the slaying of another opposition leader, Maksharip Aushev, last month, though, critics are asking whether Yevkurov has the clout to stand up to the security structures, which even he has acknowledged may have been involved.

"The situation isn't getting any better. In fact, it's getting worse," said Magomed Mutsolgov, director of the human rights group Mashr, which assists people whose relatives have been kidnapped or killed by the authorities. He said killings and abductions have continued, but he praised Yevkurov for meeting regularly with activists and allowing them to publish newspapers critical of the government.

"I can see he wants to change things," Mutsolgov added. "Unfortunately, he doesn't have full control over the security forces, because they report to federal structures, to Moscow." Some also answer to Kadyrov, whose Chechen units are increasingly active in Ingushetia, he said.

Yevkurov has gone out of his way to meet with families whose loved ones have disappeared, but many have given up on him. "I've met with him four times and spoken on the phone with him twice. He's always warm, but there have been zero results," said Ilyas Malsagov, 38, whose brother, an architect and devout Muslim, was seized by uniformed men wearing masks in December and has not been seen since.

Yevkurov insisted he has full authority over the security forces and agreed that more needs to be done to limit and punish their excesses. But he accused families of not being honest about why the security forces might have targeted their relatives and suggested that harsh tactics against "terrorists and bandits violating the law with weapons in their hands" are sometimes justified.

Yevkurov appeared most frustrated by his failure to stamp out corruption. He said the officials who steal state funds are making protection payments to the rebels, strengthening the insurgency with money intended to defeat it. Meanwhile, his efforts to crack down have been stymied by corrupt courts, he said.

Musa Pliyev, an aide to Yevkurov who resigned after Aushev's death, said the governor is surrounded by corrupt officials trying to sabotage him. Aushev was among many who urged him to begin cleaning house by firing the province's top prosecutor, judge and security officials.

"I feel sorry for Yevkurov," the opposition leader said in an interview before he was killed last month. "He's an honest person. He's making enemies among both the guerrillas and the corrupt officials.

"He's working hard, but he can't do it alone."

Yemen denounces Iranian 'interference' in its internal affairs - washingtonpost.com

Image by eesti via Flickr

Sunni government says Shiite Tehran meddling in conflict with rebels

By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, November 12, 2009

SANAA, YEMEN -- The Yemeni government on Wednesday lashed out against what it described as Iranian "interference" in its affairs, escalating tensions in a civil conflict pitting Yemen's army against Shiite rebels that has drawn in Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, and raised fears of a regional proxy war.

"We affirm that Yemen categorically rejects any interference in its internal affairs by any party whatsoever," a Foreign Ministry spokesman told the government-run Saba news agency. "Yemen also rejects any attempt by any party to represent itself as the protector of sons of the Yemeni people."

The comments came a day after Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki publicly warned that countries in the region should not intervene in Yemen's internal affairs. "Those who pour oil on the fire must know that they will not be spared from the smoke that billows," Mottaki declared in what many viewed as a veiled threat by the Shiite theocracy to Saudi Arabia's Sunni rulers.

Saudi Arabia launched an offensive last week inside Yemen after Shiite rebels, known as Hawthis, staged a cross-border raid, killing a Saudi border guard and briefly seizing Saudi territory. Saudi fighter jets crossed the 930-mile border with Yemen and bombed the rebels' northern mountainous havens. On Tuesday, Saudi officials said the kingdom had imposed a naval blockade on northern Yemen's Red Sea coast to prevent weapons from reaching the rebels, who accuse Saudi Arabia of backing Yemeni forces against them.

The Hawthis, who are named after their leader's clan, have been fighting the Yemeni government since 2004, but the fighting has escalated dramatically in the past three months. Saying they are marginalized politically and economically, the rebels are seeking a greater religious voice for their Zaydi brand of Shiite Islam. Yemen's Sunni-ruled government says the rebels are trying to turn the nation into a Shiite state.

Yemen has accused Iran of funneling arms and providing financial backing to the rebels, but the Yemeni government has not provided evidence to support the assertions. The rebels have insisted that they receive no support from Iran or any other foreign powers.

The fighting has displaced about 175,000 people in Yemen's northwest Saada province, according to the United Nations.

Honduras accord is on verge of collapse - washingtonpost.com

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Ousted president says U.S. lacks commitment to reinstatement

By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 12, 2009

Less than two weeks after U.S. diplomats announced a historic agreement to reverse a coup in Honduras, the accord is in danger of collapse and both Honduran officials and U.S. lawmakers are blaming American missteps for some of the failure.

Ousted president Manuel Zelaya, who was expelled by the military in June, said in a telephone interview that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had assured him as recently as last week that the U.S. government was seeking his return to the presidency. But he said that U.S. pressure had eased in recent days and that he no longer had faith in the agreement.

José Miguel Insulza, the head of the Organization of American States, which is helping implement the accord, said that negotiations between Zelaya and the de facto government had fallen apart and that he would not send a mission to Honduras to observe presidential elections at the end of the month. That added to the possibility that the previously scheduled elections will not be internationally recognized -- and that Honduras's five-month-old crisis will continue.

The Obama administration has invested its credibility in the Oct. 30 accord, which was reached after Clinton dispatched a senior diplomatic team to bring the two sides together. But the agreement started to fray within days, with each side interpreting the vaguely worded document its own way. Key American lawmakers, and Zelaya's followers, were startled by remarks by Assistant Secretary of State Thomas A. Shannon Jr. last week that the U.S. government would recognize the election results irrespective of whether the ousted Honduran president was returned to office promptly.

"The State Department's abrupt change of policy towards Honduras last week -- recognizing the elections scheduled for Nov. 29 even if the coup regime does not meet its commitments under the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord -- caused the collapse of an accord it helped negotiate," said Frederick L. Jones, a spokesman for Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John F. Kerry (D-Mass.).

Zelaya said he was finished with the agreement.

"Everything they do will be tricks," he said, referring to the de facto government led by Roberto Micheletti. He said U.S. guarantees had formed the underpinning for the agreement.

"Their priorities were my restitution. . . . This is a very dangerous change of foreign policy for the United States," he said.

State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley said there had been no change in policy.

"We'll see what happens in the election before we can evaluate its results," he said. He rejected criticism that U.S. officials weren't pressing for the accord to work, noting that a senior diplomat handling Latin America affairs, Craig Kelly, had just spent two days in Honduras.

Another senior U.S. official noted the agreement never specifically said that Zelaya would be reinstated, instead giving the Honduran National Congress the power to vote on it. Zelaya may have decided to back out of the accord after realizing his support in Congress was softer than he initially thought, said the official, who was not authorized to comment publicly.

The first snag in the accord occurred when Micheletti asked Zelaya to submit names for a government of national unity. Zelaya balked, saying that he should head the interim government. Micheletti then decided to establish the government himself -- a move criticized by the Organization of American States.

Then the Congress indicated it could take weeks before it voted on Zelaya's reinstatement. That infuriated the ousted president, who has been holed up in the Brazilian Embassy in the Honduran capital since sneaking back into the country in September.

Some observers said the Honduran legislators appeared nervous about moving on the politically charged subject. Micheletti has urged them to hold the vote.

Shannon's comments on the elections coincided with an announcement by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) that he would no longer block Shannon's nomination as ambassador to Brazil. DeMint said he made the decision after Shannon told him that the U.S. government would recognize the Nov. 29 Honduran election results whether or not Zelaya was back in the presidency.

DeMint and some other lawmakers have called for a tougher line against Zelaya, an ally of Venezuela's anti-American president, Hugo Chávez.

Initially waved off, Hispanic advocates jump into health debate - washingtonpost.com

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Effort centers on ensuring reform doesn't shortchange immigrants

By Krissah Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 12, 2009

After trying to carefully balance their interests in health-care reform and immigration, the nation's Hispanic lawmakers and largest advocacy groups are scrambling to develop a strategy to counter what they see as efforts to shortchange immigrants in health bills on Capitol Hill.

They had tried to keep the two issues apart, concerned, they said, that immigration would distract from health care. But other lawmakers and activists have inserted the immigration issue into the middle of the health-care debate, causing a collision between what Hispanic leaders call their two top policy priorities.

Many of them believe that a health-care overhaul is vital to their community, which is disproportionately uninsured and suffers from a host of chronic illnesses. But with the current bills excluding more than a million Hispanics -- mostly legal immigrants -- the debate runs into the issue of immigrants' rights.

"In every policy debate, as long as immigration remains unresolved, there is going to be a question of what happens to immigrants in this country," said Jennifer Ng'andu, deputy director of health policy at the National Council of La Raza. "One of the reasons that there is so much concern is that our nation's leaders have not dealt with these issues."

Under the health bill passed in the House on Saturday, illegal immigrants would be allowed to buy insurance on a newly created exchange with their own money and without government subsidies. The bill expected in the Senate would bar illegal immigrants from the exchange altogether. In both the Senate and House, all legal immigrants are eligible for government subsidies to buy insurance on the exchange, but immigrants who have been in the country for less than five years would remain barred by existing law from enrolling in Medicaid and Medicare.

At a meeting in May with Hispanic groups and members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, activists pushed for dealing with immigration reform within the health-care debate, recalled Elena Rios, president of the National Hispanic Medical Association.

"They told us, 'Don't you dare,' " she said of lawmakers. " 'Don't distract. This is about health-care reform and eliminating health-care disparities.' I thought that was smart. We realized that wasn't the focus."

Now, however, she says she is worried that the health-care bills moving through Congress will not do enough to help immigrants and alleviate health-care disparities in the Latino community.

Similarly, a September meeting with White House policy advisers included a "warning" against confronting the health-care barriers immigrants face because of "fears that conservatives in the Senate could use the issue to kill the bill," Rios wrote on her Web site.

Immigration has become a major political hurdle, regardless.

"We assume the Republicans are prepared to offer any number of immigration-related amendments to slow down the process and score political points," said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.).

The issue isn't clear cut among Democrats, either. Tensions have emerged between the Hispanic Caucus, the White House and Senate Democrats.

After Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) shouted "You lie!" when President Obama pledged that the reforms he proposed "would not apply to those who are here illegally," the White House promoted language barring undocumented immigrants from the exchange, which was adopted by the Senate Finance Committee.

Members of the Hispanic Caucus balked, saying that rule was more restrictive than current policy. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, about 40 percent of illegal immigrants have some form of health insurance.

"I am not going to vote for a health-care bill that includes provisions that exclude people using their own money to go to the exchange regardless of their immigration status," said Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.). "It is silly and stupid. If we do not allow them to purchase it, their communities will suffer. Their children will suffer."

On Saturday, House leaders worked to satisfy the concerns of Hispanic lawmakers after a majority of their 22-member caucus pledged to vote against a bill that did not allow all immigrants access. Leaders of the caucus have also met with the White House and Senate leadership in recent days to outline their concerns.

In the Senate, advocacy groups are looking to Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), who pushed in the Senate Finance Committee to allow undocumented immigrants to buy health insurance on the exchange without taxpayer subsidies. But he has not decided whether to introduce similar amendments when the Senate's floor debate begins, an aide said.

Several Republicans in the committee, including Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), introduced immigration-related amendments. The Federation for American Immigration Reform, an advocacy group that supports limiting immigration, is encouraging them to push for barring illegal immigrants from the exchange and denying tax subsidies for health care to legal immigrants who have been in the country for less than five years.

"The Senate is going to have to deal with these red hot issues right at the start of their process, otherwise it is going to dog them during the debate," said Bob Dane, a spokesman for the group. "We see the health-care bill as having been hijacked and reshaping immigration policy."

Some Hispanic activists believe their early cautious stand may have backfired, and they are turning up their advocacy, said Lillian Rodriguez Lopez, president of the Hispanic Federation.

Recently, the largest advocacy groups, including the Federation, La Raza and League of United Latin American Citizens, launched a lobbying campaign focused on removing the five-year ban for legal immigrants and on getting coverage for all families, even families in which the children are legal immigrants and the parents are illegal.

The groups applauded the House's passage of its bill last week, but stressed that they want more coverage for the 4.2 million legal immigrants who are uninsured, according to a study by the Migration Policy Institute, and consideration for the estimated 7.2 million illegal immigrants who do not have health insurance.

"We feel that our community is not being fully represented in the conversation and needs to be more aggressively represented," Rodriguez Lopez said.

Letter of concern

Ten Hispanic organizations sent a joint letter to members of Congress on Wednesday to express their concern about pending health-care legislation. Led by Hector Barreto, who served as a chief of the Small Business Administration under President George W. Bush, the groups said the bill passed Saturday by the House would place unfair mandates on Hispanic small businesses and families.

Barreto, now chairman of the Latino Coalition, said in a statement that "the House vote illustrated Congress's refusal to come up with a bipartisan solution on real health-care reform. We will not support a bill that creates an inefficient and ineffective government-run health care system for America."

Other groups that signed the letter include the Virginia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, U.S.-Mexico Chamber of Commerce and the Hispanic Alliance for Prosperity Institute.

U.S. antiterrorism laws causing delays for refugees - washingtonpost.com

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More than 18,000 people affected since 2001, report says

By N.C. Aizenman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 12, 2009

U.S. antiterrorism laws are being applied so strictly that thousands of refugees who fled persecution in their home countries and appear to pose no threat to the United States have had their asylum and immigration applications denied or indefinitely delayed, according to a report released Wednesday.

The study, by Human Rights First, a nonpartisan organization based in New York and Washington, documented cases in which people have been inexplicably labeled terrorists.

Sachin Karmakar, a Bangladeshi advocate for the rights of religious minorities, was recently granted asylum after facing political and religious harassment. But his application for permanent residency faces indefinite delay because he took part in his nation's successful struggle for independence in 1971.

A teenage girl who was forced to become a child soldier at 12 in the Democratic Republic of Congo and who faces threats for speaking out against her captors has had her asylum application snagged on the grounds that during the period she was kidnapped, she was a member of a terrorist group.

A refugee from Burundi, whom Human Rights First identified only by his first name, Louis, was detained for 20 months, although an immigration judge thought he qualified for asylum because he had provided "material support" to a terrorist organization when an armed rebel group robbed him of $4 and his lunch.

The report found that more than 18,000 refugees and asylum-seekers have been affected since 2001. Of those, at least 7,500 cases remain unresolved. Most involve people already in the United States who have filed for permanent residency or are trying to bring over family members. The Department of Homeland Security has placed their cases on indefinite hold rather than deporting those involved.

However, an undetermined number of people in similar circumstances who, for technical reasons, are pursuing their cases in immigration courts are at risk of being deported.

The report's author, Anwen Hughes, found that efforts by Congress and the Bush and Obama administrations to address the issue by creating a waiver system have moved at a glacial pace and continue to leave out huge categories of immigrants.

"It's been a very slow and unworkable process," Hughes said. Meanwhile, she said, "for a lot of people, the delay is not harmless. We have clients who are here but whose wives or children are stranded in very difficult, dangerous situations."

Brandon Prelogar, special adviser for refugee and asylum affairs in the Department of Homeland Security, is scheduled to speak about the issue on a panel in Washington on Thursday. He could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

The current situation is rooted in legal provisions dating to 1990. However, the Patriot Act of 2001 considerably expanded the scope of those affected by barring entry to refugees and asylum-seekers who were supporters not only of terrorist groups designated or listed by the State Department but also of "undesignated terrorist organizations." The term can be applied to almost anyone who has used force in self-defense against a military regime that does not permit peaceful opposition.

Immigration officials have broadened the provision even further by applying it retroactively to organizations that no longer exist or that renounced violence decades ago.

Those caught in the net have included members of Afghan militias that fought against the Soviet invasion with U.S. support; groups that fought the ruling military junta in Burma; virtually every Ethiopian and Eritrean political party past and present; the South Sudanese armed opposition movement that, after years of civil war, is the ruling party of an autonomous area; and the main democratic opposition party in Zimbabwe, whose leader has been praised by President Obama for his courage in standing up to that nation's strongman.

Although the government has offered waivers in some cases, the law continues to entangle even people who engaged in nonviolent activities on behalf of undesignated terrorist organizations -- such as giving speeches, distributing fliers or offering medical care -- or who provided minimal contributions, such as taking food to a relative in jail.

Hughes said that other immigration laws prohibit entry to immigrants who have violated human rights or are a danger to the United States. She said she hopes the report will persuade Congress to remove the "undesignated terrorist organization" provision from the law.

Afghan war, Fort Hood shooting weighing on President Obama

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From Fort Hood to Afghanistan, trying times for the commander in chief

By Joel Achenbach
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 12, 2009

War and tragedy are putting President Obama through the most wrenching period of his young administration. Visibly thinner, admittedly skipping meals, he is learning every day the challenges of a wartime presidency. Health-care reform, climate-change legislation, the broken economy -- all are cerebral exercises compared with the grim responsibility of being the commander in chief.

Two weeks ago, Obama flew to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for a surprise middle-of-the-night salute to the fallen as their bodies were unloaded from a military transport plane. He met with grieving families.

Then, last week, a gunman went on a rampage at Fort Hood, and Obama made his first trip as president to visit wounded troops at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Tuesday he flew to Texas to speak at the memorial service. More families. More hurt soldiers. More grief.

Wednesday the president laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns and walked the grounds at Arlington National Cemetery, talking to families who were there to visit loved ones who died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"There are many honors and responsibilities that come with this job. But none is more profound than serving as commander in chief," Obama said in a speech in the cemetery's auditorium. He then mentioned the title of commander in chief a second time, and a third ("As long as I am commander in chief . . .").

Then he returned to the White House, to the Situation Room, for another Afghanistan war council, another session to contemplate sending more young men and women to war.

"It looks to me from the outside that the reality of being a wartime president is beginning to sink in," said Eliot Cohen, a former Bush official and a military historian at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

"From mid-September on, there's been something of an effort by the White House to relaunch President Obama as commander in chief," said Peter Feaver, a professor of political science at Duke who worked on the National Security Council in the Clinton and Bush administrations. He said new presidents often struggle with this part of their job.

"It really involves the whole person, not just the mind," Feaver said. "It's a very emotional role. Emotional in a positive sense. You have to order men and women to risk their lives. That requires a moral courage, an emotional stability. It's very different from a policy wonk job."

Obama has often been described as possessing the political magic of John F. Kennedy, but his tenure so far has similarities to that of Kennedy's successor, Lyndon B. Johnson: an ambitious domestic agenda built around a more vigorous federal government, paired with an increasingly thorny overseas war. Making things even more complicated, if Obama sends significantly more troops to Afghanistan, the sworn political enemies of his domestic policies could become his critical allies as he tries to sell his war plans to a skeptical nation.

"With this decision, he's really going to own this war, and he's going to be sending young men and women to their deaths. And when that realization sets in, it's a very grim thing. He may have known it intellectually before, but what I think is happening is he's learning it viscerally," Cohen said.

No military résumé

As Obama noted in his campaign, he grew up listening to his grandfather talk about fighting in Europe in World War II, but he never served in the military. He is of a generation whose college kids generally didn't go off to war.

Critics of the president have said he doesn't understand the language of warriors and too often speaks of military sacrifice rather than military victory. But Obama has tried to head off that kind of criticism by stocking his administration with retired military brass. His national security adviser is a retired general; so are his secretary of veterans affairs and his ambassador to Afghanistan. His intelligence chief is a retired admiral.

Obama has had multiple chances in recent days to polish the kind of rhetoric that goes with being a wartime leader. His remarks at Fort Hood on Tuesday were filled with references to courage, valor, fighting. He disagreed that the Greatest Generation has come and gone: "We need not look to the past for greatness, because it is before our very eyes."

He opposed the Iraq war early and consistently and campaigned on a promise to end it. He also vowed to put new effort into the war in Afghanistan, the training ground of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists. This spring, his administration conducted a review of Afghanistan policy and announced that 21,000 additional troops would be sent to that war zone. The president showed little sign that the decision weighed on his mind or provoked much internal White House debate.

Then Afghanistan degenerated. A national election was shot through with fraud. Casualties spiked. Body bags began arriving home by the dozen.

A new direction

Now Obama is crafting a new strategy, weighing four different options, according to the White House press secretary. Administration leaks point to a considerable increase in the number of troops as part of a broader strategic change.

"He's stepping up to the problem, and he's exercising a degree of skepticism and analytical depth that his predecessor didn't appear to engage in," said Richard Kohn, a professor of military history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Wrong, Cohen said: Obama's dithering.

"I don't yet have the sense that he's willing to commit that much of his political energy to this, and yet if he doesn't, I do think there's a serious risk of failure," Cohen said.

No decision by Obama will escape condemnation from those who think they know a better way. Hawks will call him a compromiser with no stomach for the fight; doves will say that, having campaigned against one war, he is escalating another.

But even those who disagree with the president's policies will recognize him as a man who thinks through his decisions, reads his briefing papers and studies the lessons of history. Wednesday, before he left Arlington, Obama paused to read the most powerful texts imaginable, the names on grave markers. He stopped at the grave of Ross McGinnis, a Medal of Honor recipient. Born in Pennsylvania, McGinnis, 19, wound up in Iraq as a machine gunner, 1st Platoon, C Company, 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment. An insurgent threw a hand grenade into his Humvee. He threw his body on it, absorbing the explosion. His four platoon mates survived.

Obama bent over McGinnis's grave, but the traveling press pool could not tell what the president was doing, much less what he was thinking.

Staff writer Greg Jaffe contributed to this report.

Police crack ring of thieves targeting South Asians in Va. - washingtonpost.com

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Burglars targeted stashes of gold

By Tom Jackman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 12, 2009 1:32 PM

Fairfax County police think they have cracked a ring of burglars who were stealing only gold from Indian and South Asian homes, after a U.S. deputy marshal spotted a suspected vehicle in Centreville Tuesday night and arrested three people.

The burglars hit more than 20 homes in Fairfax and three more in Loudoun. Each time, they disdained silver, jewels and electronics, taking only gold jewelry, saris with gold threads and gold statues.

The victims were almost all Indian and South Asian, and have said that their families traditionally pass 22-karat gold from generation to generation. Police believe gold was being targeted because it is now selling at more than $1,000 an ounce.

A search warrant filed Thursday in Fairfax Circuit Court revealed that police had identified two possible suspects: a Hispanic man in a blue jump suit or work uniform, appearing to be a maintenance or repair worker, and a Hispanic woman with pink or red-tinted hair who knocked on doors soliciting for plumbing work. Some witnesses also told police that they had seen a small blue sport-utility vehicle, possibly a Ford, parked in the neighborhoods of some of the break-ins, which often occurred during the day.

According to an affidavit filed by Fairfax police Detective T.J. Harrington, Deputy U.S. Marshal Edgar Cline was working on the investigation and spotted a blue Ford Escape on Wednesday night on Cavalier Woods Lane, just south of Lee Highway. The Escape was being driven by a Hispanic male and a Hispanic female was in the passenger seat, Harrington wrote. Cline began pursuing it.

The Escape made several U-turns, apparently trying to evade Cline, according to Harrington, but the marshal pulled the Escape over on Moore Road near Clifton Road. The Hispanic woman in the front seat had red coloring in her hair and the driver was wearing a dark blue work uniform, Harrington wrote.

Also in the Escape, according to the affidavit, police found a laptop computer in the red-haired woman's lap; a portable global positioning system between the front seats; a black plastic clipboard with an contractors' invoice on it; and a portable police scanner tuned to Fairfax police frequencies in the back seat. A third person also was in the back.

All three people were taken into custody, and Fairfax police spokeswoman Mary Ann Jennings confirmed that police are investigating them for links to the two dozen gold burglaries. She said all were facing charges, but she did not have their names immediately available. She said more information would be released later Thursday afternoon.

In multiple cases, neighbors of the burglary victims had reported the woman with the pink- or red-tinted hair had knocked on their door, and that they also had seen the man in the blue work uniform nearby. On Oct. 29, a neighbor told police that a man in the blue uniform knocked on her door and asked if Ahmad Khan was home. The resident told the man he had the wrong address, and he left.

On the clipboard inside the Escape stopped Wednesday night was an invoice, dated Oct. 7, for "Ahmad Khan."

Obama announces White House summit to focus on jobs - washingtonpost.com

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By Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 12, 2009 11:00 AM

President Obama, grappling with the worst job market in a generation, announced plans Thursday to hold a White House jobs summit in December.

The forum, which will gather business executives, economists, financial experts and union leaders, will be aimed at examining initiatives to accelerate job creation, Obama said.

"We all know there are limits to what government can and should do even during such difficult times," Obama said. "But we have an obligation to consider every additional, responsible step that we can to encourage and accelerate job creation in this country."

Obama's announcement comes less than a week after the nation's jobless rate hit 10.2 percent, the highest level since 1983. The surging jobless rate -- which economists predict will continue to rise well into next year -- offers fresh evidence that the economy, though expanding, has not yet grown enough to create new jobs.

In his remarks, Obama credited steps his administration has taken to stabilize the financial markets and stimulate the economy for reversing the steepest economic slide the nation has experienced since the Great Depression.

But while the administration's policies have contributed to a rebounding stock market and overall growth in the economy, it has yet to reverse the slide in jobs. The president called the problem "one of the great challenges that remains in our economy."

White House aides said no date has been set for the forum. And Obama himself tamped down expectations for the meeting, saying that while he wants to hear new ideas for creating jobs, it is "important we don't make any ill-considered decisions even with the best of intentions, particularly at a time when our resources are so limited."

Economists have been projecting that job growth would resume early in 2010 and that the unemployment rate would begin to drop by the middle of the year. But that forecast is in doubt because job losses in the past few months are decelerating very slowly. The weak job market confronts the Obama administration with a difficult political situation. The economy grew at a 3.5 percent rate in the third quarter, as measured by gross domestic product, and the president and his advisers have presented this as evidence that their policies to arrest the downturn are working.

But 15.7 million Americans were unemployed last month, and many others were underemployed, contributing to growing skepticism about the president's economic policies. Public opinion polls have found that a majority of adults viewed Obama's policies as either making the economy worse or having no effect.

In recent weeks, Obama has taken smaller steps to continue stimulating the economy. Last Friday, the president signed legislation that extends unemployment insurance benefits by up to 20 weeks and renews an $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers while expanding eligibility. Earlier, the administration backed a controversial $250 payment to senior citizens.

Rather than offering a short-term fix for joblessness, the White House has been focused on a difficult, longer-term strategy for improving the nation's job market.

The administration has backed huge investments to stimulate the renewable energy industry, as part of a plan to wean the nation off the debt-driven consumer economy that has fueled growth in the recent past.

During his meetings with foreign leaders as he travels through Asia over the next week, Obama said, he would be touting his administration's plans to create an economy that is driven more by U.S. exports and innovation.