Jan 13, 2010

Thousands feared dead in Haiti quake; global rescue and relief efforts underway

By William Branigin, Debbi Wilgoren and Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, January 13, 2010; 2:30 PM

Relief workers in Haiti were preparing Wednesday to deal with thousands of dead and injured in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake, as foreign governments and international aid organizations mobilized to send assistance to the impoverished Caribbean nation.

With untold numbers of people trapped under rubble a day after the 7.0 magnitude quake struck the capital, Port-au-Prince, Haitians tried desperately to dig them out by hand, witnesses said. The beleaguered Haitian government appeared paralyzed, evidently unable to mount any significant rescue effort on its own.

"It's the disaster of the century" for Haiti, Karel Zelenka, director of Catholic Relief Services in Port-au-Prince, told U.S. colleagues in an e-mail Wednesday morning. "We should be prepared for thousands and thousands of dead and injured."

U.N. officials also said the number of dead could easily reach into the thousands.

In Washington, a White House national security official told Haitian activists Wednesday afternoon that three Americans have been confirmed killed in the quake.

Zelenka said there were "no rescue efforts whatsoever" by the government early Wednesday morning and that everything was being done "by individuals with bare hands." He added that he had not seen "any movement of rescue vehicles," such as ambulances. "People are in shock," he said.

At U.N. headquarters in New York, officials told reporters that heavy equipment, search personnel and medical teams were urgently needed in the nation of 9 million, the poorest in the Western Hemisphere. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said emergency workers had made little progress overnight and urged the United States and other foreign governments to mount a massive international relief effort.

"Basic services such as water and electricity have collapsed almost entirely," Ban said. "Medical facilities have been inundated with injured."

U.N. officials said unknown numbers of people are believed trapped in collapsed buildings -- including scores thought to be buried in the rubble of the hotel that had served as Haiti's U.N. headquarters.

Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive, interviewed on CNN, estimated the death toll in the "hundreds of thousands," but it was unclear how he arrived at the figure. He cited the density of the capital's vast slums, which he said had largely collapsed.

In an interview with the Miami Herald, Haitian President René Préval described "unimaginable" scenes in Port-au-Prince. "Parliament has collapsed. The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed," he said. "There are a lot of schools that have a lot of dead people in them." He said the Roman Catholic archbishop of Port-au-Prince is among the dead and that the head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission, Tunisian diplomat Hedi Annabi, is missing.

Vincenzo Pugliese, deputy spokesman for the U.N. Mission in Haiti, said in a statement read in New York that the national palace, the Ministry of Justice, other government buildings, hotels, hospitals, schools and the national penitentiary "have all suffered extensive damage."

"Casualties, which are vast, can only be estimated," Vincenzo Pugliese, deputy spokesman for the U.N. Mission in Haiti, said in a statement. "An unknown number, tens if not hundreds of thousands, have suffered varying degrees of destruction to their homes." He said many areas are without water and electricity and that "major transport routes have been severely disrupted" by debris, smashed vehicles and cracks in the earth.

"As we speak, there are still over 100 people unaccounted for under the rubble" of the Christopher Hotel, Alain Le Roy, the top U.N. peacekeeping official, told reporters in New York. "We don't know their fate. Some people have been extracted but only less than 10 for the time being. Some dead, some alive."

The United Nations also reported that the main prison in Port-au-Prince collapsed and that some inmates escaped.

Many other major buildings, such as the Hotel Montana, the presidential palace, Parliament and the National Cathedral, were in ruins, residents said.

"These are very sturdy buildings," said Raymond Alcide Joseph, Haiti's ambassador to the United States. "If those buildings are damaged, can you imagine what has happened to all these flimsy abodes" in other parts of the city?

The United States, France, China and the Dominican Republic are all sending search and rescue teams to Haiti, the United Nations said. A U.S. military official said tentative plans are underway for the hospital ship USNS Comfort -- which aided Haiti after hurricanes struck Port-au-Prince two years ago -- to dock off the coast and assist the sick and wounded.

At the White House, President Obama pledged that his administration would "respond with a swift, coordinated and aggressive effort to save lives" in the aftermath of what he called an "especially cruel and incomprehensible tragedy."

Obama said military planes have flown over the area to assess quake damage and search and rescue teams from Fairfax County, Va., Florida and California are due to arrive Wednesday and Thursday. Acknowledging that many Americans are experiencing tough economic times, Obama nevertheless urged people to donate to Haitians affected by the quake.

"We have to be there for them in their hour of need," he said.

After discussing the situation with Obama and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters traveling with her overseas that she has decided to "compress" but not cancel her trip to Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and Australia.

Air Force Gen. Douglas M. Fraser, head of the U.S. Southern Command, said the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson, based at Norfolk, Va., is steaming toward Haiti and is scheduled to arrive Thursday afternoon. He said the carrier will take on helicopters and provisions as it heads south. In addition, a large amphibious ship is "another day or two away" from Haiti and is expected to carry an expeditionary unit of roughly 2,000 Marines, Fraser said.

Cheryl D. Mills, the chief of staff at the State Department, said about 45,000 U.S. citizens live in Haiti and that the U.S. Embassy there was trying to contact them. "We've received a number of reports of injured U.S. citizens," she told reporters. Of the 172 embassy personnel in Haiti, she said, "almost all" are accounted for. At least eight have been injured, four of them seriously, and U.S. Coast Guard helicopters are evacuating them, Mills said.

She said the department has ordered the evacuation of about 80 nonessential U.S. personnel -- such as spouses and children of embassy employees -- who are expected to leave on Coast Guard aircraft Wednesday afternoon. The embassy building itself has remained intact, she said.

Rajiv Shah, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development and the overall coordinator of U.S. relief efforts for Haiti, said two urban search-and-rescue teams are on their way, each with 72 people and "significant" equipment. He said the U.S. effort is focused on saving lives during the first 72 hours after the earthquake.

The quake was centered about 10 miles west of Port-au-Prince, a city of 2 million people. News reports from the capital said survivors were piling bodies of the dead outside as the sun rose Wednesday morning. But with communications networks crippled across the country, there were no firm estimates of the number of fatalities or wounded.

Bob Poff, director of disaster services for the Salvation Army in Haiti, said much of the organization's compound was badly damaged, although the Children's Home was intact. Poff, who was traveling in a truck when the quake struck, wrote in a message to his colleagues that the vehicle was "being tossed to and fro like a toy."

"I looked out the windows to see buildings 'pancaking' down," Poff wrote. "Thousands of people poured out into the streets, crying, carrying bloody bodies, looking for anyone who could help them. We piled as many bodies into the back of our truck, and took them down the hill with us. . . . All of them were older, scared, bleeding, and terrified."

At U.N. headquarters in Port-au-Prince, the unaccounted-for personnel included Hedi Annabi, a Tunisian who as special envoy to Haiti oversees the 12,000 international and Haitian U.N. employees in the country, officials said. Annabi was meeting with a Chinese delegation in the hotel when the earthquake struck at 4:53 p.m. Tuesday; no one who was in the meeting has been located, officials said.

Media reports said eight Chinese U.N. peacekeepers and at least four Brazilian peacekeepers were killed in the quake, with many others missing.

Officials said the Port-au-Prince airport, which lost its control tower during the earthquake, is now able to receive relief flights, but pilots were on their own in coordinating landings with each other.

Le Roy, of the United Nations, said the organization's main logistics base, with stores of water and rations, was also functioning and that 3,000 U.N. peacekeepers had secured the airport and were patrolling the streets in Port-au-Prince.

John Holmes, head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said the chief U.N. relief agencies -- such as the World Food Program and the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) -- were relatively unscathed by the earthquake and would be in a fairly good position to mount relief operations on the ground.

"My own staff there, they are okay, they're safe, reasonably intact," Holmes said, adding that the World Food Program was flying in 90 metric tons of biscuits for displaced earthquake victims. "We can kick-start the operation."

Joseph, Haiti's ambassador to the United States, said he had spoken with first lady Elisabeth Debrosse Delatour, who said she and President Préval were unharmed. Many government workers had already left their offices for the day, he added, and therefore survived the collapse of government buildings.

But Joseph said Delatour told him that "most of Port-au-Prince . . . is destroyed." In addition to the rescue teams, the United States will send up to 48 tons of rescue equipment. The Coast Guard said Tuesday night that it was preparing to deploy cutters and aircraft to deliver aid as needed.

Associated Press reporters who toured Port-au-Prince described scenes of severe and widespread damage and casualties. They saw women covered in dust clawing out of debris and wailing. Stunned people wandered the streets holding hands, they said, while many gravely injured people sat in the streets, pleading for doctors. Witnesses reported a series of strong aftershocks. Thousands of people gathered in public squares late into the night, singing hymns and weeping.

"People are out in the streets, crying, screaming, shouting," Zelenka, the CRS director, said Tuesday night. "They see the extent of the damage," he said, but could do little to rescue people trapped under rubble because night had fallen.

Zelenka reported that poorly constructed shantytowns and other buildings had crumbled in huge clouds of dust. Near the CRS headquarters, a supermarket was "completely razed," he said, and a gasoline station and a church were reduced to rubble. Among the worst-hit areas was the impoverished Carrefour section of Port-au-Prince near the sea.

In the wealthier Petionville part of the city, where diplomats and well-off Haitians live in hillside homes, a hospital was wrecked and houses had tumbled into a ravine, according to the Associated Press.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said embassy officials had begun trying to contact as many as possible of the Americans living in the city but were hampered by a lack of communication and by roads that were impassable. About 45,000 Americans live in Haiti, officials said.

"Haiti is one of the poorest countries on Earth, and clearly the most challenged in our hemisphere," Crowley said Tuesday. "We are standing by to provide whatever assistance we can," he said.

Staff writer Colum Lynch in New York contributed to this report.

In Yemen, a university tied to 'American Taliban' and underwear bomber

Iman university, a Sunni religious school in Yemen, educated US Taliban member John Walker Lindh and gave a teaching post to militant American preacher Anwar al-Awlaki. The school denied rumors that it hosted "underwear bomber" Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, but concern over its militant ties are growing.

Students at the controversial Islamic Iman 'Faith' University prepare for noon prayers in Sanaa, Yemen, on Jan. 12. Officials at the institution deny that the Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who allegedly planned to blow up a US airliner on Dec. 25, 2009, was ever a student there. Founded and directed by Sheikh Abdul-Majid al-Zindani - who is considered a 'global terrorist' by the US, with Al Qaeda affiliations - students and faculty at Imam University say the militant reputation is a myth.

Scott Peterson/Getty Images

Enlarge

By Scott Peterson Staff writer / January 12, 2010

Sanaa, Yemen

Yemen’s Iman University, a Sunni religious institution that draws students from 40 countries, has come under frequent suspicion from Westerners and some Yemenis as a militant hotbed. American Taliban John Walker Lindh was once a student, and some media reports in the wake of the foiled Christmas Day plane plot said that alleged "underwear bomber" Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab also attended classes here.

Founder Zindani linked to Al Qaeda

Controversy has stalked Sheikh Abdul-Majid al-Zindani, who founded the school in 1995 and has a history of inspiring militants. Active in fighting the Soviets alongside Osama bin Laden in the 1980s, he is considered by the US a “terrorist” who was one of Bin Laden’s “spiritual leaders,” and is under United Nations sanction because of Al Qaeda affiliations.

The latest flurry of western interest in Iman University came in the wake of the murder of 12 soldiers at Fort Hood last November by US Army doctor Nidal Malik Hasan, who had carried on an email correspondence with exiled militant preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen born to Yemeni parents. Mr. Awlaki is currently believed to be in hiding in Yemen. On his now defunct blog, he claimed to have been a lecturer in Islam at Iman University.

The red-bearded Sheikh Zindani laughed heartily on Monday when he brushed off the perennial accusations of terrorist involvement.

“I am a general lecturer and a writer of books,” Zindani told journalists. “If someone says they listened to my lectures or read my books, am I to blame if he then, say, divorces his wife, or if he attacks someone? If that’s the case, then all teachers and professors should be accused.”

After years of accusations, Zindani says he is now “ready to hear that if anyone makes any mistake, or there is any attack in London, or anywhere else, he was a student in my university.”

4,000 students – 500 foreigners

Officials say that 4,000 students attend the school, taking classes in everything from the hard sciences to religion. Some 500 of the students are foreigners, and each must get a letter from their embassy before attending, school officials said on Tuesday.

Dr. Sohaily, head of the political science department, says that examples of militant alumni have been overplayed – skewing the university’s reputation.

“Why don’t we talk of the 2,000 graduates who did not commit such acts? Why this one?” asks Sohaily. “The university aims to generate scholars who understand Islam as it is. We believe that [such] a religious scholar ... is best suited to cooperate with other faiths.”

He says two examples are frequently raised. One former student assassinated a top Socialist party leader in 2002, but the killer had left the school seven years earlier because “university teaching could not cope with his radical views,” says Sohaily. The murderer of three American medical workers in 2002 had never been a student, as reported, he said.

Zindani's influence seen in Afghanistan

Still, the example of Sheikh Zindani has inspired militants before. The Monitor came across Yemeni Obaidur Rahman in 2001, held in a Northern Alliance prison in Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley. Hobbled by knee-high steel manacles (he was captured in 1996), he said he had been influenced to join the Taliban to fight by Zindani’s preaching.

“[In Yemen,] they said to us, you should go to Afghanistan to learn military arts, then you should go to Chechnya to fight the Russians, and Kashmir to fight the Indians,” said Mr. Rahman, speaking just a month after 9/11. “There are no innocent people in those skyscrapers.”

And according to Defense Department details released in 2006, Guantanamo Bay prisoner No. 115 – Abdul Rahman Mohammed Saleh Naser of Yemen – “decided to go to Afghanistan after hearing and speaking with Sheikh al-Zindani.”

Zindani himself, speaking in Sanaa on Monday, stated that it was “not permissible” in Islam to kill innocents – regardless of religious creed – “in wartime, much less when at peace.”

'Don't judge a civilization by a person'

On Tuesday at his Iman University, just moments before noon prayers, hundreds of students took off their shoes, stepped into a long hall, and sat down on the worn carpet in small groups to recite the Quran. Somalis and other Africans were among them, though several refused to speak.

The scars on the forehead of student Abdul-Karim Morshid wrinkle with determination, as the fifth-year economics student calls for fairer judgment.

“Al Qaeda doesn’t represent Muslims or Islam; they are only one group,” says Mr. Morshid, a Yemeni whose teeth are stained with daily chewing of the mild stimulant leaf called qat.

“Islam is a civilization, and when you want to understand any civilization, don’t judge it by a person, but by its history and institutions,” says Morshid. “If we look at the West through the lens of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, what would we see? But we don’t, because that does not reflect their civilization.”

New ALA report details economic trends in libraries and 2010 outlook

Image via Wikipedia

CHICAGO – At every turn, news reports and research indicate fairly dramatic changes in U.S. library funding, services and staffing – most occurring in the last 18 months. According to a new report prepared by the American Library Association (ALA), libraries of all types are feeling the pinch of the economic downturn while managing sky-high use.

Compiled from a broad range of available sources, The Condition of Libraries: 1999-2009 presents U.S. economic trends (2009), and summarizes trends in public, school and academic libraries across several library measures, including expenditures, staffing and services. The report also highlights trends in services provided to libraries by library cooperatives and consortia.

“This report was prepared to inform and assist library leaders as they plan in these very difficult times,” said ALA Executive Director Keith Michael Fiels. “It succinctly brings together diverse strands of data from the past decade to provide a useful benchmark for the library community and its advocates.”

As communities and academic campuses develop future fiscal plans, it is clear that all types of libraries are visibly hard hit. In a fall 2009 report prepared by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 34 states had reported cuts to higher education, which impacts academic libraries; and 25 states had cut funding to K-12, which impacts school libraries. Total state budget shortfalls for fiscal year 2010 are $178 billion, and FY2011 are estimated to be roughly the same.

Public libraries also have been affected. While the full impact of the economic downturn remains fluid and the data challenging to assemble, what is known is that flat funding has been an obstacle – perhaps even a chronic problem - for many libraries this entire decade. Confirming evidence from a 2006 ALA study of public library funding, a 2009 survey conducted as part of the Public Library Funding & Technology Access Study revealed a worsening of funding – about 20 percent reported flat funding continuing in FY2010 and a majority reported budget reductions. Of those with budget cuts, about 20 percent reported 5-to-10 percent reductions in FY2010 from FY2009.

Library trends include:

School Library Media Centers

At a time when school enrollment (K-12) is growing, almost all schools reported in 2009 a decrease in funding for information resources, with a median per-student expenditure of just over $12; and
Fewer school libraries served more students in the 2006-2007 school year compared with the 2002-2003 school year; and
Total SLMC staff grew slightly, then declined in the 2006-2007 school year compared with 1999-2000.

College and University Libraries

While student enrollment at colleges and universities has declined since 2004, library use continues to increase. During a typical week in 2008, academic libraries reported more than 20.3 million visits, up from 18.7 million in 2006. They also provided more than 498,000 informational services to groups attended by more than 8.9 million students and faculty, up from 471,000 sessions attended by 8.3 million in 2006;
In fall 2008, 72 percent of academic libraries reported providing library reference service by e-mail or the Web, about the same as in 2006; and
Operating expenditures rose modestly during the period 2002 to 2008.

Public libraries

Total public library circulation and circulation of children’s materials continue to rise. Circulation of children’s materials has accounted for between 32.9 and 35 percent of total circulation between FY2002 and FY2007. Total circulation of public library materials has grown each year – up to 7.4 items per capita from about 6.8 items in FY2002;
Most public library Internet services have grown between 2006 and 2008, most notably audio and video content; and
Total public library operating expenditures have varied little year-to-year and typically align with inflation rates. Staff account for the largest portion of expenditures, followed by “other” expenditures (technology, utilities, programming, etc.) and collections.

The full report is available at http://www.ala.org/ala/research/initiatives/Condition_of_Libraries_1999.20.pdf. Individual reports by type of library are available at http://www.ala.org/ala/research/index.cfm.

Gaza & the Israeli Peace Movement: One Year Later

by David Shulman

A demonstrator dressed as a clown being arrested by Israeli police during a protest against the eviction of Palestinian families from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem, December 18, 2009. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

The fact that Gaza is still under siege has hardly infiltrated Israeli awareness. The first anniversary of Israel’s military intervention in Gaza, Operation Cast Lead, has of course been noted in the Israeli press. The predominant tone, even in Haaretz, supposedly the voice of the liberal left, is almost smug. The rain of Qassam missiles on Israeli cities and villages has more or less halted; in recent months housing prices in Sderot, which is less than a mile from Gaza, have soared, and demand for plots of land in the moshavim close to the Gaza border far outstrips supply. So for Israelis the campaign was clearly a success, despite the 1,400 Palestinian dead, the 3,540 houses destroyed in Gaza, the devastation of the civilian infrastructure there, and the international outcry about possible Israeli war crimes.

by Amy Knight

Nataliya Magnitskaya, the mother of Sergei Magnitsky, holding a portrait of him and letters he sent to her from jail, Moscow, November 30, 2009 (Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Images)

The horrors of Soviet prisons and labor camps were described vividly in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago, Yevgenia Ginzburg’s Into the Whirlwind, and later, by the Soviet dissident and former political prisoner Anatoly Marchenko, in his 1969 memoir, My Testimony. To judge from a disturbing new report about the tragic death of 37-year-old lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison in late November, Russia’s current penal system is almost as bad as it used to be.

As was the case under Stalin and his successors, the treatment of prisoners reflects the deeper problems of a politicized law enforcement system that routinely disregards human rights. Now, the Magnitsky case seems to have persuaded Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to begin to address these problems—though his powerful Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, has a vested interest in preserving the status quo.

Somalis fleeing to Yemen prompt new worries in fight against al-Qaeda

Image by Remolacha.net pics via Flickr

By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, January 12, 2010; A01

KHARAZ, YEMEN -- Thousands of Somali boys and teenagers fleeing war and chaos at home are sailing to Yemen, where officials who have long welcomed Somali refugees now worry that the new arrivals could become the next generation of al-Qaeda fighters.

As the United States deepens its counterterrorism operations in Yemen, officials are concerned that extremists could find growing Somali refugee camps fertile ground for recruiting. U.S. and Yemeni authorities also fear that Islamist fighters from Somalia could slip into the country among the throngs of refugees, deepening ties between al-Qaeda leaders in Yemen and the particularly hard-line militants of Somalia.

Fleeing a failed state for a failing one, the Somali youths arrive daily in this refugee outpost, which is filled with rickety tents and tales of misery, in the vast desert of southern Yemen. They bring stories of brutality and forced conscription by al-Shabab, an Islamist force battling Somalia's U.S.-backed transitional government.

"They ordered us to fight the nonbelievers," said Abdul Khadr Salot, 19, a burly ex-fighter with a thin scar across his cheek who escaped from a militant training camp. "Even if your father tells you to leave the Shabab, you must kill him."

Image by Monica's Dad via Flickr

But this longtime haven is becoming increasingly inhospitable since the United States bolstered its operations here, largely in response to the Yemeni al-Qaeda connections of the Nigerian man who allegedly tried to bomb a U.S. airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day, and to the links of an extremist Yemeni American cleric to the Nov. 5 shootings at Fort Hood, Tex.

Yemen's fragile government fears that Somali fighters from al-Shabab will swell the ranks of Yemen's Islamist militants at a time when links between the Somali group and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula are growing, according to Yemeni officials and analysts.

As it quietly wages war against extremists in the Arabian Peninsula and parts of Africa, the Obama administration could find itself confronting a unified, regional al-Qaeda on two continents. This would further stretch U.S. resources as Washington fights major conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. It could also push Yemen -- beset by mounting internal strife, poor governance, extreme poverty and dwindling resources -- even deeper into a downward spiral.

"Somalia for Yemen is becoming like what Pakistan is for Afghanistan," said Saeed Obaid, a Yemeni terrorism expert who wrote a book on al-Qaeda's Yemen affiliate.

Leaders of al-Shabab, which the United States has labeled a terrorist organization with links to al-Qaeda's central body, said last week that they will send fighters to help al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. That prompted Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi to issue a stern warning through the state-run Saba news agency that Yemen will not allow "any terrorist elements from any country to operate in its territory."

In recent days, Yemeni security forces have staged raids on Somali refugee communities, detaining suspected loyalists of al-Shabab, which means "The Youth." Overnight, an atmosphere of fear has gripped the community, which numbers more than 1 million.

"The climate has changed, and it is heating up," Mohammed Ali, a top leader of the Somali community in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, lamented over a glass of Somali coffee.

An estimated 74,000 African refugees, mostly from Somalia and Ethiopia, arrived in Yemen last year, 50 percent more than in 2008, according to statistics from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. UNHCR officials say 309 either drowned in capsized boats or were killed by smugglers.

Forced recruitment

In September, a gang of al-Shabab fighters grabbed 14-year-old Saber Ahmed at his father's shop in Mogadishu, the Somali capital.

They blindfolded him and took him to a nearby militia base, he said. There, they brought out recruits he knew from his neighborhood, who urged him to join. The peer pressure didn't work. Then, an al-Shabab commander gave him an ultimatum.

"He said, 'We will kill you if you don't join us,' " recalled Ahmed, tall and lanky with a soft voice and chiseled face.

After 20 days of training, he was sent to the front lines. Within hours, he said, a battle erupted; Ahmed was shot in the leg. He managed to crawl to his house. His father took him to a hospital. When Ahmed regained consciousness, his father gave him $100 and ordered him to flee to Yemen.

In the Somali port of Bossaso, he handed the money to a smuggler, who placed him on a crowded boat headed for a treacherous sea. As the boat neared Yemen, it flipped over. Ahmed swam nearly a mile to the shore. He later learned that seven passengers had drowned.

Ahmed's experience is a familiar one, according to Somali community leaders and officials at the UNHCR, which runs the camp here in Kharaz. Parents often say they bring their children to Yemen to prevent them from one day joining al-Shabab. "It's very easy to brainwash youth. They tell them, 'We'll give you money. We'll give you power,' " said Rocco Nuri, a UNHCR official in Aden.

When told that former al-Shabab fighters were in Kharaz, Nuri expressed concern but said it was "impossible to monitor this" in an open camp where residents come and go freely. Nevertheless, he expressed confidence that the camp is not a haven or recruiting hub for Somali militants.

In Yemen, Somalis are worse off than Yemenis. Jobs are scarce. Thousands of Somali youths eke out a living washing cars. They sleep under trees and bathe in public water tanks. Most Somali refugees view Yemen as a transit point to richer nations such as Saudi Arabia. But in recent months, a war between the Yemeni government and Shiite Hawthi rebels in the north has stemmed the migration.

Salafist schools, which teach a puritanical brand of Islam, have attracted several hundred young Somali refugees with offers of free food and lodging, said Somali community leaders. They fear some could join al-Shabab.

"Some boys did return back to Somalia," said Deka Muhamed, a Somali elder in Sanaa. "We've heard they've been killed, but we don't know how or why."

Yemeni officials, meanwhile, worry that al-Qaeda could lure Somali ex-fighters into their ranks with promises of money or aid. But so far, there has been no evidence of this, say Western diplomats and Yemeni officials.

In an audiotape last year, Osama bin Laden exhorted al-Shabab to overthrow the Somali government. Radical Yemeni American cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi, whom the United States has linked to the suspect in the attempted Christmas Day bombing and to the gunman charged in the massacre at Fort Hood, has also expressed support for al-Shabab.

Yemeni officials and analysts say there is regular communication between al-Qaeda militants in Yemen and al-Shabab. Last week, Somalia's state minister for defense declared that Yemeni militants had sent al-Shabab two boats filled with arms. They have also traveled to Somalia to fight.

"Some elements went to Somalia. Some were killed there," said Rashad al-Alimi, Yemen's deputy prime minister for security and defense.

Foreign Minister Qirbi, in an interview before the failed Christmas Day attack, urged Western nations to provide greater support for Yemen's coast guard to protect its shores from militants entering or leaving. "We also need better surveillance of refugees in the country," he said.

'All become suspects'

Many Somali refugees refuse to leave their houses at night, fearing they will be picked up in a security sweep. "Nobody carries a Shabab I.D. It's not written on our foreheads," said Ali, the community leader. "We have all become suspects."

Most Somalis, he noted, practice a moderate form of Islam that stresses tolerance.

At the Somali Refugee Council office in Sanaa, more than 20 refugees have reported losing their jobs in the past week, said Mohamed Abdi Gabobe, its chairman. The council, he said, is planning a demonstration to show solidarity with Yemen, in the hopes that this will lessen the pressure on the community.

But many refugees are worried about their futures. They say they have become the latest victims in the U.S. counterterrorism campaign.

"When two elephants fight each other, it is always the grass that is destroyed," said Sadat Mohamed Yusuf, a Somali community leader. "We are the grass."

For workers in Western Europe, economic recovery seems a long way off

Image via Wikipedia

By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, January 12, 2010; A06

NIMES, FRANCE -- Time and again, Mohamed Chakiyet has been called back to the employment bureau: another form to fill out, another bureaucrat to meet with, another training offer. But in the four months since he has been out of work, Chakiyet has yet to find a company willing to hire him -- or even grant him a job interview.

"I'm waiting," he said after his latest visit, which was no more promising than those that came before it. "But it's a little difficult."

Chakiyet, a lanky 19-year-old with a vocational training diploma, has set out to reach a modest goal: a job driving a delivery truck around this middle-size city 75 miles northwest of Marseille. For the time being, however, he has become a prime example of Western Europe's corrosive unemployment, which according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has risen to an average of almost 10 percent as a result of the global economic crisis and is likely to get worse before it gets better.

As European banks return to profits after huge government bailouts and political leaders forecast a broad if uneven return to growth, economists have warned that it will take longer to see any recovery in the job market. As a result, the greatest human drama associated with the crisis -- families thrown into distress and horizons closed for millions of youths -- seems likely to endure as part of the European landscape for another year and probably more.

"They keep having me come back," Chakiyet explained, "but I have not been able to get a single appointment with an employer. They don't seem to have their hearts in it."

Legislation that provided Western Europeans with a strong safety net and buffered them from the worst effects of the crisis is now likely to inhibit job growth, even if the continent's economies return to growth this year as predicted. The decision to hire a worker involves such a large commitment and layoffs are so expensive, economists say, that businessmen hesitate to make a decision until they are sure a recovery is underway.

"It's the way companies react to the crisis," explained Nicolas Véron, an analyst at the Bruegel research institute in Brussels. "They wait as long as possible before they lay off people, and they are also cautious before rehiring people, because they don't want to have to lay them off again. Hiring and firing costs are high."

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In addition, Western European leaders decided on modest stimulus programs, despite pleas from Washington, out of fear of expanding government debt. Chancellor Angela Merkel has been a particularly strong champion of budget discipline in Germany, where the OECD predicted that unemployment will probably rise above 9 percent this year and could hit 9.7 percent by 2011.

Nimes, a city of tree-lined avenues and bubbling fountains with 150,000 inhabitants, has been a pocket of high unemployment since the decline of its shoe and textile industries years ago. Signs of improvement were finally in the air, residents said, until the crisis struck 18 months ago. Since then, the unemployment rate has risen back above 13.5 percent, about three percentage points above the French national rate.

The malaise can be seen in places like the B-Kebab Café in the city's Pissevin neighborhood, where government-subsidized high-rises house poor families and unemployment is estimated at more than 40 percent. Dozens of men, many speaking Arabic, sat around drinking Moroccan tea and playing cards on a recent afternoon, as a rare snowfall covered the streets in white.

Denis Volpilière, president of the Nimes Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said plans for government-organized investment in new train lines and irrigation projects have raised hope for new jobs in the next few years. "But in the meantime," he added, "we have to manage all these people without jobs. How are we going to train these people for the needs of the economy?"

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In addition, the region's usually clement weather and rich agriculture, combined with generous welfare payments from Paris, have contributed to what Volpilière called "an irreducible unemployment rate" of people who have stopped looking for a job. In a recent report, the OECD warned that the rise in unemployment in France -- 600,000 additions to the rolls for a total of more than 3 million -- could translate into "long-lasting benefit dependency for a significant proportion of the recipient population."

In Britain, the situation is also grim. The unemployment rate is about 8 percent but is likely to rise this year. Martin Weale, director of London's National Institute for Economic and Social Research, said the rate has been kept down in part by workers' willingness to take on temporary jobs. Another possible factor, he said, is that Poland's economic boom has lured home many Polish workers who otherwise might have pushed up unemployment statistics.

"There is a strong suspicion that quite a few jobs that could have been lost were simply abandoned by the Polish who have gone home, and that has kept the rate down," he said. "The second thing is there is quite a lot more flexibility than is normally the case. In order to keep jobs, people have agreed to part-time work, wage freezes and reductions."

Nicole Boebion-Thiery, a divorced nurse, said she has been looking for work ever since she was pushed out of her last job in a nursing home near Nimes, just as the global crisis settled in. But her goal is specific, she said after a visit to the employment bureau: She wants to work with small children.

"What I'd really like to do is go to pediatrics school," she said.

In any case, she added, Nimes's public hospitals, facing cutbacks, have no openings for 56-year-old veterans such as herself and rely instead on fresh graduates from the city's two nursing schools. Her main hope is to find a job in a private clinic, she said, but the employment bureau has come up with no prospects.

Instead, she has gone through a training program run by the employment center to teach people how to conduct themselves during a job interview and how to write a letter seeking work. To support herself and her 17-year-old son, she has relied on a $1,100-a-month pension that she got on retiring from her earlier job as a nurse in Nancy, in northeastern France. Because of her formal status as a retiree, Boebion-Thiery has not been able to sign up for unemployment benefits or additional welfare payments for the long-term unemployed offered recently by President Nicolas Sarkozy's government to help weather the crisis.

When she heard the government was encouraging retired nurses to return to work to alleviate a nursing shortage, she inquired in Nimes's hospitals. But she said she was told she would receive only the pension from Nancy, whether she worked or not.

Special correspondent Karla Adam in London contributed to this report.

Study Shows Blacks Optimistic In Obama Era

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by Liz Halloran

Optimism among black Americans soared after the 2008 election of Barack Obama as the nation's first black president — despite dire economic conditions that have hit the community hard, according to a new national survey released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center.

The survey, conducted from Oct. 28 to Nov. 30, also found that Americans, by and large, do not view Obama through the prism of race: Just 13 percent of whites said they believe that the president is paying too much attention to concerns of blacks.

"Whatever Obama's problems with the public may be," says Andrew Kohut, the Pew Research Center's president, "you don't get a sense that they are being driven by race."

The survey, conducted in association with National Public Radio, showed that though Obama's popularity has dropped since his inauguration a year ago, he remains popular with 65 percent of those surveyed by Pew.

Fifty-four percent of blacks surveyed said they believe that Obama has improved race relations in America, compared with 32 percent of whites.

A Sharp Spike In Blacks' Sense Of Progress

Percent of blacks who say blacks are better/worse off now than five years ago.

Blacks More Hopeful

Pew's findings, based on telephone surveys of 2,884 adult Americans, including 812 non-Hispanic blacks, revealed an across-the-board hopefulness among black Americans — from those who say they are better off as a group than they were five years ago to those who anticipate an even better future.

The surge in the assessment among blacks of their forward progress was more dramatic over the past two years, Pew found, than at any time in the past 25 years.

The last time blacks expressed similar confidence was in 1983, when the Rev. Jesse Jackson appeared on the cover of Time magazine with this headline: "Seeking Votes And Clout: A New Black Drive For Political Power." Jackson ran for president the following year, and again in 1988.

"The current optimism is based upon an improved sense of the black condition as a consequence of President Obama's election," Kohut says. "They have a more positive outlook on life in the United States based on the barrier-breaking election."

Read The Full Pew Report

A Year After Obama's Election: Blacks Upbeat about Black Progress, Prospects

One surprise among the survey results may be that a majority of black Americans say they believe that the standard-of-living gap between whites and blacks has narrowed, even though statistically that's not true. Economic measures have shown that black households, after steady income gains in previous decades, lost ground to whites after 2000.

Walter Earl Fluker, executive director of the Leadership Center at Morehouse College in Atlanta, says that the seeming disconnect is not surprising.

The survey results, he says, may reflect a "positive, romantic idea of a post-racial America, even though there may be some other realities to contemplate in Obama's world, which is also our world."

"Certainly every statistical measure we have of black life and culture — from health and education to unemployment — shows that the African-American community has been hit hard," Fluker says.

"But most citizens, black and otherwise, want to be hopeful at this time," he says.

Blacks' View of Why Many Blacks Don't Get Ahead

Personal Responsibility

A large majority of black Americans, however, continue to say that the country needs to take steps to ensure equal rights, while just over a third of white Americans expressed similar sentiments. And survey results showed that blacks are more inclined than whites to see discrimination, such as when dealing with police.

But in a dramatic turnaround from data collected in 1994, a majority of black Americans now say that blacks who fail to get ahead are stymied more by their personal actions than by discrimination.

That shift in perception began years before Obama's election, according to Pew data. It coincided with a national conversation, begun in 2004 by comedian Bill Cosby, about personal responsibility within the black community.

Kohut, however, says it's difficult to pinpoint what prompts changes in perception and attitude, including the shift in attitudes about discrimination.

"This is one of those things that entered the conversation in a very slow way, so it's difficult to say what the genesis is," Kohut says.

Blacks More Upbeat On Many Fronts

Percent of blacks who say...

	'07	'09	Chg.
Blacks are better off than five years ago	20	39	+19
Black-white standard of living gap is smaller than 10 years ago	41	56	+14
The future for blacks will be better	44	53	+9
They are "very satisfied" with local community	36	44	+8
Blacks and whites get along "very well" or "pretty well"	69	76	+7

Note

Blacks include only non-Hispanic blacks.

Black Or White Or Neither?

Pew's expansive survey also found a nation much more accepting of interracial marriage, particularly among its younger citizens. It found that a majority who oppose Obama do not do so because of his race, and that the president is seen as mixed race among a majority of all Americans — but as black among a majority of the black community.

Fifty-five percent of blacks say Obama is black, while 53 percent of whites say the president, son of a black father from Kenya and a white American mother, is of mixed race.

For Fluker, the Pew results reflect just one yardstick of two: The one measuring how far the community has come. The other measures progress the community still needs to make.

"Boy, we've come a long way with Obama in there for a year, and having survived," says Fluker. "But we have far to go. We've got to take both into account."

But not to be ignored are the broad, better feelings among African-Americans over the past two years, Kohut says, and the persistence of optimism even in the toughest of times.

Freedom in the World 2010: Global Erosion of Freedom

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Washington

January 12, 2010

For the fourth consecutive year, global declines in freedom outweighed gains in 2009, as measured by Freedom House’s annual survey of political rights and civil liberties, Freedom in the World 2010. This represents the longest continuous period of decline for global freedom in the nearly 40-year history of the report.

In a year marked by intensified repression against human rights defenders and civic activists, declines for freedom were registered in 40 countries in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and the former Soviet Union, representing 20 percent of the world’s total polities. Authoritarian states including Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and Vietnam became more repressive. Declines in freedom also occurred in countries that had registered positive trends in previous years, including Bahrain, Jordan, Kenya, and Kyrgyzstan.

“The news for 2009 is cause for real concern,” said Arch Puddington, Freedom House Director of Research. “The decline is global, affects countries with military and economic power, affects countries that had previously shown signs of reform potential, and is accompanied by enhanced persecution of political dissidents and independent journalists. To make matters worse, the most powerful authoritarian regimes have become more repressive, more influential in the international arena, and more uncompromising.”

Published since 1972, Freedom in the World examines the ability of individuals to exercise their political and civil rights in 194 countries and 14 territories around the world. The survey analyzes developments that occurred in 2009 and assigns each country a freedom status—Free, Partly Free, or Not Free—based on a scoring of performance on key indicators.

In this year’s findings, five countries moved into Not Free status, and the number of electoral democracies declined to the lowest level since 1995. Sixteen countries made notable gains, with two countries improving their overall freedom status. The most significant improvements in 2009 occurred in Asia.

The Middle East remained the most repressive region in the world, and some countries that had previously moved forward slipped back from Partly Free into the Not Free category. Africa suffered the most significant declines, and four countries experienced coups.

This year’s findings reflect the growing pressures on journalists and new media, restrictions on freedom of association, and repression aimed at civic activists engaged in promoting political reform and respect for human rights.

“In 2009, we saw a disturbing erosion of some of the most fundamental freedoms—freedom of expression and association—and an increase in attacks on frontline activists in these areas,” said Jennifer Windsor, Executive Director of Freedom House. “From the brutal repression on the streets of Iran, to the sweeping detention of Charter 08 members in China and murders of journalists and human rights activists in Russia, we have seen a worldwide crackdown against individuals asserting their universally accepted rights over the last five years.”

Key global findings include:

Free: The number of countries designated by Freedom in the World as Free in 2009 stands at 89, representing 46 percent of the world’s 194 countries and 46 percent of the world population.

Partly Free: The number of Partly Free countries declined to 58, or 30 percent of all countries assessed by the survey, comprising 20 percent of the world’s total population.

Not Free: The number of countries deemed to be Not Free increased to 47, or 24 percent of the total number of countries. Over 2.3 billion people live in societies where fundamental political rights and civil liberties are not respected. China accounts for half of this number.

Electoral Democracies: The number of electoral democracies dropped by three and stands at 116. Developments in four countries—Honduras, Madagascar, Mozambique, and Niger—disqualified them from the electoral democracy list, while conditions in the Maldives improved enough for it to be added.

Worst of the Worst: Of the 47 countries ranked Not Free, nine countries and one territory received the survey’s lowest possible rating for both political rights and civil liberties: Burma, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Tibet, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Eritrea was downgraded to this level in the past year.

Key regional findings include:

Sub-Saharan Africa: Declines were seen in Botswana and Lesotho, with the latter declining from Free to Partly Free. In addition, declines were noted in Kenya, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Guinea, Madagascar, and Niger, and in two of the region’s most repressive regimes, Eritrea and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Improvements were noted in Malawi, Burundi, Togo, and Zimbabwe.

Asia: Successful democratic elections were held in India, Indonesia, and Japan. Improvements were also noted in Bangladesh, the Maldives, and Mongolia. Declines were documented in Afghanistan after a deeply flawed presidential poll, and in the Philippines after the massacre of civilians and members of the press and the subsequent declaration of martial law.

Former Soviet Union/Central and Eastern Europe: Improvements were seen throughout the Balkans, with Kosovo moving from Not Free to Partly Free after its recent elections and Montenegro moving up to the Free category. By contrast, virtually all of the countries in the non-Baltic former Soviet Union continued to pursue a repressive course, including Russia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, which was downgraded from Partly Free to Not Free.

Middle East and North Africa: Repression in Iran led to score declines, and other countries in the region suffered a number of setbacks. Jordan, Bahrain, and Yemen were all downgraded from Partly Free to Not Free. Declines were also noted in Morocco and the Palestinian Territories. Lebanon and Iraq registered improvements.

Americas: Latin America experienced significant setbacks in 2009, particularly in Central America. Honduras lost its status as an electoral democracy due to a coup, and Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Venezuela also registered declines.

Western Europe and North America: A notable challenge faced by the Obama administration in the United States has been balancing security concerns with the promised rollback of controversial antiterrorism policies dating to the Bush administration. Western Europe has struggled to deal with the influx of immigrants from Muslim countries and the rise of anti-immigration policies, which contributed to declines in Switzerland and Malta.

Freedom House is an independent watchdog organization that supports democratic change, monitors the status of freedom around the world, and advocates for democracy and human rights.

Supporting the right of every individual to be free.

www.freedomhouse.org

The Cambodia-Thailand Conflict: A Test for ASEAN

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by Sokbunthoeun So

Asia Pacific Bulletin, No. 44

Publisher: Washington, D.C.: East-West Center in Washington
Publication Date: December 10, 2009
Binding: electronic
Pages: 2
Free Download: PDF

Abstract

The current conflict between Cambodia and Thailand, both members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), provides a test case for ASEAN to act as a key player in resolving disputes among its members. A failure by ASEAN to do so would reduce its credibility and impede the realization of an ASEAN community by 2015. Sokbunthoeun So discusses the Cambodian-Thai conflict and the implications for ASEAN.

An Interim Assessment of Evolving U.S.-Burma/Myanmar Relations

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http://vimeo.com/8443859 (video)

December 17, 2009, Professor David I. Steinberg

: (Click to enlarge) Professor David I. Steinberg discusses U.S.-Burma relations.

(Washington D.C.) December 17– Though a U.S. policy review has led to new engagement between the United States and Burma, there are still many issues to tackle if relations between the two countries are to improve. In an East-West Center in Washington Asia Pacific Security Seminar co-hosted by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA, Dr. David I. Steinberg, distinguished professor of Asian Studies in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, introduced his new book, Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone Needs to Know, and discussed the current state of U.S.-Burma relations and the prospects for the future.

In February 2009, the United States announced a review of its policy toward Burma, leading to new engagement between the two countries. In the spring, tentative steps were made to open up communication between the two governments, leading to a series of meetings at the official level. The U.S. policy review on Burma was extensive, leading some human rights commentators to worry that the United States might eliminate sanctions or soften its stance on human rights issues in order to achieve greater cooperation with Burma. However, the result of this review is a new period of “pragmatic engagement” in which the United States will continue its sanctions while at the same time maintaining dialogue with Burma at a high level.

Dr. Steinberg explained that it is difficult to say what Burma’s response to U.S. engagement will be. Nationalism, Dr. Steinberg noted, will play a key factor in Burmese decision-making as it engages with the United States. He explained that the fear that the United States will invade Burma is alive and well in the country, and this impedes the relationship. He also noted that Burma is an issue that is of great concern to groups in the United States, who will continue to call for U.S. action to protect human rights issues in Burma regardless of the state of the negotiations between the two countries.

Certainly the Burmese government is concerned about the upcoming scheduled elections, especially with U.S. and world attention being so closely fixed on the country. While the United States has expressed a desire that these elections be “free and fair,” Dr. Steinberg worried that Burmese and U.S. perceptions over what this means may be quite different. Though we cannot predict how the elections will be run or what the results of the elections will be, Dr. Steinberg argued that post-election Burma will still be controlled, in part, by the military due to the active role that the new constitution ensures for them. New political parties will develop that are peopled by former members of the military and, at the same time, Dr. Steinberg suggested that we can expect new opposition parties to develop. Whether the voices of these opposition parties will be heard in the domestic press, however, is difficult to determine. Further, he pointed out that the military leadership has already called for a hiatus in international NGO activities in the country during the campaigning and election period, indicating a concern that international groups will try to influence the elections in some way.

Another important issue facing the U.S.-Burma relationship is that of human rights issues, including the continued imprisonment of Aung San Suu Kyi and the status of the minority groups in Burma that have long been in conflict with the military government. Dr. Steinberg noted that, in the past, the military government had insisted on the disarmament of all rebel groups among the minorities as a precondition of cease-fire agreements. However, he explained that in recent months discussions have begun for the creation of “border guard” forces which would allow rebel groups in the minority areas to keep their arms as long as they would incorporate Burmese military units into their organizations, an act which Dr. Steinberg argues would destroy the minority organizations. Whether the minority groups will agree to this offer is a serious issue that will have important consequences for the upcoming elections. He explained that countries like China and India, which are worried about instability along their borders, will continue to carefully monitor the situation as deadlines for reaching agreements with minority groups continue to be delayed.

Whatever the outcome of this new engagement, the process must be slow and deliberate. As the two countries move forward, Dr. Steinberg explained that there are several key things that the United States could do to keep the ball rolling. He suggested that it may be time to welcome a Burmese ambassador back to the United States as a gesture of good will. Further, he pointed to the importance of the role of NGOs in U.S. engagement with Burma, and noted that the U.S. government could do more to interact with this community. Burma, on the other hand, could indicate its commitment to the new engagement by releasing the many political prisoners held in its prisons and allowing freedom of the press. Dr. Steinberg explained that these two activities would signal that Burma is indeed working toward improved relations with the international community.

David I. Steinberg is distinguished professor of Asian Studies in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, where he was director of the Asian Studies Program for ten years. He is the author of thirteen books and monographs, six of which are on Burma/Myanmar, and some 100 articles/chapters, of which about 50 are on that subject. He also writes extensively on Korean affairs. As a member of the Senior Foreign Service, USAID, Department of State, he was Director of Technical Assistance for Asia and the Middle East and Director for Philippines, Thailand, and Burma Affairs. He was a representative of The Asia Foundation in Burma, Hong Kong, Korea, and Washington, D.C., and President of the Mansfield Center for Pacific Affairs. Professor Steinberg was educated at Dartmouth College, Lingnan University (China), Harvard University, and the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies, where he studied Burmese and Southeast Asia. His latest volume is Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press. 2009). Other volumes include: Turmoil in Burma: Contested Legitimacies in Myanmar (2007), and Burma: The State of Myanmar (2001).

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Jan 12, 2010

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For workers in Western Europe, economic recovery seems a long way off

Study Shows Blacks Optimistic In Obama Era

A Sharp Spike In Blacks' Sense Of Progress

Read The Full Pew Report

Blacks' View of Why Many Blacks Don't Get Ahead

Blacks More Upbeat On Many Fronts

Note

Freedom in the World 2010: Global Erosion of Freedom

The Cambodia-Thailand Conflict: A Test for ASEAN

by Sokbunthoeun So

Asia Pacific Bulletin, No. 44

Abstract

An Interim Assessment of Evolving U.S.-Burma/Myanmar Relations

http://vimeo.com/8443859 (video)

December 17, 2009, Professor David I. Steinberg