Starting Points

Apr 13, 2010

In Asia » Do Thais Lack Spirit for Democracy?

As Thais begin to celebrate Buddhist New Year (known as “songkran”) next week, they will be doing so under the specter that forces inside the country will not have reached an acceptable agreement in resolving the nation’s four-year political impasse.

Since mid-March, thousands of anti-government demonstrators, known as “red shirts,” from the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) have tied-up traffic in major intersections of Bangkok, including the city’s commercial center where shopping malls and banks were closed for three days earlier this week. Today, after protesters pushed through the main gate of the parliament compound, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva declared a state of emergency in Bangkok to help restore order, the red shirts are demanding that Mr. Abhisit dissolve Parliament and call for new elections.

Red shirts protest this week in Bangkok's commercial center. Photo by Flickr user Pittaya, used under a Creative Commons license.

They vow to stay put until Mr. Abhisit steps down. The red shirts believe Mr. Abhisit lacks legitimacy because neither he nor the political party he leads, the Democrat Party, has won a popular mandate in an election.

In many respects, the red shirts have borrowed a page from their political opponents’ playbook. The supporters of the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) (also known as the “yellow shirts”) were successful when they took to the streets to help bring down former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a military coup in September 2006. Subsequent governments were surrogates for Mr. Thaksin. In response, the yellow shirts staged high-profile protests, including taking over the Government House for three months in 2008, followed shortly thereafter by shutting down Bangkok’s two major airports for a week.

Many of Thaksin’s supporters are furious over what they call “a silent coup,” led by members of Thailand’s established elite, including the military, which allowed Mr. Abhisit to form a government. In reality, since neither the Democrat Party nor the Puea Thai Party (to which the red shirts belong) received a majority of seats, Mr. Abhisit was able to cobble together a coalition of smaller parties to create a majority in the parliament. Members of this coalition had been previously aligned with Mr. Thaksin and then switched their allegiance to Mr. Abhisit and the Democrats. The optics may look lousy, but there is nothing illegal about this. As prime minister, Mr. Abhisit has the backing of the military and the palace, the likelihood of him being removed is remote. Mr. Abhisit will continue to rule, but how effectively remains in deep question.

Even if Mr. Abhisit were to capitulate to the red shirts’ demands to resign, a new election is unlikely to resolve Thailand’s political tensions. Neither the Puea Thai nor the Democrat Party would win an outright majority of seats in the Parliament. Therefore, smaller parties would play a critical role in how a new government would be formed. As political ideology has never played a factor in Thai politics, this would all be about who can cut the best deal by promising power and influence.

So when will things come to a head? Will there be violence? Last Buddhist New Year, the red shirts engaged in aggressive and violent acts causing loss of life, injuries, and damage to property. A car thought to be carrying Mr. Abhisit was viciously attacked and according to reports, had the prime minister been in the car, he very likely would have been killed. In the days before state of emergency declared today, the red shirts clashed with riot police and forced MPs to use ladders to scale the walls of parliament compound to escape. There appears to be a misconception in Thailand over the past few years that democracy equals intimidation — whether that means blockading major city intersections in Bangkok and forcing the country’s commercial center to close, tossing grenades at government buildings, shutting down a major international summit attended by Asian leaders, occupying the Government House, or closing a major international airport. It is these types of instances that behooved a retired Thai army general to comment to me recently: “Thailand’s political system is complicated, but lacks sophistication. The people understand the mechanics of what is involved in a democracy, but regrettably the public lacks the spirit.”

To his credit, Mr. Abhisit has never denied the red shirts the right to air their grievances, but has appealed to his opponents to work within the system rather than conducting mass protests on the street. But Mr. Abhisit’s appeal has not gained any resonance because many of these protesters have little or no faith in the political system. Conditions inside Thailand have been exacerbated by the failure of the country’s democratic institutions to bridge the divide between a new capitalist class that has won the backing of the rural poor with populist policies and an established elite that is seeking to maintain its traditional grip on power.

As Thais begin to celebrate their New Year among friends and family with the spiritual aspects of water and renewal, perhaps they will reflect upon the need for citizens to develop or rediscover that same public spirit to promote democracy, that rather ironically a former senior military officer said is missing. In all likelihood, it will take years before a political resolution is reached. Where ever one stands in the Thai body politic, this impasse is not something to feel celebratory about.

John J. Brandon, who briefly lived in Bangkok, Thailand, and continues to travel there regularly, is The Asia Foundation’s Director of International Relations Programs in Washington, D.C. He can be reached at jbrandon@asiafound-dc.org.

In Asia » Examining the Arroyo Legacy in the Philippines

Image via Wikipedia

By Steven Rood

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has dominated Philippine politics this entire decade, first in January 2001 as a vice president who succeeded President Joseph Estrada on the heels of a “people power” protest (triggered by the suspension of the impeachment trial of President Estrada) – a succession that was confirmed by the Supreme Court. She then went on to serve as president longer than any since Ferdinand Marcos when she won a full six-year term in May 2004. That election was marred by significant controversy that peaked when an audio recording was leaked purporting to reveal Ms. Arroyo on the phone with Commission on Election Commissioner Garcillano talking about padding her vote margin. Her popularity (as measured by periodic citizen surveys) subsequently plumbed to depths never before reached in Philippine politics, and has consistently remained low for five years. We now watch and wait as the nation prepares to elect a new president on May 10, 2010.

Satisfaction ratings of Presidents

At the recent Association for Asian Studies (AAS) 2010 Conference in Philadelphia in late March, the only session (of 282) that was devoted to the Philippines focused on Arroyo’s legacy.

Panel chair and author of several works on the Philippines, David Timberman, outlined four contrasts that he sees in the Arroyo Legacy: 1) The contested legitimacy and unpopularity (as measured in opinion surveys) with the administration’s remarkable staying power and “vitality;” 2) The continued defensiveness of the administration in the face of these attacks versus the success in making policy; 3) The effective wielding of presidential powers with the marginalization of other potential policy-makers; and 4) The lack of significant new investment or jobs in the Philippines and prevailing poverty, despite sustained GDP growth.

As a presenter, I pointed out that overall World Bank Governance Indicators show a decidedly mixed Arroyo legacy: between 2000 and 2008 there was a steady increase in government effectiveness and rule of law (under the consistent leadership of three successive chief justices), while at the same time, a steady decline in political stability, voice and accountability, and control of corruption.

Governance Matters 2000 to 2008

I chose to demonstrate the Philippines’ riddled history by quoting from a timeless 1954 Brookings Institution report about the need to make “resolute efforts to get rid of corruption in office.” But I also talked about Arroyo’s smart 2003 “roll-on roll-off” maritime initiative, which brought down the cost of shipping among the Philippine islands by 30 to 40 percent as a historic policy success.

Since President Arroyo announced in 2001 a switch from former President Estrada’s “all out war” policy to one of “all out peace,” significant, though sporadic, progress has been made between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Most recently, after an outbreak of fighting in late 2008, peace talks began once again in late 2009, International Monitoring Teams are on the ground, and an International Contact Group (of which The Asia Foundation is a member) is assisting in the negotiations. Focus now is on maintaining the peace, preserving the gains of the past years through negotiation, and handing off to the incoming administration, whomever it may be, on July 1. In the meantime, the very real dangers of relying on local strongmen for support both in politics and in counter-insurgency was demonstrated by the November 23 election-related massacre in Maguindanao that left 57 people dead.

Another presenter, Gwendolyn Bevis of Management Systems International, described the results of studies of the budgetary process, which President Arroyo has managed to dominate and manipulate throughout her administration. Aside from particular moves to withhold pork barrel allocations for opposition legislatures and to reduce the amount of influence Congress has on the budget, presidential power was increased by a general trend toward lump sum (rather than itemized) appropriation and the discretionary use by the president of previous years’ savings. A sophisticated budgetary team, with the persistence to examine the entire budget (the Philippine president can veto particular line items), maximized the effect.

Ronald Mendoza, an expatriate Filipino and economist with the United Nations, put the economic record of Arroyo into a historical perspective back to the Marcos period. This analysis helped to underscore the country’s boom and bust growth pattern, leaving very little opportunity for sustained economic and human development. During the most recent 2008-2009 crisis, remittances from Overseas Filipino Workers once again offered invaluable support. Mendoza observed that overseas workers have offered a continued de facto bailout of the country, which would have faced debt sustainability problems in the absence of these resource flows.

Similar to earlier administrations, the Arroyo regime failed to address key social and economic challenges relating to persistent poverty and inequality. Indeed, the recent growth spurt prior to 2008-2009 occurred while indicators of poverty and hunger increased. The recent boom period, while impressive on paper, created benefits that even Arroyo supporters admit were not broadly shared by most Filipinos.

Further, a lack of commitment to agricultural development is a major factor behind the Philippines’ transformation from a self-sufficient rice producer into the world’s top importer of rice. This also reflects the broader underdevelopment of the rural sector, in turn contributing to a pattern of growth that has left behind millions of Filipinos and failed to make major inroads in poverty reduction. Over half of families engaged in farming are below the Philippine poverty line, a figure which has remained largely unchanged since the mid-1980s.

The Arroyo legacy could be characterized by some improvements on the policy front, though they are inadequate and leave many governance challenges and social inequities largely unaddressed. As shown by the World Bank indicators, chronic problems such as corruption have worsened, a key reason behind the Philippines’ anemic progress in economic and human development. In addition, even the recent boom period beginning in 2001 and ending in 2008-2009 represents a missed opportunity to facilitate sustained change. This leaves many challenges for President Arroyo’s successor to take up on July 1 when the next Philippine president is inaugurated.

Note: In the 5th paragraph of this piece, Arroyo’s smart 2003 “roll-on-roll-off” maritime initiative was inadvertently called Aquino’s smart 2003 “roll-on roll-off” maritime initiative. The story has been corrected.

Steven Rood is The Asia Foundation’s Country Representative for the Philippines and Pacific Island Nations. He can be reached at srood@asiafound.org.

Apr 12, 2010

News Sites Rethink Anonymous Online Comments - NYTimes.com

Image via Wikipedia

By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA

From the start, Internet users have taken for granted that the territory was both a free-for-all and a digital disguise, allowing them to revel in their power to address the world while keeping their identities concealed.

A New Yorker cartoon from 1993, during the Web’s infancy, with one mutt saying to another, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog,” became an emblem of that freedom. For years, it was the magazine’s most reproduced cartoon.

When news sites, after years of hanging back, embraced the idea of allowing readers to post comments, the near-universal assumption was that anyone could weigh in and remain anonymous. But now, that idea is under attack from several directions, and journalists, more than ever, are questioning whether anonymity should be a given on news sites.

The Washington Post plans to revise its comments policy over the next several months, and one of the ideas under consideration is to give greater prominence to commenters using real names.

The New York Times, The Post and many other papers have moved in stages toward requiring that people register before posting comments, providing some information about themselves that is not shown onscreen.

The Huffington Post soon will announce changes, including ranking commenters based in part on how well other readers know and trust their writing.

“Anonymity is just the way things are done. It’s an accepted part of the Internet, but there’s no question that people hide behind anonymity to make vile or controversial comments,” said Arianna Huffington, a founder of The Huffington Post. “I feel that this is almost like an education process. As the rules of the road are changing and the Internet is growing up, the trend is away from anonymity.”

The Plain Dealer of Cleveland recently discovered that anonymous comments on its site, disparaging a local lawyer, were made using the e-mail address of a judge who was presiding over some of that lawyer’s cases.

That kind of proxy has been documented before; what was more unusual was that The Plain Dealer exposed the connection in an article. The judge, Shirley Strickland Saffold, denied sending the messages — her daughter took responsibility for some of them. And last week, the judge sued The Plain Dealer, claiming it had violated her privacy.

The paper acknowledged that it had broken with the tradition of allowing commenters to hide behind screen names, but it served notice that anonymity was a habit, not a guarantee. Susan Goldberg, The Plain Dealer’s editor, declined to comment for this article. But in an interview she gave to her own newspaper, she said that perhaps the paper should not have investigated the identity of the person who posted the comments, “but once we did, I don’t know how you can pretend you don’t know that information.”

Some prominent journalists weighed in on the episode, calling it evidence that news sites should do away with anonymous comments. Leonard Pitts Jr., a Miami Herald columnist, wrote recently that anonymity has made comment streams “havens for a level of crudity, bigotry, meanness and plain nastiness that shocks the tattered remnants of our propriety.”

No one doubts that there is a legitimate value in letting people express opinions that may get them in trouble at work, or may even offend their neighbors, without having to give their names, said William Grueskin, dean of academic affairs at Columbia’s journalism school.

“But a lot of comment boards turn into the equivalent of a barroom brawl, with most of the participants having blood-alcohol levels of 0.10 or higher,” he said. “People who might have something useful to say are less willing to participate in boards where the tomatoes are being thrown.”

He said news organizations were willing to reconsider anonymity in part because comment pages brought in little revenue; advertisers generally do not like to buy space next to opinions, especially incendiary ones.

The debate over anonymity is entwined with the question of giving more weight to comments from some readers than others, based in part on how highly other readers regard them. Some sites already use a version of this approach; Wikipedia users can earn increasing editing rights by gaining the trust of other editors, and when reviews are posted on Amazon.com, those displayed most prominently are those that readers have voted “most helpful” — and they are often written under real names.

Hal Straus, interactivity editor of The Washington Post, said, “We want to be able to establish user tiers, and display variations based on those tiers.” The system is still being planned, but he says it is likely that readers will be asked to rate comments, and that people’s comments will be ranked in part based on the trust those users have earned from other readers — an approach much like the one The Huffington Post is set to adopt. Another criterion could be whether they use their real names.

But experience has shown that when users help rank things online, sites may have to guard against a concerted campaign by a small group of people voting one way and skewing the results.

A popular feature on The Wall Street Journal’s site lets readers decide whether they want to see only those comments posted by subscribers, on the theory that the most dedicated readers might make for a more serious conversation.

A few news organizations, including The Times, have someone review every comment before it goes online, to weed out personal attacks and bigoted comments. Some sites and prominent bloggers, like Andrew Sullivan, simply do not allow comments.

Some news sites review comments after they are posted, but most say they do not have the resources to do routine policing. Many sites allow readers to flag objectionable comments for removal, and make some effort to block comments from people who have repeatedly violated the site’s standards.

If commenters were asked to provide their real names for display online, some would no doubt give false identities, and verifying them would be too labor-intensive to be realistic. But news executives say that merely making the demand for a name and an e-mail address would weed out much of the most offensive commentary.

Several industry executives cited a more fundamental force working in favor of identifying commenters. Through blogging and social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, millions of people have grown accustomed to posting their opinions — to say nothing of personal details — with their names attached, for all to see. Adapting the Facebook model, some news sites allow readers to post a picture along with a comment, another step away from anonymity.

“There is a younger generation that doesn’t feel the same need for privacy,” Ms. Huffington said. “Many people, when you give them other choices, they choose not to be anonymous.”

BAE Systems Tops List of Biggest Arms Companies - NYTimes.com

Image via Wikipedia

By DAVID JOLLY

PARIS — BAE Systems has topped the list of the world’s biggest armaments companies, as the company, based in London, sharply expanded its sales of armored vehicles for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a Swedish research institute said Monday.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said BAE moved up two spots in 2008 to become the largest arms maker, with military sales of $32.4 billion. It was followed by Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing and General Dynamics, all based in the United States, in the top five spots.

Image by Kuba Bożanowski via Flickr

Though BAE is a British company, more than half of its business is with the United States. Sales in its land and armaments business rose to $12 billion from $7 billion, the institute said, largely on the strength of sales to the U.S. military of mine-resistant, ambush-protected, or MRAP, vehicles.

Total arms sales by the world’s 100 largest arms-producing companies rose to $385 billion in 2008, an increase of $39 billion from a year earlier, the institute said. The data are for 2008 because that is the latest period for which the figures can be verified and analyzed, the institute said in its annual ranking.

The institute, partially financed by Sweden, describes itself as “an independent international institute dedicated to research into conflict, armaments, arms control and disarmament.”

Chinese companies were conspicuously absent from the list, even though the institute ranks China’s military spending as second only to that of the United States. “China probably would appear in the top 100 if we had adequate information,” Bates Gill, director of the institute and a longtime student of East Asian military affairs, said by telephone. “The figures are opaque. Still, it’s a big, big industry,” he said.

But even considering China’s huge domestic sales, it does not rank among the top 10 exporters, he said. The United States ranks first, Mr. Gill said, followed by Russia, Britain, Germany and France.

Mr. Gill said that “one or two of the big Chinese producers, those making rockets for their space program, for example, would probably rank in the top 25 if we simply valued Chinese production at the international market rate.”

China’s overseas arms sales have declined in the past two decades, Mr. Gill said. “Partly that’s because of a greater availability of other competitors with more advanced weaponry since the end of the Cold War,” he said, “and partly, quite simply, because China doesn’t compete very well in terms of quality.”

Still, he noted, Pakistan ordered Chinese fighter jets last year in a deal worth more than $1 billion, a sign that Chinese exporters were taking overseas markets seriously.

Also notable, the institute said, was that Navistar, a truck maker based in Illinois, sold military goods worth $3.9 billion to the U.S. government in 2008, an increase of 960 percent from 2007. The Navistar sales were primarily of armored vehicles for use in Afghanistan.

North American companies, of which all but one are based in the United States, dominate the list, accounting for 60 percent of arms sales by the top 100 companies, the institute said.

Why Kyrgyzstan’s Social Media Matters — Registan.net

Image by HelpAge via Flickr

by Sarah Kendzior on 4/8/2010 · 36 comments

The pundits have spoken, and, contrary to my earlier prediction that Kyrgyzstan’s uprising would be labeled another “Twitter Revolution”, they are now insisting the opposite — that the Kyrgyz tweets, videos and blog posts are irrelevant. The main proponent of this theory is Evgeny Morozov, who, as Michael noted earlier, views the internet activity of Kyrgyzstanis as meaningless because the country is of little global interest.

I’m not going to argue that the international news media are invested in Krygyzstan — the CNN transcripts I posted earlier make their lack of interest all too clear. What bothers me about Morozov’s argument is how he determines the value of online dissent. Once again, Central Asia is deemed irrelevant because it is Central Asia. The tweets, blog posts, and news articles written by people in Kyrgyzstan — often with great emotion and care — are dismissed because they were written for people in Kyrgyzstan. But for whom, may I ask, are people in Kyrgyzstan supposed to be writing?

Image via Wikipedia

As Registan readers well know, Central Asia is the black hole of international media. It is not the “other” but the other’s “other” — Russia’s orient, a region whose history and political complexities are poorly understood even by some who proclaim to be experts; a region whose best-known ambassador is Borat. In the world media, Central Asia is most notable for its absence; the only region not even worthy of inclusion in the international weather report. No one cares if it’s raining in a place that doesn’t, as far as the media are concerned, exist.

Yet as Registan readers also know, a lot happens in Central Asia. And I would argue that, over the last few years, a great deal of what happens in Central Asia happens online — not only what is reported on websites that boldly defy government censorship like Ferghana.ru, but what is written by ordinary people who share, as we do, their thoughts on the internet. The problem, of course, is that they do not generally do this in English. There is another internet, a secret internet, in which meaningful political conversations take place in Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Turkmen, and Tajik, yet the majority of the world remains none the wiser. (Russian, of course, is less of a barrier in this respect.) In numerous cases, Central Asians are talking about issues that could never be discussed in public in their home countries. They often do so in a way that would make little sense to a foreigner even if he or she could read it. They focus on internal politics, national concerns, personal grudges. In short, like most people in the world, they write about each other, and for each other.

I would argue that when most Kyrgyz posted on Twitter, they did so for each other. They searched for meaning and answers, using the internet to forge a connection to their countrymen as chaos reigned outside. And through it all, they evaluated Kyrgyzstan’s politics, providing a rich and ongoing commentary of events. In Morozov’s view, this is irrelevant. He compares Kyrgyzstan unfavorably to Iran, noting that the Kyrgyz did not use the internet for strategic purposes, but merely to spread information. He notes that Kyrgyzstan did not rate as highly as a “trending topic” in Twitter as did Iran in the summer of 2009 (while failing to mention that Iran has a population more than ten times larger than Kyrgyzstan’s). Such an evaluative perspective, in which countries are judged winners and losers by virtue of their search ranking, leads to headlines like Andrew Sullivan’s “This Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted” (an article about Morozov’s article). This revolution was tweeted. But unfortunately, the significance of those tweets is decided not by the people who wrote and read them, but by observers in the West. As a result of this, Kyrgyzstan becomes relevant only in its relation to other nations and other revolutions. This is the virtual equivalent of the Great Game, with Central Asia but an afterthought to which people can apply their pet theories.

Image by neiljs via Flickr

What we make of Kyrgyzstan’s internet content may seem irrelevant in light of the enormity of what has happened. But it is indicative of a deeper problem — a refusal to consider Central Asia in terms of Central Asia, a refusal to see the actions and ideas of Central Asians as meaningful in their own right. Central Asia is no longer an inaccessible hinterland. Thanks to the internet, the world can hear what innumerable Central Asians have to say. The question is whether they care to listen.

CQ - Behind the Lines for Monday, April 12, 2010

Image via Wikipedia

By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly

A year of living dangerously: During first quarter of 2010, flights forced to land early due to security threats doubled compared with last year . . . Always a bridesmaid: Seat on the Supremes coming open and, once again, Napolitano's doubtless long-shot name heard in the buzz . . . This week's worry: Al Qaeda claims it will use explosives undetectable by security scanners to kill hundreds at U.S.-U.K. World Cup match. These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage.

---------------------------------

Since 2001, military fighters have been scrambled some 2,500 times “to intercept passenger airliners because of reported suspicious behavior. Lavatories are a common theme,” Salon’s Patrick Smith comments in re: that ill-considered Qatari diplomatic smoking break. (During the first quarter of 2010, the number of flights forced to land early due to security threats doubled compared to the first quarter of 2009, USA Today’s Thomas Frank adds.) DHS’s Janet Napolitano has thanked air marshals for dealing with the Wednesday incident, The Hill’s Susan Crabtree relates — while Boing Boing’s Cory Doctorow reports GOP Rep. John J. Duncan Jr. urging abolition of the Federal Air Marshal Service, arguing that the $860 million spent annually reaps only 4.2 arrests per year, at a cost of $200 million per bust.

Feds: Napolitano has also been mentioned as a possible replacement for the Supremes’ John Paul Stevens, but it’s not clear if she’s interested, FOX News’ Mike Levine relates. Meanwhile, the DHS chief is in Abuja, at Nigerian government invitation, to assess the current state of international airport security, The Vanguard’s Kenneth Ehigiator explains. Sixteen counties nationwide are the latest to join an ICE initiative to ID illegal immigrants with criminal records, prompting new debate about the effectiveness of federal deportation programs, FOX News’ Diana Nguyen also notes. The National Association of Broadcasters charges that the FCC’s “anti-broadcast, pro-broadband prejudice is a threat to homeland security” and that broadband service would overload and shut down in an emergency, Daily Finance records.

Going to extremes: “To experts who follow militias, the existence of the Hutaree — and the cool reaction it generally received from other militia groups — is a reminder that the movement is far from monolithic,” The Chicago Tribune’s Nicholas Riccardi and Richard Fausset survey. “The question that those who call themselves conservatives must face is whether other elements within their movement . . . now tolerate and even blatantly encourage the use of violence to achieve their aims,” Salon’s Joe Conason chides. But what worries conservatives “is that the demonizing of anyone who opposes big-government policies could offer a sort of prelude to a slow cracking down on . . . political dissent generally,” The New American’s Steven Yates relates — while Newsweek’s Eve Conant notes rebuttals to the allegation that FOX News “radicalized” the man who threatened House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

State and local: Rep. Ciro D. Rodriguez has asked Texas Gov. Rick Perry to focus more homeland security funds on counties along the Mexican border, The Associated Press reports — while The Las Cruces (N.M.) Sun-News exhorts: “Let’s beef up the border to prevent more violence.” A mass casualty drill involving school districts and emergency agencies from two Pennsylvania counties is slated for April 24, The Wayne Independent informs. A Browning, Mont., man is one of 35 members of a new DHS task force charged with assessing the nation’s disaster preparedness, The Great Falls Tribune relays. The NYPD is losing its top counterterrorism official, Richard Falkenrath, at month’s end, WABC 7 News confirms. Check, finally, The Washington Post’s map of downtown streets to be closed from last night through Tuesday p.m. for the head-of-state-heavy Nuclear Security Summit.

Know nukes: “President Obama is marginalizing our nuclear umbrella,” Human Events, relatedly, inveighs — as a New York Times op-ed soothes: “Obama’s new policy on the use of atomic weapons makes only minor changes that won’t endanger America,” and a Real Clear Politics contributor insists: “No arms-control treaty will stop the Khomeinists’ quest for a nuke.” Obama is hoping the many world leaders gathering in Washington this week can agree on how to keep nukes out of terrorists’ hands, Reuters reviews — as a Newsweek columnist contends that “eradicating nuclear weapons should still be our ultimate goal.” During the Chilean quake in February, National Nuclear Security Administration officers labored to secure 40 pounds of highly enriched uranium, enough to build a good-sized atom bomb, Time Magazine details.

Bugs ‘n bombs: A federal prosecutor affirms that a recent rash of pipe bombs left in East Texas postal collection boxes amounts to domestic terrorism, The Longview News-Journal relates. “The number of improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan has doubled. So has the number of American casualties,” The American Forces Press Service leads — as Weslaco (Texas)’s KRGV 5 News learns that the Mexican drug cartels are also deploying IEDs. Speaking of which, an explosive device thrown over the fence of the U.S. consulate in Nuevo Laredo damaged windows but not people, CNN says. Rescue workers who developed lung damage following work at Ground Zero have persistent breathing problems, U.S. News reads in a New England Journal of Medicine study.

Close air support: The Trinidad-born basketball player who helped stop Richard Reid from igniting his shoes eight years ago was finally sworn in as a U.S. citizen last week, The New York Post reports. The U.S. Airways clerk who checked in a scowling Mohammed Atta at Portland’s airport the morning of 9/11 relates (yet again) to CBS News his immediate thought: “If this guy doesn’t look like a typical Arab terrorist, nobody does.” Most American travelers are happy with current airport security measures, The Atlanta Business Chronicle sees a Travel Leaders survey finding — as CBS 2 News reports Chicago naming a new head of security at O’Hare in wake of the fired former chief’s accusations that the massive air hub is vulnerable to terrorists. Transport Canada, meantime, has eliminated funding for armed police patrols in eight of the country’s busiest airports, a move likely to leave passengers paying the shortfall, CBC News notes.

Coming and going: “Progress on studying and detecting chemical attacks on subway systems has been plodding,” Homeland Security Newswire essays, noting that the U.S. Army as early as 1966 conducted a test simulating a bio-attack on Manhattan’s subways. Fighting nearly a decade of fines exceeding $61 million and the seizure of 24 rail cars, Union Pacific petitioned a judge to stop the feds from levying penalties for illegal drugs found on trains coming from Mexico, The Omaha World Herald relates. California’s Port of Stockton is undertaking various improvements to allow port police to launch their patrol boat on a moment’s notice, the Record records. Saudi plans to spend $26.3 million on port security make it the Middle East’s biggest spender in this area, Port Strategy briefs.

Courts and rights: In an opinion released Friday, a federal judge ruled it unconstitutional to hold a Guantanamo detainee simply because the government fears he will renew his al Qaeda ties or commit unlawful acts, The Washington Post reports. Suspects in the alleged 2007 plot to blow up JFK airport fuel tanks sought funding from wanted Saudi terror suspect Adnan Shukrijumah, Guyana’s Stabroek Times cites U.S. prosecutors alleging. The Army psychiatrist charged in the Fort Hood shooting spree will be kept isolated from other inmates at the Texas jail where he’s been transferred, The San Antonio Express-News notes. Canada must allow Abdullah Khadr to face trial in the United States even if his detention in Pakistan was illegal, The Toronto Star has Crown attorneys arguing at his Toronto extradition hearing last week.

Over there: Senior Afghan officials now condemn as counterproductive the arrest in Pakistan this year of the No. 2 Taliban official, complaining it has derailed Kabul-led peace talks, the Post reports — as another Post story sees Pakistani intel officers playing catch-and-release with other senior Afghan Taliban figures.A powerful tribe in Yemen threatened violence Saturday against anyone trying to harm a radical U.S.-born imam whom Washington has reportedly placed on its hit list, Agence France-Presse reports. (“Finding Anwar al-Awlaki will be difficult; killing him even more so,” The Times of London warns.) “Is Turkey the next big Islamist threat?” a John Birch Society editorial, meanwhile, wonders — as The Belfast Telegraph hears Greek police saying they have detained six left-wing terror suspects for questioning. USA Today, finally, explores whether Qatar should reimburse the United States for the air terror scare prompted by its pipe-smoking diplomat.

Qaeda Qorner: “Al Qaeda has threatened to kill hundreds of football fans in a bloody attack during England’s high-profile opening World Cup game against the United States,” The Daily Mirror leads — while the N.Y. Post hears the group claiming it will use explosives that can’t be detected by security scanners, and CNN has South Africa insisting that this summer’s competition will be safe. At least 12 al Qaeda members have crossed from Yemen into Somalia in the last two weeks, bringing money and military expertise, Reuters reports. The Islamic State of Iraq, the al Qaeda front there, has claimed the triple suicide bombings that killed 30 at foreign embassies in Baghdad last week, AFP, again, reports. “When news started to circulate that [Tennessee’s Bonnaroo music festival] was possibly sued by al Qaeda, you can imagine the skepticism with which this story is now being approached,” Crawdaddy cautiously leads.

By George, I think he’s got it: “In what some are calling the boldest move of his presidency, Barack Obama broke with a time-honored tradition observed by several U.S. presidents including George W. Bush by pronouncing the word ‘nuclear’ as it appears in the dictionary,” The Borowitz Report reports. “Announcing the new weapons pact with Russia, Obama repeatedly pronounced the word in a way that has rarely been used by a U.S. president since Jimmy Carter was in the White House. But according to Davis Logsdon, a professor of international relations at the University of Minnesota, Obama’s pronunciation of ‘nuclear’ may have been key to the diplomatic breakthrough: ‘The Russians have heard presidents pronounce it “nucular” for so long, they may have thought he was offering something new.’ Obama’s obscure pronunciation of “nuclear” drew harsh reactions from members of the Tea Party movement, who see the president’s obsession with correct English usage as an attempt to make the nation more European.”

Source: CQ Homeland Security

Tensions Rise for Twitter and Outside App Developers - NYTimes.com

Image via CrunchBase

By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER

SAN FRANCISCO — It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

Twitter made it easy for programmers outside the company to build 70,000 applications that made the microblogging service more usable. Without them, people would not be able to post a photo, shorten a URL, monitor several Twitter accounts at once, easily use the service from a cellphone or search for people to follow.

Because of that, Twitter grew so fast that no me-too company could mount a serious challenge. People now write 50 million Twitter posts a day, up from just 2.5 million at the beginning of last year and 5,000 in 2007.

The outside developers did it all at no charge because Twitter allowed them to make money from advertisers or Twitter users willing to pay for apps. These programmers — who will gather this week in San Francisco at Chirp, Twitter’s inaugural developer conference — are starting to feel that life is getting a little more complicated.

Serious tension was starting to develop long before the conference, where Twitter is expected to announce ways it will make money, which could include advertising or paid accounts for businesses.

Developers fear that if Twitter’s engineers build the same features that they have, Twitter could transform overnight from generous benefactor to arch competitor to their start-ups.

The tension is becoming more acute as Twitter matures and develops the resources and desire to buy or build its own version of some of the outside apps. On Friday, Twitter announced that it had acquired Atebits, which makes Tweetie for the iPhone and Mac, and that it had worked with Research In Motion to build an official BlackBerry app. That has other start-ups that make mobile Twitter apps wondering if there is any room left for them.

“When we launched, Twitter was incomplete, so developers rushed to fill those holes, but eventually we’re going to have to build a lot of features in because they should be there,” Evan Williams, Twitter’s co-founder and chief executive, said in a recent interview. “We want to set those expectations.”

Fred Wilson, the Union Square Ventures partner who invested in Twitter and serves as a director, echoed that sentiment in a blog post last week that immediately put many developers on edge. “I think the time for filling the holes in the Twitter service has come and gone,” he wrote. “Twitter really should have had all of that when it launched or it should have built those services right into the Twitter experience.”

Pete Karl is an engineer who builds Twitter apps at the Digital Influence Group and his own start-up called Lion Burger. “I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop,” he said. “Before, I think developers had the upper hand. But now it’s time for Twitter to try and make some money, and I think they want to create a situation where the scales are tipped more in Twitter’s favor.”

For the technology industry, this is a familiar story. Giving away technical secrets to those who want to use your product to build their own might seem counterintuitive to most companies, but it is a common path to success in the tech world. Microsoft, Apple, Google and Facebook have all, to varying degrees, opened their platforms this way.

It can be a stunning source of growth.

“Embracing the openness leads to ubiquity, and if you can embrace that ubiquity, you can make money,” said Mark C. Stevens, a lawyer for start-up companies at Fenwick & West in Silicon Valley.

But invariably, the provider and the developers bump against each other. “That’s how it always is when you develop for a corporate-owned platform,” Dave Winer, software developer, blogger and visiting scholar at New York University, wrote last week. “You have to make peace with that reality before you write your first line of code.”

Microsoft, for example, became ubiquitous in large part because of all the tools, like memory managers, that outside developers built. Once Microsoft built memory managers into Windows, those start-ups became irrelevant.

Twitter has been unusually free about letting developers tap into its data and technology, through what is known as an application programming interface. Sometimes it gives developers certain tools, like geolocation for Twitter posts, before it uses them on its own site, and developers can use the data and create a site or app without signing any contracts or even alerting Twitter.

“The problems we’re solving are so big that we need a lot of people working on them and we need to give them the same level of access,” said Ryan Sarver, the director of platform at Twitter.

If developers build something Twitter wants, the company has three options — let it exist separately, create its own version, or buy the start-up, as Twitter did in 2008 with Summize, which created a Twitter search engine, and last week with Atebits.

“For every platform ever, it’s a question of what should be left up to the ecosystem and what should be created on the platform,” Mr. Williams said.

Developers are rapidly learning that truth. Heypic.me is an iPhone app for posting photos to Twitter and to a Web site that shows Twitter photos on a map of the world.

Twitter has been extremely open with its data, said Heypic.me’s developers, Andrew Seigner and Robert Manson. When the developers asked for more geolocation data, Twitter promptly gave it to them. But they are aware of the risks. “When you go to write a Twitter application, you almost wonder, is Twitter going to come out with the same feature in a month and blow me away?” Mr. Seigner said.

Their fears were realized when Twitter built a similar site for the South by Southwest conference. They sent Mr. Williams a Twitter message asking if the site foreshadowed future Twitter sites. “If so, you have put us out of business,” they wrote. Mr. Williams responded that it was a one-off site.

As with all relationships, the tension could worsen once money is involved. That is a concern for companies like CoTweet, a San Francisco start-up that offers tools for businesses to manage their Twitter accounts by tracking conversations with customers and letting multiple employees respond.

Companies like Ford and Coca-Cola pay for the service. But Twitter has said it will introduce paid accounts for businesses, including a tool for multi-author accounts that was inspired by CoTweet’s. (CoTweet was acquired last month by the e-mail marketing firm ExactTarget.)

Both Mr. Williams and Aaron Gotwalt, co-founder of CoTweet, said they were confident that companies would pay for both services, because they would also offer different things.

Twitter has given some hints about where developers will have the most luck. Mr. Williams says Twitter has “a very complementary relationship” with start-ups like CoTweet that build apps for specific audiences. The need to discover people on Twitter and to search for the most relevant posts is so big that many people will be able to do it, Mr. Sarver said.

Mr. Wilson, who said he was not speaking on behalf of Twitter, said that big businesses would also grow from social games on Twitter and sites that group posts about a certain topic, like movies or job listings.

One of the goals of the Chirp conference is to shepherd developers in the direction that will be most useful to them — and to Twitter.

“There are things that are not good opportunities that people will probably be disappointed if they invest in,” Mr. Williams said. “But we also think there’s a whole bunch of other stuff that we’re not interested in doing or have no plans to do.”