Saturday, November 26, 2011

 

U.S. official pursuing India education mission

From The Hindu

Ann Stock, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, will travel to India November 26-December 2, 2011 to follow up on the U.S.-India Higher Education Summit, the U.S. Department of State announced.

Her engagements in India come in the wake of the October Summit, for which Indian Minister for Human Resources Development Kapil Sibal visited Washington.

Per a statement by the State Department Ms. Stock will visit New Delhi, Chandigarh and Chennai, where she will meet with government officials, students, and members of civil society.

At the culmination of the Higher Education Summit there were no ‘big bang’ announcements in terms of new agreements penned but at the time Mr. Sibal expressed confidence that it had set in motion the mechanisms for future exchanges that could lead to more U.S. investment into the vast vocational education space in India.

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Taliban, ISAF get bitter on Twitter

From The Hindu

While the Internet's democratisation of communication has empowered the ordinary citizen to engage with those quite distant to them in the real world, this compression of cyber-distance has raised the thorny of question of whether groups such as the Taliban have the right to freely post anti-West messages.

The latest controversy surrounding this issue has fixed the spotlight on the United States government's efforts to pressure microblog site Twitter to cancel the accounts of pro-Taliban tweeters.

The Los Angeles Times highlighted the role of lawmakers such as Senator Joe Lieberman, Independent and Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, “to persuade Internet companies to remove videos and blog posts that he says promote terrorism or offer instructions on how to commit violence.”

Though Twitter feeds ostensibly from the Taliban first appeared last year in Arabic and Pashto, the LA Times reported, an English-language feed started in April and many of its posts referred to U.S. troops in inflammatory terms.

At the heart of the issue is a deeply troubling question for U.S. foreign policy itself — the fact that there has been flip-flopping on the question of whether the Taliban is the enemy or a partner in the future Afghan state.

A lack of consistency on this matter has meant that the State Department has not listed the group as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation, a fact that Twitter executives were said to have underscored to the likes of Mr. Lieberman. So long as the Taliban is not an FTO, they are reported to have argued, the microblog posts are in no way a violation the Twitter's terms of service.

Yet it is undeniable that the U.S. and more generally the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Kabul is feeling the cyber-heat, a view corroborated by the fact that the ISAF has engaged in a cyber-battle with a specific pro-Taliban account.

The ISAF Twitter account is @ISAFmedia, with 16,000-plus followers and its detractor is the @ABalkhi, with 3,000-plus followers.

Hammering out dozens of tweets per day and trading allegations over specific attacks by either side, these exchanges create the impression of an ugly online brawl.

Most recently the Taliban tweeter highlighted claims that NATO forces were using Afghan mercenaries and noted on Thursday: “@ISAFmedia - your officials admitted to it dumb dumb.” In response the ISAF tweeter wrote: “@ABalkhi - Dumb dumb? How the dialogue elevates. Look: Nobody takes you seriously. Everything you type is wrong. Just. Stop.”

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U.S. cuts third quarter growth estimate

From The Hindu

Exerting additional downward pressure on an already-muted rate of economic growth in the United States economy the U.S. Commerce Department cut third quarter growth estimates for 2011 from 2.5 per cent to 2 per cent.

The bad news on the growth front compounded Monday's failure in the Congressional supercommittee on deficit reduction, as a gridlock over tax increases and cuts to welfare programmes forestalled a deal on spending cuts to the tune of $1.2 trillion.

In a statement the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) said that real gross domestic product increased at an annual rate of 2 per cent in the third quarter of 2011, that is from the second quarter to the third quarter, as per a second estimate of the BEA.

In an “advanced” estimate of the growth rate issued in October the BEA had noted that the increase in real GDP was 2.5 per cent; yet it justified the estimate downgrade because “The GDP estimates released today are based on more complete source data than were available for the ‘advance' estimate issued last month.”

Sector level

Deconstructing the various components of the latest growth figure, the BEA said that the rise in real GDP in the third quarter “primarily reflected positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures non-residential fixed investment, exports, and federal government spending that were partly offset by negative contributions from private inventory investment and state and local government spending.” Imports, the BEA added, increased during the period.

At the sector level, final sales of computers were said to have added 0.22 percentage points to the third-quarter change in real GDP after adding 0.07 percentage points to the second quarter change. Similarly, motor vehicle output reportedly contributed 0.18 percentage points following a negative figure of 0.10 percentage point in the second quarter change.

The 0.5 percentage point drop in the most recent estimate of the third quarter increase in real GDP implied that GDP was $15 billion lower than the advance estimate and this lower value primarily reflected downward revisions to private inventory investment, non-residential fixed investment, and personal consumption expenditures, the BEA said.

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India can do better, suggests OECD

From The Hindu

A recent report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has suggested that while India’s growth record in recent years was unprecedented, a focus on labour markets and agricultural growth could spur the country to a better poverty alleviation record.

The report, “Perspectives on Global Development in 2012: Social Cohesion in Shifting World” noted that China stands out for its remarkable rise in its private and public savings rate, from 33.3 and 5.7 per cent of GDP in 1992 respectively, to 44.7 and 6.2 per cent in 2008.

However the report also said “China is not alone,” in particular adding that “India possesses high and rising levels of national savings, which include rapidly growing corporate savings.”

Suggesting that these funds could be channelled into areas such as poverty alleviation the OECD report added, “Higher savings endow converging countries with a greater capacity to confront the major challenges of investment in human and physical infrastructure.”

The study delved deep not only into the economic dimensions of development but social aspects too. For example, touching upon the relevance of India’s caste system on development outcomes, the study quoted samples from several Indian rural villages showing that “Low-caste households living in low-caste dominated villages have a higher income than those in villages dominated by a high caste.”

The OECD also praised India’s overall development model and drew attention to the structural factors underlying its recent decades of rapid economic growth. In its report the OECD said, “With sustained high growth over several decades the depth of structural change in large Asian economies such as India is remarkable and without historical precedent.”

Citing the rapid rise in labour productivity as a key factor driving this growth the study noted that in the case of India structural transformation in labour markets had made the services sector a key source of employment unlike China, where manufacturing appeared to dominate.

While this labour reallocation in India had resulted in an average annual productivity improvement of 0.9 per cent, the OECD said, “Labour has also moved from formal to informal employment, which offsets the positive impact on productivity.”

Further in comparative terms China appeared to have better realised the link between poverty alleviation and agricultural growth, while India’s modest achievements in poverty reduction may be associated with the relatively poor performance of its agricultural sector, the report noted.

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U.S. spending-cuts panel draws a blank


From The Hindu

When the approval rating of an institution is at an all-time low of nine per cent, one would think it would go out of its way to avoid any glaring failure in carrying out its duty.

Yet, even after the reputational debacle that the U.S.Congress suffered over the summer owing to its near-failure to reach a deal on a limit for the ballooning debt, it has again endangered its credibility in the eyes of voters.

In the months following those precipitous negotiations over the debt limit, the Congress' so-called deficit-reduction “supercommittee” failed to hammer out a deal on further public spending cuts before its Monday midnight deadline.

While rating agencies are closely watching these developments, the U.S. may have temporarily escaped an S&P-style downgrade since President Barack Obama's plan, approved by Congress, will now require automatic cuts across vast swathes of the budget, including the Republican-cherished area of defence expenditure.

Though $1.2 trillion in additional cuts was at stake, the committee could not reach a bipartisan consensus on where these cuts would be applied, with Republican intransigence on the continuation of the Bush-era tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires forming the bulwark of their opposition.

Democrats refused to sign off on deep cuts into Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, welfare programmes aimed at the most vulnerable members of society.

With an unmistakable tenor of shame, the supercommittee co-chairs, Democratic Senator Patty Murray and Republican Congressman Jeb Hensarling, said in a statement, “After months of hard work and intense deliberations, we have come to the conclusion today that it will not be possible to make any bipartisan agreement available to the public before the committee's deadline.”

Mr. Obama, who may well mould the Republican blockades into a campaign plank for the presidential elections, struck a defiant note scarcely an hour after the passage of the deadline.

Broad agreement

“Despite the broad agreement that exists for such an approach, there's still too many Republicans in Congress who have refused to listen to the voices of reason and compromise that are coming from outside of Washington. They continue to insist on protecting $100 billion worth of tax cuts for the wealthiest two per cent of Americans at any cost, even if it means reducing the deficit with deep cuts to things like education and medical research,” said Mr. Obama.

Further warning his opposition against efforts to undermine the automatic cuts, which are expected to kick in by early 2013, he said, “My message to them is simple: No. I will veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts to domestic and defence spending,” adding, “There will be no easy off ramps on this one.”

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U.S. wants “level playing field” for nuclear companies

From The Hindu

The State Department said that the U.S. hoped India would provide American companies with “level playing field” even as they seek to resolve the impasse over India’s Nuclear Liability Act.

In response to a question fromThe Hindu on whether the new rules notified by the Indian government last week would help advance negotiations on this matter the State Department issued a statement saying, “Ensuring a level playing field for U.S. companies to invest in India’s civil nuclear industry remains a priority for the State Department.”

The statement added that completing the U.S.-Indian civil nuclear cooperation partnership was “central to both our nations’ long-term prosperity and India’s future energy security,” and it only reiterated an earlier response saying the U.S. continued to “study” India’s regulations on civil nuclear liability.

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Map row: India objects, U.S. relents

From The Hindu

A State Department Spokesperson clarified that the map of India on the Department’s website, which showed Pakistan Occupied Kashmir as part of the territory of Pakistan, “did contain some inaccuracies which were associated with the boundaries of some geographic features [and] this was unintentional.”

The Spokesperson, Victoria Nuland, responded to a question from The Hindu saying the map had been taken off the website and “We are going to get the map fixed and put up a fixed map.”

Admitting that the map on the site earlier “was not drawn properly,” Ms. Nuland added, “We will put up the new map when we acquire one that we are confident is accurate.” However she declined to provide any further details on which officer or department within the State Department was responsible for the map.

The controversy was stoked when the Indian Ministry of External Affairs put out a statement saying, “The Government is aware of the gross inaccuracies, in the map of India, on the U.S. State Department website. The Government has consistently rejected incorrect depiction of India's borders on maps used by the U.S. Government. It has used every opportunity to convey to the U.S. side its concern in this regard, and has asked that these maps be corrected.”

The MEA statement also noted that the government’s dim view on the matter had been “reiterated by a senior MEA official to the U.S. Deputy Chief of Mission today, who assured us that the U.S. Embassy would convey our concerns to the U.S. State Department.”

The MEA went further to clarify its view on the territory in question saying, “The Government takes this opportunity to reaffirm that the entire State of Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India and has consistently conveyed to the international community that maps of India should depict the boundaries of our country correctly.”

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Monday, November 21, 2011

 

New York wakes up to another home-grown terror plot

From The Hindu

Even as the United States pursues the al-Qaeda across the world and kills off its top leaders, there is concern that it may be becoming a victim of its own success.

This perverse outcome is a result of the terror outfit's charismatic leadership inspiring nascent fundamentalists to follow in their footsteps once they attain “martyrdom”, and the latest example of this dangerous trend emerged this weekend in New York City.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced on Sunday that Jose Pimentel (27), a Dominican Republic-born U.S. citizen, had been arrested for planning a terror plot in NYC involving pipe bombs.

Apparently incensed by the killing of al-Qaeda-linked Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki by the CIA in a drone strike on September 30, Mr. Pimentel was said to have studied the Awlaki-inspired and now-infamous article, “How to Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom.”

According to Mr. Bloomberg, Mr. Pimentel acted as a “lone wolf” though he reportedly told his friends he was planning to travel to Yemen before returning to New York to become “a martyr in the name of Jihad”. “He was not part of a larger conspiracy emanating from abroad,” said the Mayor.

The eloquent and Internet-savvy Awlaki, also a U.S. citizen, had inspired several of his countrymen including Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan, the army officer who killed 13 people and wounded 29 others at a base; and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian “underwear bomber” who tried blow up an aircraft on Christmas Day, 2009.

In Mr. Pimentel's case, however, a wide range of targets may have been hit if the “al-Qaeda sympathiser” had not been arrested following an investigation lasting several years. According to Mr. Bloomberg, Mr. Pimentel's deadly attack would have struck police patrol cars, coastal facilities and targeted members of the U.S. armed forces returning from conflict zones such as Afghanistan.

It appeared that the police had been on to Mr. Pimentel over two years ago. NYC Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said Mr. Pimentel, then residing in Schenectady, New York, moved to Manhattan and planned to make three bombs. On Sunday afternoon, officers entered his apartment and arrested him.

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Haqqani on “slippery ground”

From The Hindu

Ambassador Husain Haqqani, has always been a man walking a tightrope and now he may be reaching the end of the line.

While he has still not packed his bags and returned to Islamabad, sources here indicated that he might well be on “slippery ground,” especially since he was “considered close to Washington but GHQ dislikes him”.

Dissatisfaction with his actions were said to echo past trends, where he was seen as not lobbying sufficiently for the interests of the military and intelligence apparatus on Capitol Hill, preferring to promote the civilian leadership. Indicating that l'affaire Haqqani may be high on the discussion agenda and the topmost levels of the Pakistani state it was noted that General Kayani called upon President Asif Ali Zardari on two consecutive days this week “and every time it was said security issues were discussed”.

Reportedly the word in the Pakistani embassy here is he “would like to do Washington's bidding more readily then Islamabad's.” In the past few days rumours added grist to this mill when some media alleged that Mr. Haqqani holds a U.S. passport and that he had sought asylum in the U.S. — both charges that he has denied.

Nevertheless long-time observers of the establishment added that the Mr. Haqqani “is said to be a master at manoeuvring minds in his favour... a feature that is said to help him secure high offices,” suggesting there may be a sliver of a chance that he could survive this episode.

Regardless of the outcome, Mr. Haqqani's past role as a journalist and his colourful presence on micro-blogging website Twitter may presage an opportunity for the eloquent diplomat. Even if he loses his job he may well be able to spin this into an opportunity by chronicling his adventures as the martyr for democracy who stood up against the mighty Pakistani military.

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Friday, November 18, 2011

 

U.S. L1 visa rejections at 40 %

From The Hindu

A group of senior industry representatives from the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) were in town this week to discuss numerous positive developments on the trade and investment front with United States Senators and Congressmen. However, they also pressed home the point that visa rejection rates, as high as 40 per cent for the L-1 visa, needed to come down.

Speaking to The Hindu B. Muthuraman, CII President, said that the rejection rate of L-1 visas had jumped to its current level from 7-8 per cent. “It is very high. To our minds this is also not a good thing for the U.S., so we have taken it up with them. We have a positive response,” he said. Mr. Muthuraman further said that in the U.S. also there was a certain amount of protectionism. The recent “Stop Outsourcing and Create American Jobs 2011 Act” is a bit of a knee-jerk reaction, he noted, adding, “I think anyone whose economy is in a state where the U.S. economy is, is probably bound to take a decision of that nature. But I do not think it is going to affect the India U.S. relationship in the long term on that basis.”

Speaking of the domestic business environment in India, Mr. Muthuraman admitted that several major corruption scandals had slowed down decision making in several key economic policy areas. Yet he said that he was enthused by the fact that in the last three months a number of important bills had been tabled, including the Land Acquisition Bill and the Mining Bill. Also, there were numerous discussions underway in other areas such as getting FDI into multi-brand retail, he said, and that gave him hope.

“If India can grow at 7.5 per cent with lots of problems on infrastructure and governance and all these reforms not taking place, with all this [improving] that 7.5 per cent can easily become 9-9.5 per cent,” he said.

The meetings in Washington are part of an ongoing effort by institutions such as CII to deepen U.S.-India interactions at the business-to-business and state-to-state levels. T. T. Ashok, Southern Region head for CII, noted that a number of delegations from Indian states such as Andhra Pradesh had visited the U.S. Similarly, Mr. Ashok said, a U.S. delegation from Maryland, including Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley, would be visiting India soon.

In this context, U.S. Special Representative for Global Intergovernmental Affairs Reta Jo Lewis told The Hindu that the State Department was “delighted to see state officials such as the Governor of Maryland go to India with a large delegation — very historic for Maryland — to begin to develop and expand their relationship with states in India.” Ms. Lewis added, “We at the Department of State are continuing to encourage, explore and explain what great opportunities there are in India.”

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U.S. “studying” Indian nuclear liability regulations

From The Hindu

The United States State Department said that it was “in the process of studying the content” of the new rules on the Indian Nuclear Liability Act as notified by the Indian government earlier this week.

Of the two segments in the Act, which were of concern to the U.S., the Government of India’s notification on the regulations did not alter Section 46, which allows Indian citizens to file tort claims for damages. Yet it did open up a loophole for Section 17(b), which grants the Indian nuclear operator a right of recourse against nuclear suppliers if an accident results from gross negligence.

However in response to a question fromThe HinduDepartment Spokesman Mark Toner only suggested that the U.S. government was aware of the notification about the implementing regulations. He added, “Once we have reviewed them thoroughly, then we will have comment.”

The passage of the Act last year brought progress under the civilian nuclear agreement between India and the U.S. to a grinding halt. Even after India made assurances that it would accede to the Convention on Supplementary Compensation, an internationally accepted liability regime, doubts persisted on the U.S. side regarding the exposure of U.S. nuclear companies to liability. Since that time negotiations involving U.S. nuclear suppliers such as GE and Westinghouse have been underway but have produced no breakthroughs.

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Police action against Occupy protest, again


From The Hindu

Even as they celebrated their two-month anniversary Occupy Wall Street protestors got the rough end of the stick in New York City this week, first being forcibly evicted from Zuccotti Park on Tuesday and then on Thursday running the gauntlet of police arrests and blockades.

After their tents were torn down and their property was trashed using bulldozers Occupy protestors were banned from returning to their campsite at Zuccotti Park by NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who cited “health and safety” as justification for the evictions.

However when several hundred protestors regrouped and sought to march on the New York Stock Exchange they were confronted by a large contingent of New York Police Department officers.

The NYPD hemmed the protestors in at the chokepoint at the intersection of Pine and Nassau Streets, with barricades preventing them from advancing any closer to the NYSE. Traffic was also snarled near the junction.

While the protestors raised slogans and continued chanting, “We are the 99 per cent” and “We are not afraid of your nightsticks,” the New York Times reported that one officer wearing riot gear told a group of protesters that he had worked 36 hours straight, adding, “If I keep getting paid, I can tough it out.”

The tough clampdown on NYC Occupy protestors came even as protestors across the nation planned a day of solidarity to highlight highlighting growing income inequality and a dire need for jobs in the floundering U.S. economy.

The action also came in the wake of reports that police officers in Seattle, Washington state, used pepper spray on Occupy demonstrators, reportedly including an 84-year-old woman and a pregnant woman.

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Could the U.S. become a proliferator?


From The Hindu

Even as the United States continues to chide other nations on the risks of nuclear proliferation it suffered an embarrassment this week when an independent government watchdog said that the U.S. “faces challenges” in terms of its efforts to minimise proliferation and terrorism risks associated with nuclear power.

In a stinging report, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said that despite numerous initiatives by the Office of Nuclear Energy (ONE) to make nuclear fuel cycle outputs less attractive to potential terrorists, “concerns remain about the radioactive spent fuel that nuclear reactors generate.” The watchdog agency suggested that reliable and cost-effective fuel cycles, some of which reprocess spent fuel and recycle some nuclear material such as plutonium, were required.

Stopping short of praising the United Kingdom and France for their decades of experiences in developing and operating reprocessing and recycling infrastructures, the GAO exhorted the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to deepen its cooperation with such nations.

The agency further picked apart weaknesses in terms of the ONE’s attempts to collaborate with the domestic nuclear industry and with the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), another DOE entity.

The watchdog said that while the DOE’s research and development plans did not include a strategy for long- term collaboration with domestic nuclear industry – the ultimate user of any fuel cycle and technologies that are developed – without which the DOE “cannot be assured that the nuclear industry will accept and use the fuel cycles and technologies that the department may develop.”

In its critique, the GAO further noted that the ONE and NNSA do not have a formal mechanism to collaborate on future efforts to avoid duplication and overlap. To avoid such duplication, the GAO said, it recommended to the DOE that its two agencies complete a memorandum of understanding.

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Bullet-hits leave a hole in White House security


From The Hindu

Even as Barack and Michele Obama were attending various events in faraway California last week they had little idea that their home at 1600, Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington had come under fire from a hail of bullets.

While initial reports only indicated that shots had been fired in the vicinity of the White House, the Secret Service, charged with protecting the President of the United States, revealed this week that the gunfire had in fact hit a front window of Mr. Obama’s residence.

Two bullets, believed by officials to have been fired from a semi-automatic rifle, were discovered in the premises of the White House of which one was said to have hit the “special anti-ballistic glass protecting the building’s interior,” and the second one was found outside the building.

Preliminary investigations suggested an exchange of fire between two vehicles on Constitution Avenue, a short distance from the White House, and an AK-47 rifle was found in an abandoned vehicle on Friday night.

The only person named in connection with the incident thus far was Oscar Ortega-Hernandez (21), for whom Park Police spokesman David Schlosser said an arrest warrant had been issued on the charge of carrying a dangerous weapon.

Media reports said that earlier in the day Mr. Ortega was pulled over by police in neighbouring Virginia “after behaving suspiciously”. Police photographs of Mr. Ortega from that time were said to include “an image showing one of his tattoos: the word Israel written on his neck”, according to reports.

The right to carry guns is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment but it has been a source of contention in the District of Columbia. While Washington DC has enacted a number of gun control laws in the past a June 2008 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court held that the city’s handgun ban violated the Second Amendment. However laws requiring firearm registration, the city’s assault weapon ban and the prohibition on carrying guns openly or concealed are still very much in place

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Occupy protesters forcibly evicted


From The Hindu

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg really knows how to go for the jugular. Similar to President Barack Obama's covert strike against Osama bin Laden, Mr. Bloomberg sent police officers in riot gear into the very epicentre of the Occupy Wall Street movement, Manhattan's Zuccotti Park, at 1 a.m. on Tuesday and forcibly evicted every peaceful protester there.

In an action that some branded as an attempt to wipe Occupy movement off the map, Mr. Bloomberg cited health and safety reasons for the eviction, which also saw police deploy large bulldozers to clear out the protesters' belongings from the park.

According to eyewitness accounts, police ripped up protesters' tents and deployed tear gas, pepper spray and a sound cannon. Media reported that some protesters assembled at the middle of the park, and raised slogans, “Whose park? Our park!”

Similar action

The clearing of Zuccotti Park comes close on the heels of similar developments in Oakland, California, which has seen the most violent police action to date, against Occupy protesters.

On Monday, the police entered the Occupy Oakland camp at Frank Ogawa plaza and, again citing health and safety reasons, tore down protesters' tents and forcibly removed them, arresting at least 20 in the process.

At a news conference in New York, Mr. Bloomberg however said, “The law that created Zuccotti Park required that it be open for the public to enjoy for passive recreation 24 hours a day.” He added that ever since the Occupy movement began, that law had not been complied with because the protesters had made the park unavailable to anyone else.

“I have become increasingly concerned... that the occupation was coming to pose a health and fire safety hazard to the protesters and to the surrounding community,” said Mr. Bloomberg, noting the park's owners had on Monday requested the city's assistance in enforcing the so-called “no sleeping and camping” rules.

Leaving little doubt as to his role, Mr. Bloomberg said , “But make no mistake the final decision to act was mine.”


Return possible

Yet early on Tuesday morning, wire services quoted the National Lawyers Guild saying it had obtained a court injunction that allowed the protesters to return with tents to the park. “The guild says the injunction prevents the city from enforcing park rules on Occupy Wall Street protesters,” reports noted.

Mr. Michael Bloomberg said the city was aware of the court order but had not yet seen it, and that the City of New York planned “to go court immediately”.

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Enough is enough, Obama tells Beijing


From The Hindu

In a surprising bout of candour, United States President Barack Obama lashed out at Chinese authorities over the alleged undervaluation of the Yuan, saying most economists estimated it was devalued by 20 to 25 per cent and that it was time for China to move towards a market-based system for their currency.

Speaking at the end of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation organisation meeting in Hawaii, Mr. Obama poured scorn over China for breaking some rules and implied that it was trying to game the system.

“The problem is, is that you've got a bunch of export producers in China who like the system as it is, and making changes are difficult for them politically. I get it. But the U.S. and other countries, I think understandably, feel that enough is enough,” said Mr. Obama.

“Play by the rules”

He underscored his intention to ensure that China played by the rules of the game, especially since, in addition to the currency valuation issue, intellectual property rights and protections for U.S. companies in China were also proving problematic.

“We are going to continue to be firm in insisting that they operate by the same rules that everybody else operates under. We do not want them taking advantage of the U.S. or U.S. businesses,” he said.

While the U.S. has made its concerns about the alleged undervaluation of the Yuan known for several years now, China has repeatedly said the issue is a red herring and that the U.S. economic woes stem from deeper, domestic causes.

Senate bill

The U.S. Senate last month passed a bill, the “Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act of 2011”, aimed at punishing China for allegedly manipulating its currency and holding it at an artificially low level.

Yet that bill came under fire even from Republican Party leaders, who are often on the front foot when it comes to critiquing Chinese monetary policies. John Boehner, the Speaker of the House, denounced the bill a day after it passed the Senate, saying it posed a “very severe risk” of starting a trade war between the world's two biggest economies.

Earlier this year Chinese President Hu Jintao deflected criticism away from China's currency, suggesting instead that efforts by the U.S. Federal Reserve to stimulate growth through huge bond purchases were fuelling inflation in emerging economies.

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Sunday, November 13, 2011

 

Virtually sensitive


Can complex parallel universes created using Artificial Intelligence (AI) really prepare U.S. soldiers for conflict in countries like Afghanistan? NARAYAN LAKSHMAN

H e was getting nowhere. The more Private Neil Lambert of the United States Army quizzed the headman on why there were outsiders in the village at night, the more opaque the Pashtun chieftain's answers became.

While the stalemate was maddeningly frustrating, Private Lambert was beginning to understand his interlocutor's truculence and he had a theory. He knew from his pre-mission briefings that the Afghans in this village had a tendency to gossip and rumours spread quickly.

How could you blame them? After a decade of Western occupation, trust had become a scarce commodity in this barren land and word-of-mouth was as good as any other basis on which to form opinions. And Private Lambert had messed it up — he'd had a falling out with his interpreter a few days ago and that man had, it was becoming increasingly evident, gone on a rumour-spreading rampage.

Until today that had only meant that the Private's investigations into the unusual nightly visitors in the village had drawn a blank. But now the situation was deteriorating and the headman was getting aggressive. Even worse, as the Private tried his best to keep calm and deflect the headman's angry allegations, a mob was beginning to form around them.

Then it happened.

Out of nowhere a Kalashnikov rifle materialised in the hands of one of the villagers. Private Lambert had two choices: first, he could quickly swing his own rifle into position and face down the armed villager; or second, he could back down, strike a more conciliatory note and keep the focus on the headman. In seconds he made the choice and was about to respond when, suddenly, everyone froze.

The headman was frozen in mid-sentence, about to utter an angry profanity at Private Lambert. The gun-toting Pashtun who was advancing threateningly on the soldier stood as if paralysed, unable to swing his weapon upwards. The rest of the agitated mob was in suspended animation, as if a collective “pause” button had been pressed. The only man who could move was the American soldier, and he gasped in surprise as a voice boomed from the sky: “That's the end of this session Private — you have two hours to plan your responses and come back to your station.” Then everything went black.

Real make-believe

While Private Lambert's surreal experience might be mistaken for a remake of the movie “The Matrix”, it is not. It is real and U.S. Department of Defence personnel engage in such virtual-universe exercises on a regular basis, thanks to the work of a top arts and technology college at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD).

At this powerhouse of animation technologies, the aim is to go far beyond the industry's most common application — entertainment, usually in the form of Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games Programmes, or MMORGP. “We don't believe games should be purely for entertainment, but we do believe they should challenge the living daylights out of you,” says Dr. Thomas Linehan, Director of Arts and Technology (ATEC) at UTD.

The UTD team of top animation specialists and even some “young Turks” with a passion for programming — in the words of Dr. Linehan — engages with government agencies such as the Pentagon and the National Institutes of Health to create virtual-reality worlds of vast depth and specificity.

It is these complex parallel universes based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) that soldiers deploying to Afghanistan and nurses specialising in paediatric and neo-natal care rely on to get the training that a real world classroom could never give them.

For example, the award-winning programme aimed at acclimatising new recruits to the army to the alien surroundings of a remote Afghan village is called the First Person Cultural Trainer (FPCT). In this game, the soldier enters the Afghan — or Iraqi, as the case may be — community from the first-person point of view.

While the soldier does not initially know about the community, how the people feel about him, who the powerful characters in the village are, or even how to interpret their body language, “the goal is to move through the community, try to understand social structures and issues, then address those issues and work with the community to affect missions,” says Dr. Linehan.

The FPCT game is supported and sponsored by the U.S Army Training and Doctrine Command whose head, General Martin Dempsy, said in a personal letter to UTD, “Your magnificent work in developing this culturally-based, cutting-edge capability will help to address critical training priorities within stability operations.”

It is not an exaggeration to describe the FPCT as “cutting-edge”. It requires not only advanced code-writing skills but also a creative impulse that does not shy away from unusual approaches, for example, the use of actual Pashtun individuals recently arrived in the U.S., who regularly provide the UTD team with live demonstrations of their body language, their intonations and accents, even their views on the Western occupation and their attitudes towards U.S. soldiers.

The UTD team then “maps” every such physical and psychological attribute of the Pashtun man or woman — both genders are analysed and corresponding virtual characters created — sometimes using motion-capturing technologies used in Hollywood films.

The AI aspect of the programme, which makes it unique, arises when feedback loops based on the soldier's interactions with the villagers are required, so that the villagers begin to respond and react to the soldier over time.

There is even a gossip programme, which might have produced some of the nerve-wracking results that Private Lambert faced. “If the player does not interact properly with them, the villagers discuss his behaviour among themselves. Some individuals in the village have more clout than others,” Dr. Linehan explained.

Substitute for understanding?


While this alternate-reality scenario would likely hold inherent appeal to anyone interested in gaming, social scientists might wonder about several fundamental questions that it raises. Can the true depth of Afghan village reality ever be captured by a computer programme, even one that relies on the inputs of real-life Afghan villagers? Does the West's bitter failure to stabilise Afghanistan after a decade of occupation suggest that such a formulaic approach to cultural sensitisation of soldiers has failed?

Army statistics cast an illuminating light on these issues. Based on evaluations of the efficacy of the FPCT programme, they suggested that a soldier who had undergone sensitisation was 50 per cent less likely to generate “kinetic energy” around him — a euphemism for shooting someone or being shot – than one who did not have such training.

Regarding the importance of cultural sensitisation per se , a majority of the U.S. soldiers who died in Afghanistan did so during the first six weeks of their tour. “So what is it that an American soldier knows after six weeks and one day that he did not know until the previous day?” Dr. Linehan asked.

Innumerable training benefits also emerge from other virtualisation programmes built by the UTD team, which includes Dr. Marjorie Zielke, Assistant Professor at the ATEC programme, and Gopal Gupta, Head of the Computer Sciences Department. Together, the ATEC team has led the development of a second project that guides nurses through realistic simulations of paediatric care.

In this programme, called NursingAp.com, nursing students find themselves in a virtual neonatal care environment in which they face a variety of challenges from how to operate the “virtual ventilator,” to dealing with the stress of answering questions from the patient's family or “feeling” fatigue of from the intensity of the job.

However especially in the context of the FPCT, the deeper question relates to the potential of such virtual-reality-based training programmes to move beyond the battlefield and be applied to government officials in a position to prevent the outbreak of conflict in the first place.

“While we are happy with the work we are doing with the Department of Defence, our ideal approach would be to someday work with diplomats in the State Department,” said Dr. Linehan. If his dream is realised it could herald a new era where the lines between virtual and real worlds are blurred in the interests of conflict resolution.

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Saturday, November 12, 2011

 

U.S.-China tensions colour APEC meet


From The Hindu


This week even the stunning sunset-and-white-sands setting of Hawaii was not enough to take the edge off sharp divisions between United States and Chinese delegates in Honolulu for a summit meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation organisation.

Two distinct areas of disagreement between the two nations were in the spotlight — trade policy and human rights in Tibet.

On human rights, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton threw down the gauntlet to her Chinese interlocutors when she said at an event at Honolulu's East-West Centre that the U.S. had “made very clear our serious concerns about China's record on human rights.” “We are alarmed by recent incidents in Tibet of young people lighting themselves on fire in desperate acts of protest, as well as the continued house arrest of the Chinese lawyer Chen Guangcheng,” she said.

On the trade policy front, the APEC summit saw U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Chinese Assistant Commerce Minister Yu Jianhua go head to head over the question of membership in the evolving Trans-Pacific Partnership, a initiative to create a free-trade zone in the APEC region.

Reports quoted Mr. Yu Jianhua saying bluntly that Beijing had not been asked to join the discussion on the TPP but “if one day we receive such an invitation, we will seriously study the invitation.”

However Mr. Kirk immediately hit back, arguing that the TPP was not a “closed clubhouse, [and] all are welcome.” He went on to add that the TPP was however “not one where you should wait for an invitation.”

Ms. Clinton also alluded to the high-tension area of bilateral economic ties, in particular focusing her remarks on the currency manipulation question. She said, “China needs to take steps to reform... China must allow its currency to appreciate more rapidly and end the measures that disadvantage or pirate foreign intellectual property.”

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Friday, November 11, 2011

 

Lenient term for U.S. 'kill team' soldier


From The Hindu

To anyone who has watched the Hollywood cult series “Predator,” of a monstrous alien that slaughtered humans and then took their body parts as trophies, the actions of a rogue killer squad of United States soldiers in Afghanistan must have sounded familiar.

This week Calvin Gibbs (26), clearly a violent and possibly mentally unstable Staff Sergeant leading the U.S. Army's Fifth Stryker Brigade, was found guilty in a court martial on 15 charges including three counts of murder and conspiring to commit murder.

With his brutality echoing other recent war crimes committed by U.S. soldiers abroad, such as the Abu Ghraib episode of prisoner abuse in Iraq during 2004-05, prosecutors said Gibbs had recruited other soldiers to kill civilians and then mutilate them taking fingers, teeth and other body parts as trophies from people he called “savages”.

Leading the Brigade in Kandahar province in Afghanistan since November 2009, Gibbs was said to have hunted “innocent Afghans for sport,” and by his own admission considered the removal of their body parts as the equivalent of “collecting antlers from a deer”.

Despite the seriousness of the charges, many were stunned by the court martial's determination that instead of handing Gibbs life imprisonment without the possibility of parole he received a far more lenient imprisonment with 10-year parole eligibility.

However, the prosecution had pushed hard for a stronger sentence and spelled out in detail the violent nature of Gibbs' crimes. In his closing arguments, Prosecutor Major Robert Stelle had said, “Sergeant Gibbs had a charisma, he had a ‘follow me' personality... But it was all a bunch of [nonsense]. He had his own mission: murder and depravity.”

The judgment on Gibbs' came along with similar convictions for four other soldiers who acted similarly, to first kill their victims, then create the appearance of the victim being an armed enemy fighter, and finally posing for photographs alongside the victims and slicing off their body parts. In all, 12 soldiers were said to be charged in the case, of whom three pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against the others.

The three cases of murder involved Afghans who were as young as 15 years of age, prosecutors noted in the unprecedented case. The boy in question, said to be Gul Mudin, was attacked by Gibbs and his associates even as he worked in a field.

“The platoon commander gave a grenade to one of the soldiers, Jeremy Morlock, who threw it at Mudin. A second soldier, Andrew Holmes, then shot the boy. Gibbs played with the corpse of the teenager ‘as if it was a puppet,'” The Guardian reported.

The second person killed was named Marach Agha, who was killed as he slept by the roadside. Following his murder, Gibbs and company were then said to have planted a Kalashnikov rifle besides the corpse to create the impression of Mr. Agha being an enemy fighter. Gibbs retained a part of the victim's skull as a trophy, reports said.

Third, Gibbs was found guilty of killing a Muslim cleric named Mullah Adahdad. After lobbing a grenade at the cleric, Gibbs and the other soldiers then shot him.

Adam Winfield, a member of Gibbs' team who admitted guilt for his roles in the killings of Gibbs, said “He likes to kill things. He is pretty much evil incarnate. I mean, I have never met a man who can go from one minute joking around, then mindless killings.”

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U.S. interested in Indian helicopter tender

From The Hindu

The United States has expressed strong interest in participating in India's tender for attack helicopter and heavy-lift helicopters despite the snub it received earlier this year in the Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) competition, according to a top official.

In remarks to the Defense Trade Advisory Group, Assistant Secretary for Bureau of Political-Military Affairs Andrew Shapiro said, “I have also advocated for our tenders in the Attack Helicopter and Heavy Lift Helicopter competitions. We are hopeful that both will be selected.”

Earlier, the Indian Air Force was reported to have floated tenders for 22 combat and 15 heavy lift helicopters.

Among the U.S. contenders in the race would be Boeing's Apache, for combat, and the Chinook, for heavy-lift.

The reportedly $550 million-tender aims to replace India's ageing helicopter fleet and trials were said to be on in the hot, humid deserts of Rajasthan and the icy Himalayan heights of Ladakh and Leh.

Mr. Shapiro reflected upon his attendance on February last at the Aero India show, an event at which he said he advocated for U.S. defence sales.

“While India unfortunately did not down-select a U.S. aircraft for its MMRCA competition, I believe our relationship with India is much more than one sale,” he said.

Suggesting that Indian acquisition of the U.S. defence equipment was woven into the fabric of a stronger U.S.-India strategic partnership, Mr. Shaprio said that recent evidence of the U.S. efforts in this regard was India's acquisition of 10 C-17 aircraft and a request for six more C-130J aircraft.

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National Competition Policy likely by January: Moily

From The Hindu

India is likely to have a National Competition Policy by January 2012, according to Minister for Corporate Affairs Veerappa Moily. He is here to hold consultations with officials this week.

In comments to a group of journalists, he said: “The draft policy is already before the government. We will take the opinions of the State governments. I have sent [the draft policy] to all the Chief Ministers.”

The Minister noted that numerous discussions were taking place on the draft policy. “Possibly, I may take it to the Cabinet somewhere before December end. Possibly, at the latest by January 2012, we may have a [new competition] policy.”

Mr. Moily and his colleagues emphasised that the aim of the new policy would be to unleash “a second wave of reforms,” following the first wave in 1991 that led to the liberalisation of numerous sectors of the economy.

Chairman of the Committee on the National Competition Policy Dhanendra Kumar indicated that once the new policy and its recommendations were adopted by the government, then all Ministries would be asked to undertake “a close hard look at all the laws, legislation in their charge to see if there are any anti-competitive outcomes as a result thereof.”

Mr. Kumar said the new policy would include a process called the Competition Impact Assessment, which entails the use of a number of parameters to examine whether government policies were imposing any restrictions in terms of the number of players, entry restrictions, exit restrictions or any other such qualifying prerequisites.

There would be a sharp focus on opening up sectors in which the Government of India held significant assets under sole ownership via subsidiaries or under public-private partnerships. In this context, the basic aim was to increase competition, officials said adding, “All the policies of the government should result in enhanced competition... increased entrepreneurship and allow as many players as the economy can sustain.”

Banking and insurance

To a question from The Hindu, an official said that while ideally the banking and insurance sectors would be covered under the new competition policy, he believed that “the Ministry of Finance wants the banking sector to be out of the Competition Act, [though] not out of the policy.”

The principles of the new policy would include: effective prevention of anti-competitive conduct; institutional separation between policymaking, operations and regulations; fair market process; competitive neutrality; fair pricing and inclusionary behaviour; third party access to “essential facilities;” public policies and programmes working towards promotion of competition in the marketplace; and national, regional and international cooperation in competition policy enforcement and advocacy.

Citing the example of the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, an official said, it was “sitting tight” on its copper network. “If you allow third-party access to new players, more and more players can come up.” The official added that especially the core infrastructure that was mostly held by the public sector, including monopoly players, ought to be made available “on fair and equal terms to everybody.”

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Studying the report, says U.S.

From The Hindu

The United States has issued a guarded response to the International Atomic Energy Agency's report on nuclear weapons capability development by Iran, declining to comment specifically on the possibility of more sanctions or military action against the Ahmadinejad administration.

Responding to queries at a media briefing State Department Spokesperson Victoria Nuland said that the U.S. would “study” the report between now at November 18, when a scheduled meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors will occur. “Iran will be an agenda item at that meeting,” she added.

When asked whether the IAEA's report might lack credibility given past assertions that the organisation made about the presence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, Ms. Nuland said, “The IAEA is one of the most credible, thorough, important UN organizations out there.”

Noting that the report was attributed to the Director General of the IAEA, she said, “It is based on inputs from the IAEA's own cadre of inspectors and analysts as well as inputs from some ten or fifteen member states. So we would, obviously, reject that assertion.”

The White House similarly did not outline any concrete response to the report at this time, with Spokesperson Jay Carney only noting the significance of this particular report that IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano signalled a week ago. Mr. Amano had indicated that the latest report” would include aspects that were not covered in the September report, for example... [such as include more information about the military aspect of [Iran's nuclear] programme.”

He however did suggest that the Obama administration would persist with its dual track approach towards Iran, which entails sanctions as well as negotiations. “We continue to focus on a diplomatic channel,” Mr. Carney said at a briefing following the report's release. He added that consensus at the international level among the U.S.' allies has made it possible to “continue to isolate and put pressure on Iran, and to insist that Iran get right with the world and to live up to its international obligations.”

However in an address to Bulletin of Atomic Scientists last week Gottemoeller, Rose Gottemoeller Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance conceded, “We continue to believe, as we have stated before, that Iran has a right to a peaceful nuclear power program...”

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Rajaratnam faces a record $92 million fine


From The Hindu

A New York judge slapped a record $92.8 million fine on Raj Rajaratnam (54), the Sri Lankan born billionaire hedge fund manager convicted in May on 14 counts of insider trading charges. Last month Mr. Rajaratnam was sentenced to 11 years imprisonment for using a network of informants to garner roughly $70 million in illicit profits.

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission said that the amount was "the highest ever ordered against an individual defendant in an SEC insider trading case," and the fine imposed was over and above a $63 million that Mr. Rajaratnam had to pay in the Justice Department’s criminal case.

The action against Mr. Rajaratnam also flushed out a series of high-profile executives in several blue-chip companies in the U.S., who have subsequently been indicted on insider trading charges. The list includes Rajat Gupta and Anil Kumar of consulting firm McKinsey and Company, Rajiv Goel, Managing Director at Intel Capital, Robert Moffat, a Senior Vice President at IBM and Danielle Chiesi, a portfolio manager at New Castle Funds, a New York hedge fund.

In his decision to impose the civil fine, U.S. District Court Judge Jed Rakoff especially highlighted "the huge and brazen nature of Rajaratnam's insider trading scheme," adding that the unprecedented case against him “cries out for the kind of civil penalty that will deprive this defendant of a material part of his fortune.

Similarly Robert Khuzami SEC Head of Enforcement division said, "The penalty imposed today reflects the historic proportions of Raj Rajaratnam’s illegal conduct and its impact on the integrity of our markets."

His words were echoed by Judge Rakoff who emphasised the signal that that SEC civil penalties ought to send out to other would-be insider traders. He said that in cases of "lucrative misconduct" such penalties were designed to make unlawful insider trading "a money-losing proposition not just for this defendant, but for all who would consider it."

Earlier Mr. Rajaratnam’s defence attempted to argue that prosecutors were overstating the amount of illegal profits that he made from the exchange of material non-public information, specifically arguing that Mr. Rajaratnam made “only $7.4 million” from insider trading and such illicit market activities.

Yet U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara however underscored that insider trading continued to be "rampant," on Wall Street and has said that individuals such as Mr. Rajaratnam were "creating a business model for a stable of insider sources... [and it] has been distressing."

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Fourth woman accuses Cain of harassment


From The Hindu

Herman Cain, leading candidate in the race for Republican presidential nominee and former CEO of Godfather Pizza Company, tasted a different kind of baked dish this week — humble pie.

After issuing stout denials in the face of sexual harassment accusations by three women in the last few weeks Mr. Cain was embarrassed into facing down a fourth woman's claims of inappropriate sexual behaviour, and this time his accuser identified herself publicly.

The woman in question, Sharon Bialek, is a single mother from Chicago, who had approached Mr. Cain back in 1997, in search of employment opportunities. Instead of taking her to his office, as he had suggested he would, Mr. Cain stayed with Ms. Bialek in his car, and made advances towards her, she alleged in a news conference.

Recounting the incident Ms. Bialek said, “He suddenly reached over and he put his hand on my leg, under my skirt.” She said that when he further pushed her head toward him she asked Mr. Cain what he was doing. In reply he reportedly said to her: “You want a job, don't you?”

When asked by reporters about her motives, Ms. Bialek said she was “embarrassed” by the incident and wanted to move on. Arguing that she had no financial gain in coming out, she said she had decided to do so “mostly because her 13-year-old son told her to”.

At the news conference Ms. Bialek sent Mr. Cain a message: “Just admit what you did. Admit you were inappropriate to people. And then move forward. America is in a horrible turmoil as we all know. We need a leader who can set an example which exemplifies the standards of a good person and moral character.”

Responding to earlier allegations by his third, unnamed, accuser Mr. Cain admitted that in that case the individual was given a financial settlement by the National Restaurant Association, reportedly to the tune of $45,000, after she said that Mr. Cain had made a “series of inappropriate behaviours and unwanted advances”.

While some observers say the sexual misconduct allegations could damage Mr. Cain's campaign prospects, he most recently said there was “not an ounce of truth” in the claims, and on a television show on Monday night he joked about them. He is however scheduled to hold a news conference later this week to address the issue more directly.

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Michael Jackson doctor convicted in star’s death


From The Hindu

Conrad Murray (58), physician to the ‘King of Pop' Michael Jackson, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter after a six-week trial over the celebrity singer's death. The Texas doctor now faces anywhere between four years in prison, the maximum sentence, to probation, the minimum. He is also likely to lose his medical licence.


In retrospect


A twelve-person jury returned the guilty verdict after nine hours of deliberation over two days. Dr. Murray sat stone-faced in court as a juror read out the verdict and he was later handcuffed and remanded to custody by court bailiffs.


On June 25, 2009 Jackson, 50 years old at the time, died of cardiac arrest at his home in Los Angeles, following acute intoxication by propofol, a short-acting, intravenously administered anaesthetic. He was in the midst of a gruelling schedule of rehearsals for the ironically named ‘This Is It' tour, set to begin a few weeks later at the O2 Arena in London.


At the time Dr. Murray said that he had found Jackson in his room and he was not breathing. The iconic star was pronounced dead a few hours later at a nearby hospital.


While defence attorneys focused their case on Jackson's alleged addiction to a propofol and argued that the he had self-administered anaesthetic along with two other sedatives, prosecutors argued that it was Dr. Murray who committed several “egregious medical missteps,” including inadequate monitoring of propofol administration, failure to resuscitate the patient and patchy record-keeping.


Jurors heard defence arguments that Dr. Murray had placed orders for 15.5 litres of propofol during the last few months of Mr. Jackson's life, suggesting that the star was using the drug regularly as a sleep aid. Expert witnesses testified that propofol however had no known application for sleep aid, despite Mr. Jackson allegedly referring to the anaesthetic as his “milk.”


The most stinging indictment of Dr. Murray's competence came from renowned anaesthesiologist and propofol expert Steven Shafer, who testified that Dr. Murray “probably left an intravenous drip of the anaesthetic propofol running in Jackson's veins after the singer's heart stopped,” reports said.


Jackson family members, who arrived in court after the verdict, wept quietly after the proceedings. Jackson's sister La Toya said she was “overjoyed” at the outcome of the case adding, “Michael was looking over us.” Jackson's mother, Katherine, said she was confident this would be the outcome of the trial, his father only said one word to reporters as he entered: “Justice."

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Tuesday, November 08, 2011

 

It boils down to ecology vs. economy for Obama

From The Hindu

American President Barack Obama may find himself in boiling oil even as he faces his biggest environmental policy challenge before the 2012 presidential elections — the outcome of a controversial plan to transport vast amounts of tar sands crude from Canada to Texas through the now-infamous Kestone XL pipeline.

Over the weekend close to 10,000 protesters mobbed the White House perimeter to voice their opposition to the plan, which if approved would carry 35 million gallons a day of “heavy, high-sulphur, toxic bitumen crude right through the Great Plains, the breadbasket of America,” over 2720 km through six states, until it reached Texas refineries.

The pipeline operation will originate in Alberta, Canada, and will be built by Canadian company Transcanada. Given the trans-national character the State Department has been tasked with determining the full range of its consequences — environmental, economic and other .

Last week, Department Spokesperson Victoria Nuland said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's “... goal remains... to complete the process before the end of the year so a decision can be made before the end of the year. But obviously, our first obligation to the American people, to the President, is to ensure that we do this in a rigorous, transparent, and thorough way.”

Yet notwithstanding this commitment to come back with a final decision on the plan before the end of the year, Ms. Nuland added, “We'd like to get it done by the end of the year, but if thoroughness demands a little bit more time, nobody's slammed the door on that.”

However in Sunday's demonstration in Washington protesters surrounded the White House with a giant pipeline replica that read “Stop the XL Pipeline,” and wore “orange safety vests to remind spectators of the threat of potential spills”.

Actor Mark Ruffalo, activist Bill McKibben and Sierra Club Executive Director Mike Brune were among the protesters, reports said.

Until the final decision on the pipeline is made, Mr. Obama faces a tough choice between the environment and the economy, not to mention mounting costs.

TransCanada chief executive Russ Girling was quoted in media last week saying the three-year review process had already imposed costs on his company, including $1.9 billion on pipe and other equipment stored in warehouses.

Tensions, however, have been on the rise in the debate on the pipeline when, firstly some media reports suggested that TransCanada “seriously misrepresented the number of jobs the Keystone XL project would create”.

The Huffington Post reported that the “dubious job count [included] expenditures on the Canadian side of the border” and [contained] “tens of thousands of indirect jobs in retail, printing and publishing and other ancillary industries that [it] claimed would be spurred by the pipeline.”

Impact study

Additionally the State Department itself came under fire over its decision to hand over responsibility for an impact study on the Keystone pipeline to a company that was said to have previous ties to TransCanada.

While the Department said in response to Congressional inquiries that “the perception that Cardno Entrix,

an environmental contractor in Houston, had a conflict of interest was based on a misunderstanding,” the New York Times reported, two Senators who had asked for the information reportedly said the Department's response “did not resolve their concerns.”

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Saturday, November 05, 2011

 

India-U.S.-Japan trilateral likely this year

From The Hindu

A top United States official announced that the first ever India-U.S.-Japan trilateral is likely to be held before the end of 2011. This week the State Department confirmed that it was working with the governments of India and Japan to schedule this “important gathering to discuss regional issues.”

On Friday U.S. Deputy Secretary William Burns said in a speech here that that India's “Look East” policy towards a growing comprehensive vision for the East Asia region was becoming an “Act East” policy.

In this context the U.S. and India in 2010 launched a Strategic Dialogue on the Asia-Pacific “to ensure that the world's two largest democracies pursue strategies that reinforce one another.” The new U.S.-India-Japan trilateral consultation on regional issues followed from that discussion, Mr. Burns suggested.

Reflecting on the broader common interests of the U.S. and India in the region, Mr. Burns said, the U.S. hoped that India would join it in strengthening Asia's regional institutions “from the East Asia Summit to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), where India already trades nearly as much in goods as it does with the U.S.”

An architecture of free trade and investment that connects India to Southeast and East Asia would have a profound impact on global trade and economic growth, Mr. Burns added.

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Governor faces flak for joining Hindu ceremony

From The Hindu

Even as the United States has grappled with difficult questions of religious tolerance especially since the 9/11 terror attacks, Islam has often been at the centre of this debate. Yet ever so often the slanted views of a few individuals tarnish the image of other religions as well, and this week Hinduism appeared in the spotlight.

The furore was centred on Kentucky Governor Democrat Steve Beshear, who last week participated in a Hindu “ground blessing” ceremony, to mark the opening of an Indian firm, Flex Film, in his home state.

Shortly after the event Mr. Beshear’s rival in the upcoming gubernatorial elections this month, Republican candidate David Williams, attacked the Governor’s involvement in the ceremony, saying “He’s there participating with Hindu priests, participating in a religious ceremony.... He’s sitting down there with his legs crossed, participating in Hindu prayers with a dot on his forehead with incense burning around him. I don't know what the man was thinking.”

Noting that that he had declined to participate in Hindu ceremonies abroad because “that would be idolatry,” Mr. Williams, currently the Kentucky State Senate President, added, “To get down and get involved and participate in prayers to these polytheistic situations, where you have these Hindu gods that they are praying to, doesn't appear to me to be in line with what a governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky ought to be doing.”

His remarks provoked a sharp backlash from both the Governor’s office, as well as a host of other Indian-American politicians across U.S. states. In comments to The Hindu Matt Erwin, Campaign Spokesperson for Mr. Beshear, said, “These are pathetic and desperate remarks by a candidate facing a devastating defeat at the polls next Tuesday.” Mr. Beshear is said to be a strong favourite to win re-election in November and led by 31 points in an early October poll.

Mr. Erwin noted that Governor Beshear was proud of his administration’s engagement with India, especially the fact that after his second visit to India 250 new jobs and a $180 million investment were being established in Elizabethtown. “As members of the global economy, Kentuckians respect their cultures and traditions, and welcome their investments,” Mr. Erwin said.

After the event Mr. Beshear said, “While I can't say for sure that this is the first time that a boomy pooshim ceremony has been performed for a business on Kentucky soil, I can certainly say that I don't want it to be the last one.”

Indian-American lawmakers in Maryland joined in the condemnation of Mr. Williams’ remarks. Maryland Majority leader and Democrat Kumar Barve said to The Hindu, “There is a long history of desperate candidates attempting to resort to ethnic and religious stereotyping as a means of scoring cheap political point. Williams’ comments fall into that category of behaviour.”

His colleague and State Delegate Aruna Miller added, “In the difficult times we face... I cannot fathom why anyone would choose to use such inflammatory language instead of celebrating the economic impact and jobs the plant will create.”

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U.S. Congress urged to re-think Pakistan relationship

From The Hindu

There is deep concern within the United States Congress about the Obama administration’s strategy of relying on Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence to broker a deal with various militant groups in the Af-Pak region, it emerged at a Congressional hearing this week.

In a House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Thursday titled “2014 and Beyond: U.S. Policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan,” Congressmen discussed the thorny question of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship, particularly in the context of the impending U.S. troop drawdown and its implications for regional stability.

In that regard Representative Steve Chabot, Republican of Ohio, cautioned, that although working with the ISI might make sense in the context of reconciliation, it risked rewarding the very elements responsible for sheltering insurgents who kill Americans and Afghans alike.

Mr. Chabot added, “None of this, of course, even begins to address the implications of this policy for India, which has been, continues to be, and I hope will remain, a close ally and friend of the U.S.”

Representative Gary L. Ackerman, Democrat of New York, noted in a similar vein, “It's not a secret that Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was responsible for the horrific November 2008 massacre of civilians in Mumbai, India, an attack that clearly implicated the Pakistani military, operates openly in Pakistan.” He said that the Government of Pakistan had made no effort to interfere, disrupt, arrest or shut down any of these groups or their activities.

Strategic concerns were focused on the question of post-2014 Afghanistan, and answering some of the questions of Congressmen Ashley Tellis, Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said, “Reconciliation with the Taliban is a sensible strategy in principle, but it faces enormous obstacles to success in practice.”

Mr. Tellis pointed out that it was not clear whether the Taliban had a genuine interest in reconciliation, especially given that they did not believe that they had been decisively defeated by the U.S. and they looked to the security transition as heralding the moment when the U.S. would leave the region.

Experts at the hearing also argued against sustaining U.S. military aid to Pakistan, particularly when such support entailed the supply of offensive assets such F-16 fighter aircraft. Commenting on this arrangement Christine Fair, Assistant Professor, Center for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown University, said, “Let's be very clear about the F-16 canard. We didn't give them the F-16s because we thought it would enhance their counterterrorism or their counterinsurgency capabilities. We did it to placate Musharraf. We did it to placate Kayani. And it hasn't gotten us anywhere.”

Dr. Fair added that so far Pakistan has wanted weapons systems that could “deal more effectively with India and have very little utility for their domestic threat,” adding that catering to this demand from Pakistan “completely undermines our regional interests in every possible way, be it democratisation of Pakistan, be it regional stability vis-a-vis India and Pakistan.”

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U.S. unemployment ticks down to 9%

From The Hindu

After an unrelenting three month-stretch of 9.1 per cent unemployment, the United States economy finally returned to the psychologically-important 9 per cent mark in October, a month that saw the labour markets add another 80,000 jobs.

In its monthly jobs report, the U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS) noted that employment in the private sector rose, with modest job growth continuing in professional and businesses services, leisure and hospitality, health care, and mining. Government employment, still reeling under pressure from budget cuts at the state and federal levels, continued to trend down.

Yet the BLS also said that the previous two months' record was better than initial estimates had suggested, and it revised upwards the jobs figures for August and September. The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for August was revised from 57,000 to 104,000, and the change for September was revised from 103,000 to 158,000.

The marginal drop in unemployment figures came even as President Barack Obama issued a statement criticising the Republican opposition for blocking the White House's Infrastructure Bill, aimed at boosting job creation in this sector.

In a statement on Thursday the President said, “For the third time in recent weeks, every single Republican in the United Sates Senate has chosen to obstruct a jobs bill that independent economists said would boost our economy and put Americans back to work. At a time when more than a million construction workers are looking for a job, they voted ‘no' to putting them back to work doing the work America needs done — rebuilding our roads, bridges, airports and transit systems. That makes no sense.”

The remarks also underscored the dire state of government finances and the continuing adverse impact that it has had on government jobs. According to the BLS, the government shed 24,000 in October, with most of the decline in the non-educational component of state government. It added that employment in both state government and local government had been trending down since the second half of 2008.

In the private sector, however, employment in professional and business services rose by 32,000 jobs in October, in leisure and hospitality jobs edged up by 22,000, in health care employment expanded by 12,000 jobs and in mining it increased by 6,000. Average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls increased by 5 cents, or 0.2 per cent, the BLS noted, to $23.19.

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Fed slashes growth, employment projections

From The Hindu

In an announcement that is likely to deepen concerns over the U.S. economic woes the Federal Reserve has slashed growth and employment projections for 2011 and 2012.

Data projections released by the Fed suggested that it had revised a measure of the average, or “central tendency,” for the U.S. economy's 2011 gross domestic product growth rate from the 2.7-2.9 per cent range to the 1.6-1.7 per cent range. Similarly, the central bank cut its 2012 projection for growth from the 3.3-3.7 per cent range to the 2.5-2.9 per cent range.

Unemployment which in June the Fed projected would hover between 8.6 per cent and 8.9 per cent during 2011 was revised and projected to remain between 9 per cent and 9.1 per cent for the rest of the calendar year.

For 2012, the average unemployment rate was similarly revised upward from the 7.8-8.2 per cent range to the 8.5-8.7 per cent range.

Warning that many of the ongoing risks emanated from the continuing eurozone crisis Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said in a press conference, “There are significant downside risks to the economic outlook, most notably concerns about European fiscal and banking issues [that] have contributed to strains in global financial markets, which have likely had adverse effects on confidence and growth.”

G20 meeting
The announcement by the Fed came on the eve of the G20 meeting in Cannes, France, this week, where world leaders from major economies will discuss strategies to stabilise the world economy and put the recovery back on a firmer footing.

Speaking ahead of the G20 meet, Angel Gurría, Secretary-General of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, said “Bold decisions are needed from the G20 leaders... to get the global economy back on track.” Mr. Gurria noted that an important first step had already been taken with the debt and banking crisis rescue plan announced by European Union leaders on October 26, but these measures must be implemented “promptly and forcefully”, he added.

Yet even as it issued these stark warnings the Fed ruled out any further actions such as interest rate cuts.

In a statement on the recent meeting of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) the Fed said that the FOMC had decided to keep the target range for the federal funds rate in the 0-0.25 per cent range.

Nine of the ten FOMC members, including Indian-American Narayana Kocherlakota, voted for holding rates at the same level, whereas one member, Charles Evans, was said to have supported additional policy accommodation at this time.

The Fed further said that it anticipated that economic conditions, including low rates of resource utilisation and a subdued outlook for inflation over the medium run, were likely to warrant “exceptionally low levels” for the federal funds rate at least through mid-2013.

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Occupy protesters' repression stuns U.S.


From The Hindu



While the Occupy Wall Street movement that began in New York on September 17 captured the imagination of the world for its reliance on non-violent civil disobedience, recent weeks have seen the centre of gravity of the protests move to Oakland, California, where the unprecedented scale of violent repression by police has stunned the nation.

Searing criticism was levelled at the Oakland police and Oakland Mayor Jean Quan on October 26 after a particularly vicious attack by police on Occupy protester and Iraq veteran Scott Olsen (24), who was hospitalised for a fractured skull and brain swelling when he was hit by a “police projectile,” possibly a teargas canister.

The violence continued this week when several general strikes by the protesters were greeted with mass arrests and tear-gas deployment by the Oakland police. Earlier, police were also alleged to have used other non-lethal weapons to quell the growing protests in the city, including rubber bullets, baton rounds and flash-bang grenades.

Three separate instances of police resorting to teargas use were observed on Wednesday after protesters, allegedly numbering over 30,000, led the general strike in the city and managed to shut down the Oakland's port and downtown areas.

While Oakland police were said to be under a formal investigation over the incident involving Mr. Olsen, earlier this week the Oakland Police Officers' Association issued an open letter to the citizens of Oakland in which it criticised Ms. Quan and her administration for the handling of the protests.

The letter reportedly noted that while on October 25 Mayor Quan had ordered the police to clear out encampments at Frank Ogawa Plaza the police were compelled to do so despite being fully aware that past protests in Oakland had resulted in rioting, violence and destruction of property.

In a statement of solidarity with the Occupy protesters, the OPOA said in its letter, “We, too, are the 99 per cent fighting for better working conditions, fair treatment and the ability to provide a living for our children and families.”

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There is a lot of deep technical expertise in India: Bill Gates


From The Hindu

While markets will be eyeing this week's G20 meeting in Cannes for the actions it takes towards stabilising the Euro-zone economic crisis, there is a growing concern that the G20's aid and development agenda may get less attention. But what about the plight of the poor during this time of economic troubles? On the eve of the summit the G20 held a 75-minute session with Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and chairman of Microsoft, who presented a report titled “Innovation with Impact: Financing 21st Century Development.”


Ahead of his address to G20 heads of state, Mr. Gates spoke to Narayan Lakshman about why it was important for these nations to keep up their aid commitments through the downturn, and the challenges that his financing proposals could face from powerful industry lobbies. An edited transcript of the telephonic interview:

Many of the solutions you have proposed relate either to technical and financing issues or in some cases the allocation of national resources. However, many G20 countries have political and institutional barriers that make it harder to take up these solutions. What incentives do your proposals contain to get G20 members to actually adopt these innovative solutions?

The G20, in a broad sense, is meeting to help improve the world economy, both in the near term and in the long term. They are doing that because economic progress is good for the human condition in terms of food, well-being and so many different things. The rich countries are already engaged in providing quite a bit of aid to other countries. So the report in some ways is telling them how they can focus on innovative activities and measurable activities.

Now, those aid budgets are under pressure because of budget deficits. But the report encourages them not to cut [aid budgets], ideally not at all, but do what Britain has done, which is to prioritise aid. It is actually increasing [in Britain]. [The report asks nations] at least to not make dramatic cuts in the aid that they are giving.

For countries like Brazil and China, which are no longer aid recipients, [the report] talks about how they have innovative capabilities and how they should get involved, even if the financing comes from others, in areas that they can help innovate in.

India is kind of a special case because it fits the Brazil and China case where it has a lot of expertise. I cite specifically the low-cost vaccine manufacturing as exemplified by [the] Serum [Institute, which was the first globally to develop the Meningitis-A vaccine] but there is a lot of deep technical expertise in India.

But it is still a substantial aid recipient as well. So it fits both my second category, of middle-income, people-who-need-to-get-into-the-aid-and-innovation-for-the-poorest-game, and [the first category of] recipients of aid who need to grow tax [revenue] better and grow their domestic budgets focused on the most catalytic areas, particularly health and agriculture.

The countries are there to come up with these ideas to make improvements. The situation is quite novel in that they have not had a non-government person, like a foundation person, speaking to them before. But they have put aside 75 precious minutes to discuss the report and related issues, so having an audience like that is a huge privilege and I am going to try and stimulate their thinking.

I will be a little more upbeat than some people because when you look at the history of innovation, whether it is innovation that grew economies or whether it was innovation that improved the human condition over the last ten, twenty or fifty years, it has been pretty phenomenal.

Do you feel that given the pressures of the global economic downturn, countries may be reluctant to take on any commitments to increase or even keep at the same level their aid commitments right now? Specifically in the case of India you have spoken of an “aid dividend.” What has been the record of countries like India during the downturn – have they sustained or has it dropped, and how would you, in an ideal world, get them to keep those aid commitments up?

India is more of an aid recipient than a provider of aid. Over time, yes, India will probably get involved in providing aid and it has a small programme right now. The key thing that India can do is participate in this innovation activity. Beside the Serum vaccine example, I give an agricultural example where India has done a really great job deploying a new rice variety that is flood tolerant, called Strasa; and it is involved in a lot more crop improvements, including more characteristics to make rice better but maize and wheat as well. So it is a big play on the innovation side because of [India’s] technical capabilities and it should make the regulations and the willingness to take up those innovations very strong.

In terms of its own budget, India is going to need to spend more on healthcare and, over the next probably ten to fifteen years, it will be getting a lot of aid from others in that area. The health budget has gone up, but not even as much as people have talked about. That is going to have to continue to grow. India is going to move towards being more reliant on its own domestic resources, which will free up aid for poorer countries in other parts of Asia and Africa.

With your arguments for sustaining aid, do you have any concerns about aid conditionality leading, for example, to even more land grabs in Africa? Is that an inherent risk of relying too much on aid?

You certainly have to be careful whenever you are spending money that it is spent well. If you are not careful, a country will not develop its own tax system or will not allocate its domestic resources to high-priority areas that really help its people, [including] agriculture. If you are aid-dependent and something goes wrong in the country that has been sending you aid, then you can have an abrupt drop-off in resources for critical areas.

Everybody likes the fact that those countries get economic innovations and fix their domestic budgets, that they move towards being aid-independent and in extreme cases like [South] Korea actually go from being a substantial aid recipient to being a substantial aid donor.

Certainly in the case of India, aid as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product is much, much lower today. It was as high as above 5 per cent if you go back about 50 years ago. Now it is in the one to one-and-a-half percent category. As I said, over time that is going to go down.

Fortunately for India, it has got a growing economy. If it is doing the right things with taxation and focusing on the right areas for human development, it is going to have no problem, over a period of time, taking care of its own needs.

A lot of things in the report about innovation, about eventually giving to others...apply very directly to India.

Do you think that India has a lot of potential to raise additional revenues for development via tax reform?

I am not an expert on tax systems like I am on vaccines or agricultural [innovations]. There is no doubt that as an economy grows in a great way like India has, that you have to step back and change your tax systems, because you start to get more disparities of wealth. How you tax the middle class and the most wealthy is always a challenging issue. But I do not have particular recommendations relative to India’s tax system.

The [Bill and Melinda Gates] Foundation is looking into the very poorest countries and what they do on tax systems. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank tend to focus on this. I do think there is room to really help the poorest countries get their tax systems right.

For India, obviously it will be determined by political decisions. Fortunately the growing economy is raising additional taxes. But are they structured in the right way? Fortunately you have a democracy that in its complex way gets to have the final say on that.

You have proposed some very innovative new revenue streams for financing development, health, and climate change. Do you however worry that each of your proposed financing options may face stiff opposition from powerful lobbies representing banks, tobacco companies, and airline and shipping companies?

Absolutely. Whenever you promote a tax, it is easy to say, ‘No, that tax is not a good thing.’ But the practicalities of government are that you want to raise revenue for issues like health, agriculture, and education. [There are] three taxes that I suggest countries take a hard look at.

India could absolutely raise its tobacco taxes. That is a big win because you have less smoking and you can then apply that tax revenue to other health improvement areas.

The financial transaction tax will probably be the most controversial in some ways. There actually are some countries, including the United Kingdom and Hong Kong, which already have some form of those taxes. If you make them modest enough, then people do not work their way around them. It turns out the United States is not likely to adopt that tax, so the question is: are Europe and other people likely to choose to [adopt it]?

Finally that fuel tax – aviation and marine fuel tax – we know that the damage caused by climate change affects the poorest countries and farmers in the poorest countries the most. They are not the ones who caused the problem. So we need to find some revenue source to dramatically increase how we are helping those poor farmers with their agricultural systems. The tax I mentioned there would raise substantial money and make a huge difference.

But all taxes get gigantic resistance so whether or not those become an additional source of aid or funding and innovation for aid, I do not have a prediction.

Taking a step back, would you agree that your proposals underscore the tension that exists between the need for rapid economic growth, especially in this downturn, on the one hand and poverty alleviation on the other? For example on the question of tax, the lobbies would argue that it increases transaction costs or depresses business activity. Is that in some ways the fundamental tension that we are grappling with here?

No, I would say that bringing more food supply into the world economy or getting African countries, with their resources and abilities, into the world economy on the supply and demand side is great for economics. The trade-off is that a lot of these investments I talk about [in the G20 report] have huge returns in [terms of the] human condition and even economic benefit. But they do require taking a long-term view, like do you help people farm or do you send food relief? Helping the person farm is the better long-term investment. I think a lot of what the report is about is continuing the focus on the long-term, high-return activities even while dealing with the short-term crisis.

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