Bubbly planet Venus starts off New Year

in the east. A few hours later, at 1:30 a.m., the ringed Saturn ascends the east-southeast. By late January, both planets loiter in the Virgo constellation, as Mars will rise about 9 p.m. and Saturn appears just before midnight. Find fleet Mercury now before sunrise in the southeast, in the constellation Ophiuchus, hugging the horizon. With hot coffee, toast the Baby 2012 by viewing the Quadrantids meteor shower peak early Wednesday morning. The big, fat moon sets at 3:15 a.m., so very early risers could catch some falling stars between then and sunrise. The International Meteor Organization (www.imo.net) says the hourly rate could be 120, but, in all honesty, you’ll be lucky to spot a handful. If you spy them, they appear to emanate from the near the Big Dipper and Little Dipper constellations in the northeast. You might see a few errant Quadrantids up to Jan. 12, according to the IMO. Down-to-Earth events: Jan. 5 — “How Do Astronomers Know How Big Asteroids Are?” a lecture by astronomer Melissa Hayes-Gehrke, at the open house, University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. Weather permitting, see the night sky through telescopes after the lecture. 8 p.m., 301-405-6555. www.astro.umd.edu/ openhouse. Jan. 8 — “A Survey of Star Atlases,” presented by astronomer Cal Powell at the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club meeting, Room 80, Enterprise Hall, George Mason University, Fairfax. 7 p.m. www.novac.com. Jan. 14 — Guy Brandenburg explains “Making Your Own Telescope” at the National Capital Astronomers meeting, University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. 7:30 p.m. www.capitalastronomers.org. Jan. 14 — Stargazing at the National Air and Space Museum’s Public Observatory, adjacent to the museum building. 6:45 p.m. National Air and Space Museum, National Mall. Free. www.nasm.si.edu. Jan. 20 — Anne Lohfink, an astronomer who researches the physics of compact cosmic objects and their surroundings, speaks at the open house, University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. View the heavens through telescopes after lecture, weather permitting. 8 p.m. 301-405-6555. www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse. Jan. 28 — Neither Bieber nor Bono compare to authentic stars: “How Are Stars Born?” at the Montgomery College Planetarium, Takoma Park. 7 p.m. www.montgomerycollege.edu/departments/planet/. Jan. 28 — “Sand Dunes Throughout the Solar System,” a lecture by geologist Jim Zimbelman of the Smithsonian Center for Earth and Planetary Studies. This is part of the Smithsonian’s Stars Lecture Series. 5:45 p.m., Albert Einstein Planetarium, National Air and Space Museum, the Mall. After the presentation, stargazing at the


As homicides fall in D.C., rise in Prince George’s, numbers meet in the middle

started here in 1990, the two things that used to really bother me was that we were known as the murder capital of the world and the city of unsolved homicides,” Lanier said. “Our detectives and our police officers have done an amazing job turning that around. We are no longer either one of those things.” Homicides in Prince George’s have been generally trending downward as well, though at a slower pace. The rest of the region’s suburbs have far fewer homicides than the District and Prince George’s, with most counties recording 2011 homicide numbers roughly unchanged from the prior year. Fairfax County was an exception, with a decrease from 16 to 11. Though Montgomery County had just 16 homicides in 2011, in March it saw one of the year’s highest-profile murders in the region when Brittany Norwood, an employee at a Bethesda Lululemon yoga store, fatally bludgeoned and stabbed a co-worker, Jayna Murray. And in the wealthier neighborhoods of Northwest Washington, where homicides are rare, three killings drew wide attention: a teen was shot on a busy street in Georgetown on Halloween night; socialite Viola Drath was killed in her Georgetown rowhouse in August, allegedly by her husband; and in November, a man was gunned down outside a nightclub in Dupont Circle. The Northeast quadrant of the city, covered by the 4th and 5th districts, ended the year with a combined eight more killings than in 2010. Area crime watchers say they’ve seen violence steadily shift from the District into Prince George’s. The migration of many of the District’s poorer residents to inside-the-Beltway communities in Prince George’s has been happening for years, fueled by the District tearing down some public housing, said former D.C. police chief Isaac Fulwood Jr., who led the department in the early 1990s, when the city had nearly 500 homicides a year. That shift has had lasting effects, he said. “People from D.C. that had to move tended to move to Prince George’s County, and they took with them the things that poverty brings: Lack of access to everything,” said Fulwood, who is now chairman of the U.S. Parole Commission. The Prince George’s police department, which has more than 2,000 fewer officers than in the District, was left to deal with neighborhood disputes that people brought with them, as well as new beefs created in the large apartment complexes in Prince George’s. “Alabama Avenue, Stanton


The year ahead for D.C. region’s commuters

drivers really take to the new toll road or decide they will stick with the congestion and delay on the old routes. Many drivers probably will test out the connector and pick the portions of it that work for them under particular circumstances. Most times, it won’t be a question of paying $4 to use the entire highway at rush hour, but rather a choice to pay 70 cents to travel from southbound Interstate 95 to southbound Route 29, cutting a corner off the Capital Beltway when traffic reports say it’s especially congested. Beltway/Telegraph Road The repeated rounds of heavy rain this fall pushed back the Woodrow Wilson Bridge project’s goal of opening new lanes on the Capital Beltway near Telegraph Road in Virginia. Important parts of the remaining work on the Beltway require warmer weather, so expect to see the lanes in their current configuration through the winter. Then in late spring or early summer, a new portion of the THRU lanes will open in the zone between west of Route 1 and west of Telegraph Road. During the summer, the LOCAL lane segment also will be completed. This work will eliminate the three-lane bottleneck on the Beltway west of the Wilson Bridge, the obstacle that has prevented many drivers from enjoying the full benefits of the new, wider bridge. Federal base realignment More employees are scheduled to arrive at the Mark Center, off Interstate 395 in Alexandria. Some changes have been made in the signal timings and lane markings nearby, but the main planned improvement is a new HOV ramp at I-395 and Seminary Road. The Virginia Department of Transportation has scheduled a public meeting on that project for Jan. 25. Meanwhile, the Maryland State Highway Administration will begin to upgrade intersections near the newly consolidated Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Rockville Pike in Bethesda. Several projects are scheduled to start this spring. 11th Street Bridge This D.C. project also made the list of 2011’s top transportation stories, but several of the new 11th Street Bridge’s most important and beneficial elements aren’t scheduled to open till later this year. The new span taking traffic away from downtown and over the Anacostia River is scheduled to open this month, following December’s opening of the new inbound span. That will clear the way for completion of the ramps that will link the highways on either side of the


NASA’s lunar probes will test theory of why one side of the moon is lopsided

both sides of the moon. Asphaug’s theory requires a very specific sequence of events some 4.5 billion years ago, when the infant Earth was a molten ball. Long before life appeared, rocky debris ricocheted around the early solar system. Something the size of Mars plowed into the Earth, sending huge globs of molten material hurtling into space. The largest glob coalesced into the moon. This catastrophic-impact theory of moon formation is widely accepted by scientists. To that, Asphaug and Jutzi threw in a twist: What if a second, smaller glob of Earth-stuff also got blasted free? If it launched at a particular angle, the glob would have coalesced into a second body and drifted behind the moon in roughly the same orbit. After a few million years, the pull of the sun would have drawn the smaller moon closer to the bigger moon. Eventually, the two bodies collided — in slow motion. A fast collision would have excavated a giant crater. But a slow collision — just the type predicted by the computer simulations — would have pancaked the small moon onto the surface, leaving evidence for GRAIL to spot. It’s a quirk of happenstance that GRAIL will be able to test the theory at all. Zuber proposed the $400 million mission five years ago, long before Asphaug and Jutzi published their idea. Zuber wanted to probe other, more general questions: Does the moon have a solid core? How long did the moon take to cool after it formed? And did the moon once have a magnetic field? “You might think we already know all there is to know about the moon,” said Zuber. ”Of course, that’s not the case.” The twin GRAIL probes arrived in a high lunar orbit this weekend, but they won’t begin collecting data until March. By then, thrusters will have dropped the pair to just 35 miles above the surface. Flying in formation — one ahead of the other — the probes will map minute fluctuations of the moon’s gravity over its entire surface. This new gravity map will be 100 to 1,000 times as accurate as current maps. From it, scientists will infer the internal structure of the moon “from crust to core,” Zuber said. Asphaug said there’s an even better way to test the long-shot idea, though it’s one that GRAIL can’t carry out: Study rocks from the far side of the moon.


In Mexico 12,000 killed in drug violence in 2011

MEXICO CITY — More than 50,000 people have been killed during President Felipe Calderon’s U.S.-backed military confrontation with organized crime and drug trafficking, which began in 2006. The Calderon government, after promising to update figures regularly, has not reported its own death count, perhaps because the trend line does not look good. A government spokesman said new figures would be released later this month. The ruling party is facing national elections this summer, in which the main opposition party threatens to retake the presidency. The daily newspaper Reforma, one of the nation’s most respected independent news outlets, reported 12,359 drug-related killings in 2011, a 6.3 percent increase compared with the previous year. There were 2,275 drug killings in 2007, Reforma said. Other media reported similar numbers. Daily Milenio recorded 12,284 drug-related deaths last year. La Jornada counted 11,890 deaths in 2011, which it says is an 11 percent decrease from the previous year. Regardless, in its annual tally La Jornada featured a cartoon that showed Father Time 2011 lying in the desert with his head chopped off. In the Reforma count, the number of bodies that showed signs of torture grew to 1,079. Beheadings reached almost 600, up from 389 the year before. Reforma also found that women increasingly were victims of drug violence, with more than 900 slain last year. The newspaper did not offer a count of juveniles or children killed, but children increasingly have been caught in the crossfire or intentionally targeted to send a chilling message that the drug gangs will stop at nothing. One of the few bright spots is that the homicide rate appears to be down by about a third in the border manufacturing hub Ciudad Juarez, once dubbed Murder City. Baja California and Tijuana also saw decreases in homicides. Yet the violence has steadily spread across Mexico. The states that abut Texas — Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas — remain the most deadly. But new zones of conflict, such as the once-mellow gulf coast state of Veracruz, are now gripped by a wave of killing. More world news coverage: - Iran seeks more influence in Latin America - S. Korean president sees ‘window of opportunity’ to deal with North - In Iraq, leading Sunni official’s convoy hit by roadside bomb - Read more headlines from around the world


Defense Secretary Panetta faces tough choices on national security in 2012

Congress authorizes dispatching Special Forces to Nigeria to assist in fighting a terrorist group, as it did when U.S. troops were sent to help battle the Lord’s Resistance Army in central Africa. Then there are the military issues that have election implications. Are personnel coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan getting enough help; what’s being done to reduce military suicides; are boards needed to determine which officers and senior enlisted troops should be retired as overall numbers go down; how do you monitor the end of “don’t ask, don’t tell” and the new legislation dealing with sexual abuse and rape in the military? Who will be on the promised commission to look into changes in the military retirement system and perhaps the Pentagon’s health system? These are all complicated issues, more often handled through small steps and compromise than through simplistic, black-and-white pronouncements — like campaign rhetoric. Speaking on Oct. 6, Romney said that he wanted Pentagon core spending to rise to 4 percent of gross domestic product and that he would increase active-duty personnel by about 100,000. In a speech the next day at the Citadel, he said he would “reverse the hollowing of our Navy and . . . increase the shipbuilding rate from nine per year to 15.” He also repeated a pledge that has Republican roots going back to the Nixon administration: “I will begin reversing Obama-era cuts to national missile defense and prioritize the full deployment of a multilayered national ballistic missile defense system.” During the Nov. 22 Republican presidential debate, Romney said the Obama administration, in response to the Budget Control Act, halted production of the F-22 stealth fighter, delayed aircraft carriers and said new long-range Air Force bombers would not be built. These steps and others, Romney said, are “cutting the capacity of America to defend itself.” Panetta did not step forward to challenge these remarks, though others have noted, for example, that the decisions to limit F-22 production and slow carrier production were made by then-Secretary Robert M. Gates before the Budget Control Act passed, while plans for the strategic bomber are still going ahead. When the presidential campaign becomes a two-person race in the fall, and the GOP candidate, his supporters or political action committees make similar charges against the Obama defense program, the feisty, outspoken politician inside Panetta may not be so controlled. “I am not sure Panetta will stay


Spaceship Earth: A new view of environmentalism

ahead of climate changes. One of the deans of technological environmentalism is Stewart Brand, who in the 1960s ran around with Ken Kesey and the LSD-gobbling Merry Pranksters. In 1968 he published the “Whole Earth Catalog,” which combined hippie sensibility with early computers and nifty gadgets. His catalog had a famous inscription: “We are as gods, and might as well get good at it.” Brand’s philosophy was pro-technology amid a counterculture movement that often saw technology as an evil — as the source of pollution, industrial-scale warfare and nuclear weapons. Early on, Brand saw the personal computer as a source of individual empowerment and resistance to authority; he sponsored an early convention of computer hackers. Brand, whose most recent book is “Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto,” advocates the use of genetically modified organisms and nuclear power, and speaks of “solar radiation management” through cloud-seeding and other forms of “geoengineering” as possible mitigators of climate change. This isn’t green orthodoxy, obviously. Albert Borgmann, a professor of philosophy at the University of Montana who has written extensively on technology and the environment, worries about a possible overreliance on technology to fix problems that humans have made. “It has to be done in a spirit of cautionary respect. There has to be some rueful recognition that the spirit of managing things has gotten us where we are. That same sort of arrogance — we control it all — can’t continue,” Borgmann says. Beyond the philosophical questions are nuts-and-bolts issues about how people could intelligently manage something as complicated as the natural world. We might not be good at it. A number of recent events have shown that complex technological systems are vulnerable to rare but consequential failures. The BP oil spill, for example, happened despite elaborate technologies and monitoring systems designed to prevent an oil-well blowout, or at least shut down a runaway well if the initial line of defense failed. Investigators said that Even more humbling was the March 11 earthquake in Japan. The earthquake wasn’t supposed to be possible. The seismic hazard maps showed that the maximum possible earthquake along the Japan Trench — the huge fault line where one plate of the Earth dives beneath another — could generate earthquakes up to magnitude 8.4. But on the afternoon of March 11, the fault broke and generated an earthquake registering 9.0, which was six times stronger than the theoretical maximum.


Smarter Food: A farmers market with a difference

A small chalkboard entices customers with today's Local Roots Cafe specials on December 15, 2011. The cafe uses only local ingredients and always offers a seasonal dish. (Ben Leitschuh/BEN LEITSCHUH) WOOSTER, OHIO — Except it wasn’t easy. Gaffney was able to sell some of the crops at farmers markets. But that required long hours away from Martha’s Farm during the height of the growing season. The rest she hawked at the local produce auction, where the going rate often was barely high enough for her to break even. Then in 2010, Gaffney found Local Roots, a market in nearby Wooster that saved the farm. The local-foods co-op allows as many as 150 producers to stock its shelves six days a week, year-round. Customers can buy milk, cheese, meat and produce from any combination of producers and pay at a central checkout. And the farmers receive 90 percent of the purchase price, nearly three times what they would get if they sold it to a wholesaler. “We were so happy,” says Gaffney, who now sells almost all of her meat and produce through Local Roots. “We won’t be slaves. We will be able to make a business.” Local Roots is a new kind of co-op. It helps small farmers such as Gaffney make ends meet. It also caters to customers who like the idea of buying local but find visits to farmers markets and weekly buying clubs, such as community-supported agriculture (CSA) programs, inconvenient. Launched two years ago in a renovated warehouse off Wooster’s main drag, the market is thriving. On a recent visit, the shelves were stocked with potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes, arugula, nine varieties of apples, grass-fed milk, jam, maple syrup and locally milled flour. And this is the slow season. Market manager, Jessica Eikleberry is Local Roots’ only full-time employee. (Ben Leitschuh/BEN LEITSCHUH) To date, the co-op has grossed about $750,000 and is making a profit. The founders have added a small cafe and soon will build a community kitchen, where producers and entrepreneurs can preserve and can seasonal foods. This month, Local Roots helped to open a second market — what it calls a “sprout” — in Ashland, about 25 miles away. Wooster is not an obvious place for a local-foods co-op. The city is home to just 26,000 people. And this is not, say, Vermont or Northern California, where local food has become a cause. But Wooster


does have two big advantages. The rolling hills that surround it are dotted with small farms; the county is home to one of the largest Amish populations in the country. And it has a small, dedicated group of residents who wanted a different kind of place to shop. Local Roots’ founders are a diverse group, including farmers, agricultural researchers, teachers, a banker and an architect. In 2009, the group began meeting weekly to figure out how to build a co-op without a lot of capital — which, co-founder Betsy Anderson says, “none of us had.” That ruled out traditional retail models, where the store sources and buys all of the food up front — and loses money on whatever goes to waste. “From the beginning, we were looking at how this would all fit together so it was environmentally and economically sustainable,” Anderson says. Local Roots’ solution was to develop a hybrid grocery store-farmers market. There are sections for meat, dairy products, bread, produce and specialty items such as gourmet popcorn and sorghum syrup. Each department carries offerings from a variety of producers, who come each week and stock the shelves themselves. That allows customers to buy grass-fed milk from Hartzler’s Dairy, eggs from the Shepherd’s Market, walnut bread from the Grain Maker bakery and turnips from Martha’s Farm but still check out at a single cash register, using a check, a credit card, even food stamps as well as cash. For tracking sales, each product in the store has a bar code, created with free, open-source software. Every week, each farmer gets an inventory report of what sold and when. Every two weeks, each farmer gets a check for 90 percent of his or her total gross sales. The other 10 percent goes toward operational expenses: rent, utilities and the salary of the co-op’s market manager, its only full-time staffer. Farmers also sell to the co-op’s cafe. On most days, the three chefs buy food just like any other customer and turn it into homey, delicious dishes such as leek-and-feta quiche or a curried cauliflower, apple and arugula pesto sandwich on locally made bread. Producers also sell the cafe their excess produce, the stuff that won’t sit another week on the shelves. The cooks prep and freeze it or use it for soups and sauces. The setup has been a boon to farmers. Marion Yoder, who sells pastured meats,


First call: CSA providers

In early February, the Food section will publish online a list of Washington area farms offering community-supported agriculture (CSA) shares for sale in 2012. Farms that would like to be included should e-mail the following information to food@washpost.com, with CSA PROVIDER in the subject field: farm name, location and county, contact person, phone number, Web site if applicable, prices for full shares and half-shares, number of weeks in the season, pickup location(s) and whether home delivery is available. The deadline for sending in your information is Jan. 18. A full crate from Arganica Farm Club photographed in the studio in Washington, DC on February 17, 2011. Arganica is a DC area organic/local CSA. (Wendy Galietta/WASHINGTON POST)


Brace yourselves for John Kelly’s upcoming film about zombie pandas

“We were queuing to see the pandas when a man in front shouted out in surprise that his jacket had been hit by a big dollop of penguin poo,” a 41-year-old man told the BBC. “It just missed me and my family and it was really oily and stank of fish.” There is speculation that the penguins are jealous of the attention lavished on the pandas. I think something else is afoot. The penguins are trying to warn us. Of what? There’s a clue in the names of Edinburgh’s new panda pair: Tian Tian and Yang Guang. That’s right: Scotland has a Tian Tian, too, just like our zoo. But their Tian Tian is a female, and they translate the name as “Sweetie,” unlike our Tian Tian, whose name the National Zoo translates as “more and more.” Well, which is it? Something fishy is going on here. And so my movie begins: EXTERIOR: National Zoo at midnight. The hooting and hollering sounds of a zoo are plainly heard: squawks, chirps, howls. The camera pans to a lighted window in a research building and into the laboratory of Dr. Benjamin Brady, handsome reproductive zoologist. He is peering through a microscope. Suddenly, he sits bolt upright and shouts: BRADY: Cass, come here! Comely graduate assistant Cass Ortiz enters. ORTIZ: What is it, doctor? BRADY: I accidentally knocked some neurological samples from a rhesus monkey into a petri dish containing giant panda stem cells. The results are amazing! Rapid cell growth at a rate I’ve never seen before! It’s what we’ve been missing all these years. Our female pandas simply need primate brain matter to become fertile! The animal sounds cease abruptly, leaving an uncomfortable silence. Suddenly, a single horrible cry pierces the night. ORTIZ: Doctor, what was that? BRADY: That was the unmistakable roar of an enraged giant panda. I wonder what. . . . “Zombie Pandas of the Apocalypse.” See it with someone you love. Children’s Hospital Please help support the Children’s National Medical Center. By making a tax-deductible donation, you will help ensure that even the poorest kids can be treated. Our annual campaign ends Friday. Simply go to washingtonpost.com/childrenshospital, or send a check or money order (payable to Children’s Hospital) to Washington Post Campaign, P.O. Box 17390, Baltimore, Md. 21297-1390. Donors who give $250 or more will receive a $20 gift certificate to the Chef Geoff family of restaurants.


CES 2012 preview: HP releases Omni All-in-one, Pavilion Phoenix h9 PCs

Hewlett-Packard is making a big push to keep PCs in the mix as buzz for ultrabooks and tablets dominate the conversation ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show. Sure, the company is also prepping the release of what appears to be its own new ultrabook, the Spectre, but it’s also showing off some great desktop hardware ahead of the big show next week. On Wednesday the company unveiled two desktops, the 27-inch Omni All-in-One and the Pavilion Phoenix h9 desktop. The all-in-one computer appears to be aimed at the family office. It’s expansive screen is good for watching video and its “one cord” setup is clearly aimed at people who want a computer that can move around the house, easy to get going and want to share movies, pictures or other media with a crowd. The Pavilion Phoenix, on the other hand, is clearly aimed at power gamers, at least the ones who don’t want to build their own machines. The computer has nearly all of the bells and whistles you could want, from 2 TB of storage to a highly effective (but scary to DIY) liquid cooling system. It even has room for up to three hard drives. Sales of PCs grew modestly in the third quarter of 2011, according to research firm iSuppli, but it’s still a market losing traction to laptops and tablets. But for those who prize power over portability, there’s definitely still appeal in a desktop computer. The Omni All-in-One will sell for $1,199 when it goes on sale on Sunday; the Phoenix starts at $1,149. Related stories: CES 2012 preview: Ultrabook from HP coming to CES? Big technology trends and storylines of 2012 Asus launches Zenbook laptop Microsoft pulling out of Consumer Electronics Show after 2012 event


Obama to unveil austere Pentagon strategy

$500 billion in projected defense spending over the same time period if lawmakers can’t agree on an alternative by the end of this year. As the Pentagon has contemplated a future with fewer troops and a reduced presence overseas, Obama has involved himself in the strategy review to an unusual degree, holding six meetings with senior Pentagon officials since September to forge the plan, according to administration officials. Obama has enjoyed high approval ratings in the polls for his handling of national security issues, particularly since May when Navy SEALS located and killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. But as November’s presidential election nears, he has faced heightened criticism from Republican contenders, some of whom have accused him of weakening the military and taking a soft line with foes such as Iran and North Korea. The move away from counterinsurgency probably will mean further reductions in the size of the Army and Marine Corps. The Pentagon announced a year ago that the Marine Corps would shed between 15,000 and 20,000 members and the Army 27,000 soldiers beginning in 2015 — the first time either service has faced reductions in troop levels since the mid-1990s. There are about 202,000 Marines on active duty, up from 175,000 in 2007. The Army has about 565,000 soldiers on active duty, including a temporary increase of 22,000 that is scheduled to lapse in 2013. With the war in Iraq over and troops starting to come home from Afghanistan, however, pressure is building on both services to downsize even more. The new strategy document explicitly states that the size of the Army and Marine Corps will no longer be governed by the need to conduct large-scale and long-term stability operations like those in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the Pentagon’s internal debates, Dempsey has insisted that any cuts to ground forces must be “gradual and reversible,” according to the senior military official. The Navy and Air Force are expected to fare better because they will play an instrumental role in the administration’s strategy for Asia, where the United States is seeking to counter China’s expanding military power. Staff writers Greg Jaffe and Scott Wilson contributed to this report. More on the world and national security: Iran strives to play spoiler in Afghanistan Did soldier at Ron Paul event break the rules? Was Petraeus the model for book’s drunk general? Taliban publicly expresses interest in talks with U.S.


Karzai demands transfer of U.S. military prison near Bagram to Afghan control

troops are scheduled to leave Afghanistan. “At this point, the Afghans don’t have the legal framework or the capacity to deal with violence being inflicted on the country by the insurgency,” a U.S. official said then. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity. On Thursday, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in response to Karzai’s comments: “We’re going to continue to work with the Afghan government to implement the transition that we have both agreed needs to happen of detention operations in Afghanistan. We need to do this in a manner that is maximally responsible.” She said she could not comment further on the timeline for the transfer. The existence of the U.S. military prison about 30 miles north of Kabul has long been seen by Afghans as a sign of imperial overreach, and for years Karzai has singled the prison out for criticism. The U.S. military has detained suspected insurgents at facilities in the area for about a decade. Most have been held without trial, and fewer than a third of the detainees have been handed over to an Afghan-run court for prosecution. Still, the number of Afghan judges and guards has risen steadily, and, as of July, the Afghan-run court at the prison was hearing about 50 cases a month. Karzai has made bold claims in the name of Afghan sovereignty, and his insistence on a rapid prison transfer ranks among the boldest. But although he craves a more active role for Afghan institutions, he has also made repeated appeals for international support for the country to continue beyond 2014. A transition at the Bagram prison is expected to hold special symbolic value. Afghan officials say the Taliban has successfully used the prison in propaganda to galvanize insurgents, drawing on reports of harsh interrogation methods. A U.S. Army investigation into the deaths of two detainees in 2002 uncovered evidence that prisoners had been chained to the ceiling by their wrists and severely beaten by guards. The Pentagon facility was rebuilt in 2009 and the inmate review process was overhauled to increase transparency, officials said. Staff writer Jason Ukman and staff researcher Julie Tate, both in Washington, contributed to this report. More world news coverage: - Bombs targeting Iraqi Shiites kill 72 - Obama unveils new military strategy - Settlers temporarily banned from West Bank - Read more headlines from around the world


Why a one-war posture for the U.S. military will work

Hussein is gone, and whatever threat Iraqis may one day pose to themselves and the region, they are unlikely to invade anyone. Farther from home, North Korea has acquired nuclear capabilities, but its conventional forces have weakened, and South Korea’s army is greatly strengthened. Russia remains problematic on multiple issues but not because of its military menace to NATO territory. Threats from Iran or China, at least in the short term, are much more likely to involve U.S. naval, air and special forces (which should retain a capacity for handling more than one major operation at a time). The uncertainty and instability from Syria to Yemen to South Asia, however potentially worrisome for American interests, are unlikely to again require large-scale U.S.-led action. All that said, budget hawks should beware of pushing this argument too far. The one-war paradigm is not a prescription for cutting the Army and Marine Corps by a third or more. Cuts in force structure and personnel should not exceed 15 to 20 percent, relative to current levels, and could be made only gradually, after the Afghanistan campaign winds down. Ten-year savings would reach perhaps $150 billion. That is much of the roughly $400 billion mandated by the August provisions of the Budget Control Act but hardly a dent in the (ill-advised) nearly trillion-dollar target required by sequestration. To carry out this approach responsibly, the United States would still need an active-duty Army and Marine Corps almost as large as those of the Clinton years. Then, we thought we had a two-war capability, a fallacy underscored by events in Iraq and Afghanistan. Within a one-war paradigm, we could no longer rely on the force package intended for a second war to compensate for any underestimations made in planning for a first war. Nor could we rely primarily on the National Guard, as rapid response would be even more critical to addressing problems before they could metastasize. The United States would still need capabilities for possibly simultaneous additional missions, which would probably be smaller in scale than full-fledged war but could be long in duration. Rather than a two-war paradigm, we would want a “1+2” framework for sizing ground forces — the “1” referring to a substantial regional war; the “2” being smaller, multinational but potentially long-lasting contingencies such as a stabilization effort in Afghanistan (or Syria or Yemen). Some critics will argue that capacity for even


Five myths about the American dream

with a population four times larger. China does own more than $1.1 trillion of U.S. debt, however; it is our largest creditor. But the problem isn’t just one nation. Japan holds almost $1 trillion of U.S. debt. Britain owns more than $400 billion. In 1970, less than 5 percent of U.S. debt was held by non-citizens. Today, almost half is. Neither China nor these other countries can be blamed for U.S. choices that have placed our financial future increasingly out of our hands. Still, no matter how much we owe, the United States remains the world’s land of opportunity. In fact, the largest international group coming to America to study is from China — 157,000 students in the 2010-2011 academic year. As recently reported in The Washington Post, the number of Chinese undergraduates at U.S. colleges increased 43 percent over the previous year. 5. Economic decline and political gridlock are killing the American dream. Our research showed a stunning lack of confidence in U.S. institutions. Sixty-five percent of those surveyed believe that America is in decline; 83 percent said they have less trust in “politics in general” than they did 10 or 15 years ago; 79 percent said they have less trust in big business and major corporations; 78 percent said they have less trust in government; 72 percent reported declining trust in the media. These recent figures are more startling when contrasted against Gallup polling from the 1970s, when as many as 70 percent of Americans had “trust and confidence” that the government could handle domestic problems. Even so, 63 percent of Americans said they are confident that they will attain their American dream, regardless of what the nation’s institutions do or don’t do. While they may be worried about future generations, their dream today stands defiantly against the odds. fordm4@xavier.edu Michael F. Ford Read more from Outlook’s Five Myths series: Five myths about the American flag Five myths about gas prices Five myths about 9/11 Five myths about why the South seceded Friend us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. Few ideas are as central to American self-identity as the “American dream.” Politicians invoke it, immigrants pursue it, and despite unremittingly negative economic news, citizens embrace it. But what is the American dream? We began regular study of how people define and perceive the dream three years ago, and have discovered many misunderstandings worth a second look.


Why do we ignore the civilians killed in American wars?

a military mistake, and want to forget the whole thing.” On Iraq, when an Associated Press survey asked Americans in early 2007how many Iraqis had died in the war, the average of all answers was 9,890, when the actual number was probably well into the hundreds of thousands. In several polls in 2007 and 2008, Americans were asked whether we should withdraw troops even if it put Iraqis at risk of more civil unrest; a clear majority said yes. Today there is virtually no support for helping rebuild Iraq or Afghanistan — no campaigns by large charities, no open doors for Iraqi refugees. Even Iraqis who worked with the American military are having trouble getting political asylum in the United States and face a risk of retribution at home. The U.S. response to so many dead, 5 million displaced and a devastated country is woefully dismissive. Even civilian atrocities tend to fade quickly from view, or else become rallying points for the accused troops. My Lai, where about 400 Vietnamese were murdered by a U.S. Army unit in 1968, at first shocked the nation, but Americans quickly came to support Lt. William L. Calley Jr. — who was later found guilty of killing 22villagers — and the others involved. More recently, eight Marines were charged in the 2005 Haditha massacre in Iraq, and none has been convicted. (The last defendant’s trial started this past week.) Indeed, each atrocity that fails to alter public opinion piles on to further prove American indifference. Why the American silence on our wars’ main victims? Our self-image, based on what cultural historian Richard Slotkin calls “the frontier myth” — in which righteous violence is used to subdue or annihilate the savages of whatever land we’re trying to conquer — plays a large role. For hundreds of years, the frontier myth has been one of America’s sturdiest national narratives. When the challenges from communism in Korea and Vietnam appeared, we called on these cultural tropes to understand the U.S. mission overseas. The same was true for Iraq and Afghanistan, with the news media and politicians frequently portraying Islamic terrorists as frontier savages. By framing each of these wars as a battle to civilize a lawless culture, we essentially typecast the local populations as theIndians of our North American conquest. As the foreign policy maven Robert D. Kaplanwrote on the Wall Street Journal op-ed page in 2004,


Details, Guangzhou, China

details GETTING THERE Turkish Airlines offers one-stop flights from Washington Dulles to Guangzhou, with early February fares running $1,002 round trip. WHERE TO STAY The Garden Hotel 368 Huanshi E. Rd. 011-86-20-833-38989 www2.thegardenhotel.com.cn In the heart of the business and entertainment district, with 828 rooms and suites. Rooms from $120. The Ritz-Carlton 3 Xing An Rd. 011-86-20-381-36688 www.ritzcarlton.com Sleek 351-room luxury hotel with views of the Pearl River. Poolside bar, restaurant, full-service spa, health club and WiFi. Rooms from $310. WHERE TO EAT Nan Guo Yan Yue Restaurant Dong Fang Hotel 120 Liu Hua Rd. 011-86-20-866-69900 www.hoteldongfang.com/en/index.aspx Cantonese-style dishes in spacious hotel dining room. Dim sum features steamed pork buns and coriander dumplings. $1.50-$4 per item. Lucy’s Bar and Restaurant 3 Shamian St. S. 011-86-20-813-66203 www.lucyscafe.cn/Eindex.html Asian and Western cuisines. Casual dining indoors or alfresco on Shamian Island. $5-$15, cash only. Bosphorus Premium Jian She Liu Ma Lu No. 1 011-86-20-837-67644 Outstanding Turkish cuisine in stylish two-story setting. $15-$25. WHAT TO DO Canton Tower Yuejiang Road West 011-86-20-893-38222 www.gztvtower.info China’s tallest building and TV tower. Observation deck on the 108th story. Elliptical track Ferris wheel provides panoramic views of city. Tickets priced by level: $8, $16, $24. Huadiwan Huadi Avenue North, near Huadiwan metro stop Market complex selling traditional Cantonese furniture and pottery, with extensive bird, plant, fish and aquarium sections. Free. Onelink Onelink International Plaza 39 Jie Fang S. Rd. www.onelinkplaza.com/en/main.php International toys and gifts wholesale and retail market. Free. Hualin Temple Between Changshou Lu and Xiajiu Lu streets. One of the oldest Buddhist temples in the city. $1.25. Shamian Island Walking streets with late 19th-century architecture, shopping, restaurants and Consulate General of the United States. INFORMATION www.lifeofguangzhou.com


Filling the empty spaces in Guangzhou, China

of narrow aisles branching off streets wide enough for delivery trucks. I trail Brian past tanks of all sizes filled with every imaginable kind of fish — from teeny neon tetras to stingrays and sharks — and shops overflowing with such fishy accoutrements as aquariums, gravel, filters, live plants, decorative plastic castles, coral, lights, turtles, live bait, frozen food, dried food and more. Eyeing one particularly crowded, narrow aisle, I take the helm of the stroller, in which Lulu, improbably, is sound asleep. As Brian plunges through the throngs to find one particular vendor, he shouts: “I’ll meet you in the plant store. Go to the end and turn left!” Thirty minutes later I’m cursing, walking round and round the perimeter of where I think I’m supposed to be, passing dozens of vendors selling bright green ferns and grasses, detouring down an outdoor dirt pathway filled with garden plants, then back to the main fish aisle where motorcycles honk and clatter past. Lulu is stirring, and it dawns on me that I have no cellphone, no idea where I am, and I don’t know my family’s street address. The good news, I realize, as people gather to ogle the sleeping blond child wearing a pink and white ruffled dress with matching shoes and hair ribbons, is that I’m not hard to spot. Cellphones and cameras aim our way: Click, click. “Gu gu,” I say. Aunt. “There you are,” says Brian. In China, nothing is possible, unless it is. One sunny day, when the often-smoggy air is almost clear, Jenny and I drop the kids at school and drive to Dong Shan Hu, a 33-acre public park with fishing, boat rentals, kiddie amusement rides and an outdoor exercise area for adults. But first we have to park the minivan. “The most important phrase to learn is ‘Tin bu dong,’ which roughly translates to, ‘I hear you are speaking to me, but I have no idea what you’re saying,’ ” explains Jenny. “Then you smile, wave and add, in English, ‘Bye-bye!’ ” We lock the van and are approached by a man in an official-looking uniform who speaks rapidly while gesturing and pointing. He wants us to park over there, farther down the road. We want to park here. Jenny pays for two hours, and we stroll away. “Tin bu dong! Bye-bye!” In the park, people are dancing. It’s not tai chi


“Terrorists in Love: The Real Lives of Islamic Radicals,” by Ken Ballen

curved to a straight hooked point, like a ski jump. The fingers on his right hand ended in a stump that resembled melted candle wax, while his left-hand fingers were twisted like the roots of the miswak stick jihadis regularly chew in imitation of the Prophet Muhammad. . . . His fingernails were little more than yellowed brown stumps, the color of toes infected with athlete’s foot.” Ahmad joined the fight because he was having difficulty with an abusive father. Looking for a place where he would be appreciated, Ahmad decided to join fellow Muslims fighting American forces in Iraq. But that, too, proved to be a negative experience. He waited months for a mission. Shuffled from one safe house to another, he was never trained for anything. He was allowed to hold a Kalashnikov, but not to fire one. Finally, he was asked to take a tanker truck into a wealthy neighborhood in Baghdad with two other men. He was told that he simply needed to drive the truck to a designated place and park it. On the way to Baghdad, the men teased Ahmad good-naturedly and talked to him like a brother. Ahmad said that for the first time, he began to feel he was part of something. Then, just a thousand yards from where they were supposed to park the truck, the two other men jumped out and shouted at Ahmad to pull the tanker up to the concrete blocks. ’Terrorists in Love: The Real Lives of Islamic Radicals’ by Ken Ballen (The Free Press) “In what seemed like a matter of seconds, perhaps twenty at most, he made it. His first mission of jihad completed, he could return to the safe house and call home. That was the last thought in his mind as he stopped before the concrete. A powerful explosion, remotely triggered, then turned the back of the tanker, filled with twenty-six tons of liquid explosives, into a powerful fireball that could be seen miles away. . . . ‘I see the world melt,’ Ahamd said. ‘Everything turns black. My hands disappear in more black. My throat leaves me in screams. Hell fire is licking up everywhere. My mind is dead numb. The flames are shooting at me from every direction.’ ” Ahmad miraculously survived and was taken to a hospital by U.S. medics. Eventually, he became a spokesman for the Saudi ministry to


Steven Pearlstein: Steering the region from .gov to .com

Local economic boosters love to remind anyone who will listen that the Washington region boasts the greatest concentration of technical or knowledge workers in the country. The implication, of course, is that we’re right out there on the technological edge alongside Silicon Valley, Austin and Boston. It makes for a wonderful marketing story, but it’s fundamentally misleading. What the numbers don’t tell you is that almost all of this high-tech work is done for the government — and therein is the problem. For even with this impressive ecosystem of firms, workers and advanced technology, the region hasn’t yet spawned a critical mass of companies providing technology products and services for consumers and private businesses. There was a brief moment, in the mid- to late ’90s, when the commercial tech sector looked like it might be taking off, with hot, fast-growing companies such as AOL, MicroStrategy, Nextel and scores of other entrepreneurial startups supported by a burgeoning network of venture capitalists. But as a result of failed mergers and the dot-com bust of 2000, most of that faded away, along with the commercial-tech sector’s momentum and swagger. Very little was made of this disappointment during the ensuing decade, if for no other reason than the government-contracting sector was growing so fast it didn’t seem to matter. Now that the region faces the prospect of a decade-long decline in federal spending, however, it has taken on some urgency. That doesn’t mean that the Washington region can never develop a thriving commercial-tech sector — as I’ll explain in a moment, we can and must. The challenge is that we’ll have to do it with different companies and different workers operating in a different business culture. The reality is that firms and workers that thrive in a government-contracting environment are almost antithetical to the ones developing new apps for the iPhone or even a new database-management system for Macy’s. The customer base, the timelines, the marketing, the skill sets, the way products are priced and employees are paid — they’re all quite different. As former Lockheed chairman Norm Augustine used to quip, the history of “diversification” by government contractors is unblemished by success. You can feel the difference in the two cultures the minute you step into any of the District offices of LivingSocial, the daily deal site that has become one of the hottest tech startups in the country, with 5,000 employees and


What humanity can do to save the planet

Regarding the Jan. 3 front-page article “At the helm of ‘Spaceship Earth’ ”: Over the past two centuries, population growth, industrialization and increased consumption, along with poor natural resource management practices, have imperiled nature. Rapid climate change is just the latest manifestation of man’s activities, forcing environmentalists to reevaluate what their objectives should be and how to achieve them. The traditional response to environmental degradation has been to protect what is left and restore what is damaged. This is no longer a viable paradigm in a warmer world. Instead, we must proactively make our cities and our ecosystems more resilient to the impacts of climate change and take steps to ensure that nature can provide the services that people and other species rely on. Drought-resistant crops, mangrove forests, rainfall-absorbing green spaces and urban pavement materials that absorb less heat are just a few examples of measures that are now required. We don’t live on our parents’ planet; the world has already been changed irrevocably. However, there is still an amazingly vibrant and diverse world worth saving. Shaun Martin, Washington The writer is director of the World Wildlife Fund’s climate change adaptation program. ● ● ●


Saving the lives of patients with rare blood diseases

When Princeton University football star Jordan Culbreath was diagnosed in 2009 with the rare and potentially deadly blood disorder known as aplastic anemia, his prospects looked bleak. The life- threatening disease was wiping out the cells in his bone marrow, including red blood cells that carry oxygen, white blood cells that fight infection and platelets that help clot the blood. Culbreath was fortunate to have found his way to the National Institutes of Health and a team of expert physicians led by Dr. Neal S. Young, where he received immune suppressant therapy and made a full recovery. He returned to the gridiron for the 2010 season and later graduated from college. “I’m very lucky, I know that,” Culbreadth said last February when he received an award from an organization that seeks to raise awareness about rare diseases. Culbreath’s recovery, however, was more than luck. It was the result of years of painstaking research and clinical testing led by Young and his colleagues, who are widely credited with pioneering the development of the treatments for patients with aplastic anemia and related syndromes. The therapies tested by Young, the chief of the Hematology Branch of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institutes at NIH, have resulted in a dramatic increase in survival rates for those suffering from aplastic anemia. When Young graduated from medical school in 1971, for example, almost all patients who developed severe aplastic anemia died within just a few months. Today, the survival rate is more than 70 percent. (Ernie Branson/NIH) Because of Young’s efforts, his clinic at NIH is considered one of the world’s major referral centers for bone marrow failure syndromes, including aplastic anemia. This disease strikes about 600 to 900 people a year in the United States. “Neal Young is a great scientist and he has done an enormous amount of good in terms of aplastic anemia,’ said Dr. Arthur Nienhaus, a prominent physician at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Tennessee and Young’s former boss at NIH. “He is truly one of the great investigators of our generation in terms of hematology,” said Nienhaus. At NIH, Young combines direct patient care and clinical trial research with basic science laboratory work in cell biology, molecular biology, virology, immunology and population-based epidemiologic studies. Young said the NIH gives him great “intellectual freedom” to follow the science, undertake a wide range of investigations and engage in “transformative work”


CES 2012: The perils of ubiquity

Tucked among the 2,700 exhibitors at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week will be nearly 100 fledgling start-ups that represent a first for the 45-year-old trade event: Many don’t yet have products to sell. The experiment, called Eureka Park, occupies just a tiny portion of the 1.8 million square feet of exhibit space, but it’s the latest attempt by the Consumer Electronics Association to keep the show and its membership relevant in a rapidly changing industry. “We want to make sure we’re around for another 45 or 50 years, and what better way to do that than help promote new companies,” said Karen Chupka, senior vice president of events and conferences. The Arlington-based association has made an aggressive effort to broaden its appeal and roster of members in recent years, expanding the categories of companies it represents to include automakers, major retailers and medical device manufacturers, among others. That approach is most evident at CES, where the gamut of gizmos — if you can even call them all that — is staggering. Tech enthusiasts will find no shortage of traditional consumer electronics, including tablets, smartphones, televisions and game consoles. But there also will be dishwashers. And electric vehicles. Heart monitors, too. In many ways, consumer technology has become so ubiquitous that it ceases to become its own industry, raising questions about its future. Indeed, though this year’s gadget pageant is shaping up to be the second or third largest in history, one longtime mainstay, Microsoft, is scaling back. This will be the last year the software giant will deliver a major keynote or maintain a substantial presence. Amassing members Gary Shapiro took the helm of what would eventually be renamed the Consumer Electronics Association in 1991 when the organization counted just 60 member companies. With 2,200 on its roster today, it ranks among the country’s largest trade groups. “There has been phenomenal convergence,” Shapiro said. “A telephone is also a camera. A TV is also connected to the Internet. That convergence is something we knew would happen, and we positioned the show for it and our association.” That diverse membership produces a loud chorus of voices on policy matters here in Washington, where CEA weighs in on topics from Internet piracy to free trade. The association compiles market research and plays an influential role in debates over industry standards. But size isn’t always an asset, said


Delta: Shopping centers with grocery stores poised to grow this year

Grocery-anchored shopping centers continue to perform reliably compared to other retail property types, according to Delta’s annual year-end survey of over 300 Washington area grocery-anchored shopping centers. Of the total retail inventory in the Washington metro area, 57.6 million square feet is located in 340 grocery-anchored shopping centers. The metropolitan area-wide vacancy rate for grocery-anchored shopping centers edged down to 5.5 percent at the end of 2011, from 5.6 percent at the end of 2010, matching the vacancy rate for the region’s overall shopping center market. The grocery-anchored shopping center vacancy rate in suburban Maryland declined to 5.6 percent at the end 2011, from 6.0 percent one year ago. Northern Virginia vacancy was 5.5 percent at year-end 2011, up from 5.3 percent one year ago. The District, Arlington and Alexandria experienced no change in vacancy compared with a year ago, remaining at 5.0 percent at the end of 2011. The large inner suburban counties of Fairfax, Montgomery and Prince George’s experienced a slight decline of 30 basis points during 2011, to 4.8 percent. This compares favorably to outer ring areas such as Loudoun and Prince William counties, where vacancy rose to 7.9 percent. Rental rates at grocery-anchored centers increased 2.1 percent in 2011, after declining 2.4 percent in 2010. The region’s average in-line tenant rents were $31.65 a square foot at year-end 2011, compared with $31.86 for suburban Maryland and $31.15 a square foot in Northern Virginia, up 1 percent from 2010. The District, Alexandria and Arlington experienced a healthy rise in asking rates at 6.8 percent during 2011, as tenants sought to remain in the urban core, with only 200,000 square feet of available space. The inner and outer rings experienced rent increases at a less robust pace, at 2.1 percent and 0.5 percent respectively. Overall, newer grocery-anchored shopping centers outperformed market averages during 2011. Centers built after 1999 in the Washington metro area hold a 6.5 percent vacancy rate at year-end 2011, a 70 basis point decline during the past year. Centers built in 1999 or before hold a 5.2 percent vacancy rate at year-end 2011, remaining unchanged from one year ago. We expect the retail market in the Washington metro area to gradually recover during 2012. Consumer spending will be muted compared to prior expansion periods, but we expect shoppers to focus spending at wholesale merchants as economic uncertainty persists. However, luxury retailers should continue to experience


Frozen peas inspired doctor, patient to create hot-cold pack

placed our first order of 5,000 packs, and really, we just wanted to sell those.” In the four years since, TheraPearl has become profitable and has expanded to include 15 full-time employees. Revenue has grown 200 percent in the past year, according to Daniel Baumwald, a senior vice president at TheraPearl. He estimates that the company had sales between $12 million and $15 million in 2011. “We cannot believe how people have embraced the product,” Dubbé said. Along the way, the company has scrapped many of its earlier notions about TheraPearl, which was originally being marketed exclusively to spas and beauty salons. “We got the occasional mom at the spa, but for the most part the packs got lost in the hair and beauty products,” Baumwald said. “Now we’re fishing where the fish are.” TheraPearl products now are sold in 10,000 pharmacies and stores across the U.S. and Canada, including Duane Reade in New York and Meijer stores in the Midwest. Tschiffely Pharmacy on K Street in the District has been carrying the packs for about two years. “It’s pretty much one of the top sellers because it’s hot and cold, instead of just one or the other,” said Colpon Jones, a technician at the pharmacy. The line of products, which began with one rectangular pack, has evolved to include more than a dozen shapes and sizes, including neck and back wraps, eye masks and packs for nursing mothers. TheraPearl also has a children’s line that includes packs in the shape of frogs, pigs, puppies and pandas. Before he quit his job at Vitamin Water in May 2009, Baumwald stood outside the food court at Columbia Mall. He had samples of TheraPearl and spent a few hours asking passers-by what they thought of the product. “I just asked them, ‘Do you think this is cool?,’ ” Baumwald said. “And when every single person said yes, I knew this had legs.” The company is evolving. It plans to introduce shin and knee wraps this year, and hopes to expand into sporting goods stores. There are more superficial changes, too, such as changing to vertical packaging to take up less space on the shelf. “Most of us are from the beverage industry, so we’re not only learning a new brand, but we’re also learning a new industry,” Baumwald said. “But the thing is, when you think of soft drinks, you think of


Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, alleged U.S. spy, sentenced to death in Iran

TEHRAN — Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, a former U.S. Marine of Iranian descent, was handed a death sentence for a list of alleged crimes that included spying for the CIA, state media reported. U.S. officials said the charges were false and politically motivated, describing them as the latest in a series of provocations by Iran’s clerical rulers. “We strongly condemn this verdict,” said Victoria Nuland, spokeswoman for the State Department. Iranian authorities accused Hekmati, 28, of receiving special training at U.S. bases in Iraq and Afghanistan before being dispatched to Iran on a spy mission. Hekmati, who was born in Arizona and holds dual citizenship, was given 20 days to appeal the verdict. The court’s decision comes at a time of increasing tension between Tehran and Washington, as the United States and its allies seek to dramatically toughen economic sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. Iran has sought to retaliate by threatening to block the Strait of Hormuz and warning a U.S. aircraft carrier not to enter the strategic waterway. Iran has also boasted in recent days of new progress in its nuclear program, signaling that it has achieved its long-stated ambition of starting uranium enrichment at a mountain bunker, using a process that makes uranium that can be upgraded for weapons use more quickly than the country’s main stockpile. The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed the assertion Monday. U.S. officials and Iran experts view the charges against Hekmati as further evidence that Iranian leaders are feeling pressure and are looking for ways to regain advantage. One analyst described the former Marine as “another hostage of the U.S.-Iran cold war.” “The Iranian regime is desperate for any leverage it can get vis-a-vis the United States,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “For that reason, it’s highly unlikely that they’ll execute Mr. Hekmati, for he would then cease to be a bargaining chip.” President Obama signed a bill on the last day of 2011 that placed the Central Bank of Iran under unilateral sanctions, setting off a steep slide in the Iranian currency. Since then, Europe has indicated that it will impose stiff sanctions of its own. The signs of strain in Tehran have encouraged U.S. officials in their belief that Iran’s leaders will eventually come around to negotiations over their nuclear program. But Greg Thielmann, a senior fellow at the Arms Control Association,


Polar bear cub is unbearably cute

All together now: This baby polar bear was born November 22 at the Scandinavian Wildlife Park in Kolind, Denmark. But because his mother couldn’t produce milk to feed the cub, zookeepers had to decide whether they would let the animal die or take over feeding him themselves. It turned out to be a pretty easy decision to make. The cub weighed less than two pounds when he was born. He evidently likes what the keepers are feeding him; when they showed him off late last month, the bear was more than seven pounds and was packing on more. Keepers named the cub Siku, which means “sea ice.” They hope the bear will make people more aware of the effects that the shrinking of polar ice has on the bears in the wild. This adorable little cub won’t stay this size for very long. Fully grown male polar bears can stand 10 feet tall and weigh as much as 1,400 pounds. Until then, the cub is doing pretty much what all babies do: eating, sleeping and being unbearably adorable.


California’s high-speed rail to nowhere

Legislative Analysis Office and the PRG itself. The PRG’s caution seems amply justified, given that the project’s costs are already mounting far beyond what voters were originally told. The 2008 referendum assumed a $33 billion price tag for a system stretching from Sacramento to San Diego. But more recent estimates have reached $98 billion. But, to Brown, the warnings lose validity through repetition. The PRG report “does not appear to add any arguments that are new or compelling enough to suggest a change of course,” his spokesman said. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who has declared that “we will not be dissuaded by the naysayers and the critics,” told me to discount the PRG report. He said its lead author, former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s (R) erstwhile transportation chief Will Kempton, used to support building a high-speed line in the San Joaquin Valley — until he “switched allegiances” and became CEO of transportation for Orange County. Kempton denies it. One could just as easily say the California High-Speed Rail Authority angrily rebutted the PRG report because two of the authority’s board members are officials of construction unions that stand to benefit from the project. Or that LaHood’s views reflect the president’s political interests. But enough of the inevitable pork-barrel politics. On the merits, high-speed rail would be a questionable investment even if California could afford to build it. LaHood and other boosters marvel at bullet trains in Europe and Japan, insisting simplistically that we need them, too. But the sprawling, decentralized cities of the United States do not make convenient destinations for train travelers. International experience shows that high-speed rail entails expensive debt service and large operating subsidies. This would likely be the case here as well, since, for better or worse, rail must compete with well-established air and car options. Business travel is one ostensible purpose of bullet trains in California, but increasingly people meet via video conference. For these and other reasons, high-speed rail in the United States would lower carbon emissions and reduce traffic far less cost-effectively than would alternative solutions. It’s especially odd for a Democratic president and governor to saddle California with the cost of bullet trains when the state is facing chronic deficits, tax increases and social spending cuts. Maybe this is why polls show that a majority of Californians have turned against the project. It’s still not too late to hit the brakes. lanec@washpost.com


Tuna, meat labeling disputes highlight WTO control

imports were allowed only from foreign plants certified to have food-safety systems that were “at least equal to” those in the United States, based on site visits by U.S. government inspectors. But now, Wallach says, foreign countries can have their regulatory system deemed “equivalent” based only on submitted documents and visits to a few pre-selected sites in the country. Once a nation’s system is found “equivalent,” any facility within its borders can export meat to the United States. And, Wallach adds, a number of countries were grandfathered as having equivalent systems when the WTO launched in 1995, even if only a select number of their plants had been previously approved as “equal to.” In the early 2000s, Public Citizen reviewed the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service reports for a number of countries granted equivalent status by the United States and determined that federal officials were “allowing imported meat onto U.S. grocery shelves that does not meet domestic food safety standards,” according to a July 2003 news release. “The very notion of replacing an import safety standard that required meat and poultry to meet U.S. standards [with] one that allows a very squishy, unclear notion of equivalents,” Wallach says, “means that U.S. consumers have been put at enormous new risk for the benefit of facilitating trade in products that, if not processed properly, can kill your kids.” At least with COOL, Wallach says, consumers can decide whether they want to buy meat imported from foreign countries. If Mexico, Canada or other country’s animals could gain “Product of the U.S.” labels — after feeding and slaughtering in the States — consumers would be “playing Russian roulette with every burger, steak or chop.” Pork and beef industry officials disagree vehemently with that position. “If there were an issue, we’d be up in arms about it,” says Nick Giordano, vice president and counsel for international affairs for the National Pork Producers Council. “Our ability to continue to supply the customer . . . is dependent on us supplying a product that is second to none in safety and quality.” To the meat industry, the COOL system is little more than package-based advertising, one that favors domestic products over foreign ones. “It’s not any sort of food safety program; it’s just simply a marketing program,” says Woodall of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. “We don’t think government should be in the marketing of cattle.”


Beers for champagne tastes

said. Boston Beer enjoyed much greater success with its Infinium, introduced in winter 2010 and repeated last year. This one-of-a-kind brew is the result of a three-year-collaboration between Boston Beer Chairman Jim Koch and Josef Schradler, managing director of Bavaria’s venerable Weihenstephan Brewery, which traces its founding to 1040. The challenge was to create an entirely new style within Germany’s Reinheitsgebot, or purity law, which limits the ingredients in beer to four basics: barley malt, hops, yeast and water. Koch envisioned “a champagne style of beer: strong but not cloying or thick, dry but not thin, highly carbonated.” The catch was that he couldn’t use sugar, enzymes or high-fructose corn syrup to boost the alcohol. Adding more malt would simply produce a rich, heavy brew in the style of a German doppelbock. Eventually, Koch and his partners devised a unique, patent-pending brewing process featuring an extremely long, slow mash that converts a much greater percentage of the starches into simple sugars that the yeast can munch on, creating alcohol. After primary fermentation, the beer is shipped to Pleasant Valley Wine (maker of Great Western Champagne) in Hammondsport, N.Y., where re-fermentation takes place. The original 2010 Infinium underwent riddling and disgorgement. For the 2011 version, Koch tried an alternate process called Charmat, in which the re-fermentation takes place in steel tanks and the beer is gently drained off without stirring up the yeast sediment on the bottom. Unlike DeuS, Infinium is readily identifiable as a product of grain rather than grape. It has a brisk effervescence, a light and sherbet-y fruitiness (less noticeable in the 2011 vintage) and a sweet, sugary malt backbone (more pronounced in the 2011). It’s a pleasant beer (and it hides its 10.3 percent alcohol well), but it might disappoint extreme-beer junkies who expect a full-scale assault on the palate when they pay $20 for a fancy 750-ml bottle. Infinium might have some competition for the next holiday season. Ben Howe, a bartender and former brewer at Cambridge Brewing in Cambridge, Mass., plans to open a nanobrewery next summer called Enlightenment Ales, specializing in strong, golden champagne-style beer. He’ll brew out of Lowell, Mass., and self-distribute locally to keep costs down. “I want it to be accessible to people in my socioeconomic status,” he laughs. Will we see any here in Washington? “Maybe in a few years,” he answers. Kitsock is the editor of Mid-Atlantic Brewing News.


Puree Artisan Juice Bar in Bethesda

LEED-certified space with electric-green wheat grass sprouting here and there. A few tables and a bar round things out. The produce is locally sourced, from growers such as Edrich Farms in Randallstown, Md.; the bee pollen comes from Thurmont, Md. Juice might be just the ticket for those who want nutrition in a hurry. Puree’s “Juice & Go” cooler holds refrigerated, glass-bottled elixirs (16 ounces, $9) freshly pressed each morning. (Waldman had expected customers to be able to bring the glass bottles back for reuse, but she is still working to persuade Montgomery County to allow that.) Waldman says the thick glass bottles preserve the juice longer and keep it from tasting like plastic. Her favorite is the Mean Lemon-Aid, a spicy lemon purifying tonic with a shot of kale that looks like a mad scientist’s experiment. It definitely tastes healthful, and not in an entirely unpleasant way. Waldman and chief operating officer/chef Steve Mekoski, 25, collaborated on the design of two cleanses, or regimens to detoxify the body (one-day, $65; three-day, $180) that come with lots of tips and information, and on the fruit-based purees and creamy shakes (16 ounces, $10). All of the shakes are customizable and vegan, getting their creaminess from almonds, bananas and coconut — and eventually avocados, when organic ones are more reasonably priced, Waldman says. All fruit is frozen after purchase, so no ice is needed. The orange lassi shake (one of several “signatures” from the bar), blended with almond, vanilla, coconut and a heavy hit of cardamom, is a really lovely combination, although I found the coconut was a bit too coarse. We liked the banana butter cup shake better, with its almonds, bananas, cinnamon and bitter cacao nibs. But our favorite was the cacao berry puree of strawberries, banana, coconut and cacao (unprocessed) powder. It’s the ideal way to get your New-Year’s-resolution juices flowing. — Rina Rapuano Puree Artisan Juice Bar Amy Waldman had intended to open her organic juice bar well before the start of 2012, and permit problems nearly derailed that resolution. But when many of us awoke Jan. 1 with a renewed commitment to health, Waldman wanted to be at the ready. “I was very adamant about being open for the new year,” she says. She squeezed in right under deadline, launching Puree Artisan Juice Bar on Dec. 29 in a slip of a space in Bethesda next to


Public ire one goal of Iran sanctions, U.S. official says

An earlier version of this article incorrectly reported that a U.S. intelligence official had described regime collapse as a goal of U.S. and other sanctions against Iran. An updated version clarifies the official’s remarks. The Obama administration sees economic sanctions against Iran as building public discontent that will help compel the government to abandon an alleged nuclear weapons program, according to a senior U.S. intelligence official. In addition to influencing Iranian leaders directly, the official said, “another option here is that [sanctions] will create hate and discontent at the street level so that the Iranian leaders realize that they need to change their ways.” The intelligence official’s remarks pointed to what has long been an unstated reality of sanctions: Although designed to pressure a government to change its policies, they often impose broad hardships on a population. The official spoke this week on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal administration assessments. The comments came as the administration readies punitive new sanctions that affect Iran’s central bank and the European Union moves toward strict curbs on Iranian oil imports. A senior administration official, speaking separately, acknowledged that public discontent was a likely result of more punitive sanctions against Iran’s already faltering economy, but said that is not the direct intent. “We have a policy that is rooted in the notion that you need to supply sufficient pressure to compel [the government] to change behavior as it’s related to their nuclear program,” this official said. “The question is whether people in the government feel pressure from the fact that there’s public discontent,” the official said, “versus whether the sanctions themselves are intended to collapse the regime.” A Western diplomat familiar with the policy said that it was “introducing in the cost-benefit analysis a new parameter in the calculus” of the Iranian government. “To the extent we have done that, it is not because we want to collapse the government. It is because we want the Iranian government to understand that is a possible cost in continuing the way it is,” the diplomat said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe the intent of the policy. Dennis B. Ross, who managed Iran policy on the National Security Council staff until November, said, “The sanctions all along have been designed to put the Iranians in a position where they had to make a choice, and if they did not make a choice,


develop its nuclear infrastructure — including a recently revealed second uranium-enrichment facility — the “pause” in the nation’s direct march toward a weapon continues, the intelligence official said. “Our belief is that they are reserving judgement on whether to continue with key steps they haven’t taken regarding nuclear weapons,” he said. “It’s not a technical problem,” he said, adding that Iran already has the capability to build a bomb. Israel, the intelligence official said, has “a different opinion. They think [Iran] has already made the decision. The possibility that Israel will take action on its own to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions is “a very serious concern,” the intelligence official said. If the Israelis attack, he said, “it is very clear that Iran will retaliate” against Israel and ultimately hold the United States responsible. “In the end,” the intelligence official said of Israel, “they’re a sovereign country. . . . How much notice they might give us, I don’t know.” The International Atomic Energy Agency’s latest report on Iran, in November, cited evidence suggesting a resumption of weapons research after 2004, including work on triggering devices as recent as 2007. Officials for the nuclear agency have acknowledged in interviews that the evidence is ambiguous. “The information indicates that Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device,” the nuclear agency said in its report. “The information also indicates that prior to the end of 2003, these activities took place under a structured programme, and that some activities may still be ongoing.” Although different countries and agencies are looking at the same evidence, U.S. officials have tended to be conservative in their interpretation, in what some of the European counterparts regard as a reaction to the U.S. intelligence missteps before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. “It is clear to everyone that, early in the last decade, a decision was made by Iran to close the ‘formal’ program,” said one European diplomat involved in internal IAEA discussions about Iran. “The question is whether the work is still being carried on, and to what end. It is harder to pin that down with exactitude.” Staff writer Joby Warrick contributed to this report. More world news coverage: - Syria’s Assad vows ‘iron fist’ against opposition - Bombing kills 30 in northwest Pakistan - Alleged U.S. spy sentenced to death in Iran - Read more headlines from around the world


On 10th anniversary, Guantanamo Bay’s future is unclear

counsel to some of the detainees. Last month, it was reported that the administration had seriously considered transferring five Afghan detainees as part of a package of mutual confidence-building with the Taliban. Initially, it was proposed that the five would be held under house arrest in Qatar. But for some activists, the prospect of renewed movement on emptying the detention center was clouded by the inclusion of Mohammad Fazl, a former Taliban deputy defense minister, on the list of those who could take their first steps toward freedom in a villa in Doha. Almost immediately after Fazl’s capture, in late 2001, Human Rights Watch urged the U.S. government to ensure that the former Taliban commander be brought before a tribunal to answer allegations that he had a role in war crimes committed by Taliban forces in central Afghanistan in 2000 and 2001. U.N. and Human Rights Watch investigators found that at least 170 members of a Shiite Muslim ethnic group, the Hazara, were summarily executed by the Taliban in January 2001. Numerous witnesses testified that Fazl visited the district where the massacre occurred, during the four days when the men were shot in public by firing squads, according to Human Rights Watch. The commander who oversaw the killing and served directly under Fazl was also held at Guantanamo but was released in 2003, before the United States knew who he was. Human Rights Watch also said that the records of at least two of the other four Afghans who could be transferred to Qatar should be investigated for possible prosecution. “It’s sad, tragic and ironic that someone who could have been prosecuted may be let go, but we’re not saying that Guantanamo is the proper place to hold war criminals,” said John Sifton, advocacy director for Asia at Human Rights Watch. “What we are saying is that they should be investigated and, in Fazl’s case especially, tried for war crimes.” Of the 171 detainees remaining at Guantanamo, 59 have been cleared for transfer. The Obama administration has determined that an additional 30 Yemenis could be repatriated if conditions improve in their homeland. The remainder would be prosecuted or held indefinitely, the administration has said. White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday that President Obama remains committed to closing the facility at Guantanamo. “We all are aware of the obstacles to getting that done as quickly as the president wanted to


For most-hurting Americans, Fed remedies limited

In the most difficult economy in a generation, middle-income and poor Americans are hurting the worst. Congress is tied in knots, barely able to pass even the most basic measures to help. That has put pressure on the one arm of government with the power and the flexibility to try to boost ordinary Americans’ fortunes: the Federal Reserve. But the limited policies the Fed has at its disposal mostly put money in the hands of the affluent, at least through their direct effects. The affluent, in turn, are less likely than most to spend that money in the wider economy. That may be a key reason that a series of dramatic steps by the central bank has not done more to raise living standards for American workers. The Fed has aimed to strengthen growth and lower joblessness by pumping cash into the economy, buying vast amounts of government bonds using newly printed money. The bond purchases have pushed up the stock market, in which the wealthy are much more heavily invested than the poor and the middle class. The bond purchases also have helped lower mortgage rates, and the affluent are more likely to buy a home — and have bigger homes to refinance — than those of lesser means. At the same time, Fed bond purchases tend to weaken the dollar, driving up the cost of imported oil — and the poor spend a higher proportion of their incomes on gasoline than the rich. If Fed policies succeed in invigorating the economy, millions of people looking for work — or worried about losing it — would be among the big winners, and leaders of the central bank see a need to do whatever they can to try to get the overall economy back on track. Obstacles to success But the success of those policies are limited by their very nature. The Fed, as a central bank, largely acts through bond market purchases and interest rate changes that do not equally affect segments of society. A wide range of research shows that the poorer people are, the more likely they are to spend any new money they get, which keeps it circulating through the economy. Wealthier people are more likely to save it, which does little to foster economic activity. In 2010, middle-income families — those making about $46,000 a year — spent 91 percent of their after-tax income. The


Prince George’s woman runs for recovery after losing husband to cancer

his passing than to be committing ourselves to raising money for LLS while challenging ourselves mentally, physically and emotionally,” she said. Since the beginning of February 2011, Blattner has been involved in charity races through a program called Team in Training, an LLS charity group that’s aided her in raising more than $15,000 toward cancer research through sponsorships she’s obtained from family, friends and supporters. She said running has been a great way to honor her husband, raise money for the cause and get in shape, noting that she has lost about 40 pounds since joining TNT. While John Blattner was undergoing treatments, which included chemotherapy, radiation and bone marrow transplants, the couple became involved with LLS by participating in a yearly charity walk called Light the Night, she said. When he became too ill to work, LLS provided financial aid. About 1 million people in the United States are living with a form of blood cancer, while every four minutes someone is diagnosed, said Lisa Iannarino, an LLS spokeswoman. Iannarino said Blattner’s motivation and ability to be so involved shortly after losing her husband has been an inspiration for their organization. “For us, to see someone who has lost someone so close to them to give back and do something right away reminds us of what we’re doing and why we’re doing it,” Iannarino said. “Katie is a reminder to us of the work we still have to do.” Blattner’s sister, Jennifer Moshier, said they run each Saturday to train and said running has been a great way to overcome the hardship. “My sister is one of the strongest people I know,” she said. “Her ability to prove to herself that she is capable of achieving anything is going to show her son, Isaiah, what it truly means to battle and overcome obstacles, in the long run.” Blattner said she was never a runner prior to joining the TNT program, but said it has helped with her healing and helped her push herself to do more than she thought she could. “It’s a constant reminder that no matter how bad I’m feeling during a run, it’s nothing compared to what John went through during his 3.5-year battle with cancer.” Iannarino said TNT is recruiting new members for the spring season of races, which includes four marathons and two triathlons. To become involved, call LLS at 703-399-2042 or visit www.teamintraining.org/nca.


Hit with rising food costs, indie restaurant owners cope creatively

restaurateurs are also swapping out cuts of meat and seafood, which typically make up about half their cost for each plate, for less expensive versions — which Goldin says is part of the reason for the big burger resurgence of 2011. In fact, Casten said he’s surprised salmon hasn’t become a more popular menu item, since it has plummeted in price from last year. “A savvy restaurateur is looking at these prices weekly and determining what items he can take advantage of,” he said. “When you’re an independent, each item is really important.” Negotiating with vendors For owners, haggling with distributors is nothing new, but some are making it an art form as they angle for every possible discount. Merrin, like others, said his restaurant has been tougher with its food vendors and distributors, working out deals for months in advance or accepting fewer deliveries while buying more. Jammet said Sweetgreen also signs price contracts with farmers for their orders. Marcus Giuliano, who owns the health-food restaurant Aroma Thyme Bistro in Ellenville, N.Y., said he wanted to upgrade to organic coconut milk from conventional, but coconut prices were skyrocketing. Rather than go to the wholesale company, he approached his broker and asked if there was anything they could do. “She set up an ongoing discount with the wholesale vendor,” he said. “The brokers are the ones that sometimes have flexibility.” Although it’s the most obvious solution, independent restaurateurs tend to be cautious about raising menu prices, said the National Restaurant Association’s vice president for research, Hudson Riehle. “Consumers are sensitive to price increases,” he said. “The decision to raise prices is not taken lightly. Grocery store prices are running at more than double the rate of menu price increases.” Several restaurant chains surveyed by the National Restaurant Association, including the Cheesecake Factory and Texas Roadhouse, said they plan to increase prices modestly this year. Previously, independent restaurants had to resist doing so, Cannon said, because any fluctuations in their pricing would send customers fleeing to the marginally cheaper national chains. But now that even mainstays like Starbucks are charging more, smaller shops may start to do so, as well. Merrin, from Havana Central, said that he’s raised prices about 3.5 percent in the past six months, and he might again this year. His margins have also taken a slight hit, but he said that as far as a restaurateur’s myriad


India advances in battle to eradicate polio

casual labor on farms and construction sites, potentially spreading the virus far and wide. “We needed a vaccine program that keeps up with this,” said Hamid Jafari, who runs the polio surveillance project for the WHO. “We needed to get the vaccine to the child before the virus got to the child.” The scale of the effort is mind-boggling. Last year, 2.3 million vaccinators administered 900 million oral polio vaccine doses in India to 172 million children younger than 5. Taking into account the constant migration of millions of Indians, vaccination booths were set up at train and bus stations, railway crossings and border posts, and 150,000 migrant settlements and slums where workers from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar could have ended up were covered. The monitoring is constant. Health centers, doctors and even faith healers are conditioned to report the first sign of symptoms that might indicate polio. Doctors and volunteers fan out every day to examine babies and collect stool samples for testing. The government provided more than $2 billion to help finance the campaign and demonstrated the sort of political leadership and commitment all too rarely seen on a public health issue here. Globally, the U.S. government has provided $2 billion for the polio eradication campaign, Rotary International has raised about $1 billion from its members, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has donated more than $1 billion. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention weighed in with crucial expertise. But the campaign has also been enormously controversial. Throughout its history, experts have said that the goal of eradication was simply not feasible or that far too much money and effort was being spent on the single-minded pursuit of polio eradication to the detriment of other, more pressing public health goals. There were setbacks, too. Just as the disease seemed to be coming under control, a fresh epidemic would send program leaders back to the drawing board and scientists back to the lab to design new, more effective forms of the vaccine. Despite India’s success, the battle is far from won. The virus is still endemic in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria. In Africa, Angola, Chad and Congo seemed to have won the battle against polio, but the virus was re-imported from abroad and person-to-person transmission restarted. A model for success India’s success is serving as a template for others. Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are states that have


Japan agrees to reduce oil imports from Iran

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s efforts to tighten economic sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program won backing from Japan a day after China rejected limiting oil imports from the country. (Kiyoshi Ota/BLOOMBERG) TOKYO — The Japanese pledge, made during a visit here by Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, stood in contrast to resistance this week from China, where officials say that Iran’s uranium program and its energy sales should not be linked. Japan imports roughly 10 percent of its oil from Iran, making it the Islamic republic’s second-biggest oil customer, behind China. Japanese Finance Minister Jun Azumi said Thursday that Japan would cut its use of Iranian oil “as soon as possible in a planned manner.” Japan has already reduced its reliance on Iranian oil by 40 percent in the past five years, Azumi said. Geithner undertook his quick trip to Asia’s two largest economies as part of the Obama administration’s effort to tighten sanctions on Iran, taking primary aim at its oil industry. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda told Geithner that he shared Washington’s concern about Iran’s nuclear program. But he also expressed worry about the targeting of Iran’s oil sector, saying that the sanctions “could cause serious effects on the Japanese and world economies,” according to a government statement. Oil prices are unlikely to rise sharply as long as China stands aloof from the U.S. campaign, analysts say. But if the sanctions take effect as envisaged, Iran could lose its major customers, all but eliminating it as an oil exporter. Oil prices would jump, and countries such as Japan — which is only 16 percent energy self-sufficient, with very few natural resources of its own — would face an increased burden. Japan imports more than three-quarters of its oil from the Middle East, mostly Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Since last year’s earthquake and tsunami triggered meltdowns at three nuclear reactors, the country has turned away from nuclear power. Only six of its 54 reactors are online. Separately Thursday, the Obama administration announced sanctions against three foreign companies — one of them from China — for trading with Iranian energy firms. The firms will be barred from obtaining U.S. export licenses or financing because of their history of allegedly selling gasoline or other refined petroleum products to Iran, the State Department said in a statement. The three firms were identified as Zhuhai Zhenrong of China,


Amtrak buying new locomotives, rail cars

Amtrak The new equipment will be a major upgrade for a system that now operates with locomotives that are 20 to 30 years old and some sleeper cars that are 60 years old, Amtrak President Joe Boardman said in announcing the federally subsidized passenger rail line’s plans for 2012. Though the new locomotives will be somewhat faster and the new cars will be able to travel at higher speeds, Boardman said the more significant improvement would come in reliability. New equipment breaks down less frequently After carrying a record 30.2 million passengers in 2011, Boardman said, Amtrak would continue upgrades to its 30-year-old reservation system and make improvements in New Jersey that will allow trains to reach speeds of 160 mph there. That $450 million project and a $72 million investment to replace track in four tunnels under the East River into New York were described as initial steps toward building a high-speed rail system in the United States. “We’ve got to go faster, we’ve got to be more reliable, we’ve got to be more on time,” Boardman said, “and we’ve got to coordinate all of that together in an investment in infrastructure for the Northeast corridor for the benefit of regional commuter and high-speed services.” The Obama administration’s ambitious proposal to build a national network of high-speed rail service has been caught in the maw of Congress amid budget-cutting and the aversion of some Republicans to the $1.5 billion annual Amtrak subsidy. House Transportation Committee Chairman John L. Mica takes delight in referring to Amtrak as the “Soviet-style” rail service. He has advocated splitting a proposed $117 billion high-speed rail system for the Northeast away from Amtrak in favor of an un-subsidized corporation. Unions and other Amtrak advocates have said that would rob the rail company of its only profitable route and leave it saddled with money-losing lines that span the rest of the country. The House has proposed reductions in Amtrak’s subsidy. “While some of our detractors expect us to fold our tent, we’re not going to do that,” Boardman said. “Uncertainty in federal funding and budget cuts are not new to Amtrak. Things are different now because of the financial difficulties and the pressures that are on absolutely everybody, from Amtrak all the way through every program.” Purchase of the locomotives will be funded through a loan from the Federal Railroad Administration. The rail cars — 25


of the American dream. “A fat bank account can be a means to these ends, but only a small minority believes that money is a worthy end in itself,” Ford writes. -- It’s not just about homeownership. A New York Times-CBS News poll found only 7 percent of Americans surveyed ranked homeownership as their first or second definition of the American dream. “Homeownership is more important to special interests than it is to most Americans, who, according to our research, care more about ‘a good job,’ ‘the pursuit of happiness’ and ‘freedom,’” Ford said. Got Financial Issues? On Monday “The Revolution” premieres at 2 p.m. ET on ABC. My first segment airs next Thursday, Jan. 19. This is your opportunity to meet me in person and let me help you with your financial issues. So, if you want to resolve a money dilemma, send an e-mail to casting@the-revolution.com. The show is looking for couples who are always arguing about money. For example, do you fight about how much to spend on your child’s birthday party, if you can afford to take a vacation or whether you should buy a new car? If you and your honey are fighting over money, send your story to the casting e-mail address, and put “Money Disputes” in the subject line. If you have any general questions about credit cards, your credit score, debt, savings, retirement planning, insurance or other financial issues that I may cover on the show, send an e-mail with your financial question to casting@the-revolution.com. Responses to “Consumers Finally Get Their Watchdog” President Obama’ s recent appointment of Richard Cordray as the director of the Consumer Federal Protection Bureau sparked some controversy. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a statement that Obama “has arrogantly circumvented the American people” by using his executive power to make a recess appointment. While Democratic lawmakers say the appointment was long overdue. For last week’s Color of Money question, I asked: “What are your thoughts on Obama sidestepping the Senate to appoint Cordray to the CFPB?” “This protection agency is a farce,” wrote Jeannette Mickey of McKinney, Tex. “It’s another government layer that will do very little for the American consumer. It will only increase our overwhelming debt burden.” Juliette Sager The majority of people responding to the question sided with Sager. “Republicans have worked very hard in the past three years to undercut President