Indonesia's Islamic Vigilantes

Abstract: CIREBON, INDONESIA — Before he strapped on his suicide vest, walked into a crowded police station mosque and blew himself up last month, Muhammad Syarif was typical of the scores of angry young men who pass their days at fundamentalist mosques in this coastal Javanese city. Mr. Syarif, 31, was a familiar face at often-violent protests, organized by local clerics, against alleged places of immorality, like karaoke bars and unregistered Christian churches. Last year, he joined mobs wielding sticks, staves and machetes who clashed with members of Ahmadiyya , a minority Muslim sect deemed heretical by fundamentalists. But to the police, Mr. Syarif was of little interest. Like many members of a small and vocal fringe of Islamist vigilante groups in Cirebon, Mr. Syarif operated with near-impunity as the local authorities turned a blind eye to — or even tacitly condoned, liberal Muslim leaders say — an atmosphere of intimidation against minorities and others deemed un-Islamic. No one, it seems, saw it coming when Mr. Syarif slipped into the police station mosque during Friday Prayer and detonated his bomb, killing himself and wounding 30 people, including the local police chief. The attack, which shocked Indonesians by occurring in a place of worship, points to what some analysts say is a disturbing trend. Across the country, they say, the authorities have largely stood by as fundamentalist vigilante groups have increasingly used street-level violence and intimidation in an attempt to turn Indonesia — a nonsectarian democracy where moderate Islam predominates — into a conservative Islamic state. Now, emboldened by a lack of official action, it appears some Islamist vigilantes are turning to terrorism. “I think there is a merging of extremist agendas,” said Sidney Jones, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, “and that’s why it becomes imperative that the government address the issue of intolerance.” “Because if we have a merging of the moralist agenda with the terrorist agenda, then ignoring the hard-liners that use blunt physical force in the effort to impose their views of morality, you are giving a green light to people who move one step further in using terrorism,” she said. Conservative Islam has exploded in influence in this Muslim-majority country since the 1998 protests ended the three-decade dictatorship of Suharto, which held political Islam firmly in check. For the most part, this has manifested itself in the growth of private piety and the development of a significant minority of Islamic politicians in local and national government. But there has also been growth at the fringe. At the most extreme end, terrorist groups have staged a series of deadly attacks, including the 2002 bombings in Bali, which killed 202 people. Successive police crackdowns have seen hundreds of militants arrested and key leaders killed. Terrorism is now at a low ebb, although militants still plan attacks — in April the police also uncovered a group that was alleged to have planned to bomb a church at Easter and to have sent mail bombs to prominent figures deemed “enemies of Islam.” Much more successful have been above-ground fundamentalist groups that use strong-arm tactics to push for Indonesia’s Islamization. Emerging after 1998, these groups have mounted raids against vices like gambling and prostitution and led mobs that have burned and ransacked churches. In politics, they have seen success by allying themselves with more mainstream conservative Muslim politicians, lending their muscle to campaigns to ban pornography and Ahmadiyya. For the most part, they are rarely arrested. In a striking example of official reluctance to tackle vigilante violence, video footage taken in February showed the police in West Java standing by as a mob killed three Ahmadiyya members and mutilated their bodies. Rather than lead to a crackdown on vigilantes, the incident prompted provincial and local governments to issue decrees curtailing the rights of Ahmadis to worship. In the case of the Cirebon bombing, it appears that Mr. Syarif was one person drawn from vigilante violence into terrorism, amid an atmosphere of official tolerance for hard-line intimidation, said Marzuki Wahid, co-founder of the Fahmina Institute, a Muslim human rights group. “My impression is that the authorities are letting this happen,” Mr. Marzuki said. “They’re cowards when it comes to facing these groups. Frankly, they’re rearing a tiger that wants to jab its master.” In Cirebon, a coalition of extremists grouped under an alliance called the Islamic Community Forum has during the past decade taken control of the city’s imposing central mosque and Islamic center, drawing power from a smattering of nearby mosques and boarding schools. From offices financed in part by the city government, the Forum-allied vigilante groups have mounted their campaigns, with the police often seeing them as an aid in maintaining local order, said Nuruzzaman, the local leader of Ansor, the youth movement of Indonesia’s largest mainstream Islamic organization, Nahdlatul Ulama. Local vigilante groups, however, see themselves as a last resort in the face of democratic Indonesia’s growing Westernization and official corruption, said Andi Mulya, a bearded cleric who heads the city’s most active group, the Forum’s Anti-Apostasy and Anti-Heresy Movement, also known as Gapas, whose protests Mr. Syarif attended. Like other Indonesian groups of its kind, Mr. Mulya said, Gapas documents cases of vice and blasphemy and reports them to the police. It is only if the police do not follow up, he said, that Gapas takes action. “What gets branded ‘radical,’ ‘anarchic’ or ‘violent’ is due to the failure of the government and the police to fairly enforce the law,” Mr. Mulya said. It was into this world that Mr. Syarif drifted several years ago as a poor, young man upset by his parents’ divorce, according to a younger brother, Muhammad Fatoni. Falling under the spell of Forum-aligned preachers, Mr. Syarif denounced less religious family members as “infidels,” Mr. Fatoni said. Although the police initially portrayed the bombing as the lone act of a self-starter jihadi, they now say Mr. Syarif was part of a larger terrorist cell that had planned further attacks and was linked to Jamaah Anshorut Tauhid, or J.A.T., the above-ground organization of Abu Bakar Bashir , an elderly cleric who is a founder of the Jemaah Islamiyah militant network and is currently on trial for overseeing another terrorist network in Aceh. So far the police have arrested 13 people in connection with the bombing, killed two suspects and recovered 14 additional bombs. One of the arrested was a brother of Mr. Syarif, Muhammad Basuki. The police have not yet said when and how they believe Mr. Syarif joined the terrorist cell, but a pattern of increasing radicalism and violence is clear. Despite a reputation for violence at Gapas protests, Mr. Syarif largely stayed off the police radar until last September, when he joined a group of 11 people who smashed bottles of alcohol in Cirebon convenience stores. Those raids were organized by the local leader of J.A.T., Agung Nur Alam, who operates in alliance with other clerics at Cirebon’s city mosque. The police now say that Mr. Syarif was a member of J.A.T., although Mr. Nur Alam has denied this. Among the items seized when the police arrested six members of the group was a laptop containing video showing Mr. Syarif being trained for a terrorist attack, the police said. Whether this piece of evidence went unnoticed, or was simply not acted on, is unclear. In early April, Mr. Syarif’s driver’s license was found at the scene of the fatal stabbing of a soldier. Less than two weeks later, Mr. Syarif carried out his bombing. For Mr. Nuruzzaman, the local youth movement leader, it is no surprise the police missed the budding terrorist group in their midst. “Because the government is letting things go, groups like this are doing ‘sweeping’ operations on minorities, so they feel they’ve got the power to do anything,” Mr. Nuruzzaman said. “If the state was acting firmly against them, I’m convinced this wouldn’t go on.” The police, however, deny there is any broader connection between the rising tide of vigilante violence and the uncovered network. The man who became police chief after the bombing, Lt. Col. Asep Edi Suheri, denied that the police condoned Islamic hard-liners, or that the latter presented a security risk. “Not everyone in these Islamic organizations is a radical,” he said. “It’s a just a few rogue individuals.”

Indonesia
Terrorism
Jemaah Islamiyah
Bashir Abu Bakar
Aceh Province (Indonesia)
Muslims and Islam


Meredith Is Said to Be Set to End Media General Deal

Abstract: The Nexstar Broadcasting Group may finally get the deal with Media General it has been trying to consummate for six months. The Meredith Corporation is preparing to abandon its last-ditch plea to combine with Media General, said people briefed on the discussions. The company may announce its decision as soon as Wednesday, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Once it does, Nexstar will be free to acquire Media General, which it cannot do until Meredith agrees to terminate its previous agreement with Media General. In August, Media General, which operates 71 television stations across the United States, rebuffed a takeover offer by Nexstar. Media General then decided to seek a deal to acquire Meredith, which also operates television stations and publishes magazines like Better Homes and Gardens. Several weeks ago, Nexstar reached an agreement to acquire Media General for $2.3 billion, plus a so-called contingent-value right, which added as much as $549 million depending on how much Media General’s spectrum gets at a coming auction. But that deal was contingent on Meredith’s agreeing to break its agreement with Media General, which Meredith was not keen to do. Instead, Meredith revised the plan to merge with Media General, an arrangement that accorded Media General cash from the transaction, as opposed to using cash to purchase Meredith. Since then, however, it had become clear to Meredith that Nexstar was committed to the tie-up with Media General, two of the people said. Meredith decided to accept a $60 million breakup fee and other benefits, like a first look at some of the assets whose divestiture would be required to win approval of Nexstar’s acquisition of Media General, they said. Meredith’s expected capitulation was earlier reported by Bloomberg .

Meredith
Media General
Nexstar Broadcasting Group
Mergers and Acquisitions


Deron Williams Directs Nets to Victory at Atlanta

Abstract: ATLANTA — One night after his 3-point bonanza, Deron Williams gave the nets a break. He did not try to replicate his record night from beyond the arc, but instead controlled the pace offensively and defensively against one of the fastest teams in the Eastern Conference. Williams was the point guard, not the shooting guard, and his floor game helped make for an impressive 93-80 win over the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday night at Philips Arena. It was the third straight win for the Nets, who improved to 37-26. And it was a vital win because it was another sign that the Nets could trust Williams, their $100 million guard, who has played like an All-Star since the All-Star break. “That was as good a game as we played all year, considering we played last night,” Coach P. J. Carlesimo said. “From the point we were down 10, or whatever we were, we can’t play much better.” He added: “We took care of the ball so well. I think we had two turnovers the second half. Our defensive energy was good all night.” Williams scored 42 points, and had 11 3-pointers, in Friday’s win over Washington. While he was a modest 5 of 13 from the field against Atlanta, the rest of his game was stellar. Williams had six assists, made just one turnover in 33 minutes and efficiently directed a halfcourt offense that plowed under the Hawks (34-28). “We need for it to click like that,” Williams said. “We did get down early, but we were able to take hold of the game and didn’t really look back.” Carlesimo said the Nets had an advantage because the Hawks were still playing in overtime at Boston on Friday night when the Nets were leaving their arena after whipping Washington. The Nets seized on that advantage by getting back on defense before the Hawks could rev up their transition game. The Nets are the slower team in the backcourt, but they did not play that way Saturday night. The Nets made just 9 turnovers and had 20 assists on 36 baskets. “When we are that focused and play with that much attentiveness as we did tonight and that much energy, we can be a really good basketball team,” Carlesimo said. “It’s one game, but that’s really, really encouraging in a back-to-back against a good team.” Williams scored 17 points, and his stewardship of the offense made sure the Nets took advantage of the Hawks’ middle, which was without center Zaza Pachulia. The Nets got 18 points from center Brook Lopez and 18 points from the reserve center Andray Blatche, who made 9 of 11 shots. The two big men combined to make 17 of 27 field-goal attempts. “The focus for me at halftime was to get those hooks going down,” Lopez said. “I missed a few easy ones in the first half. We really wanted to attack the basket and open up the floor for us. Zaza is a huge part of what they do defensively, especially filling up the lane, so we wanted to take advantage of his absence.” Williams said there was no temptation to hoist 3-point attempts and continue his binge. For one thing, long 3-pointers that miss can fuel a fast team like the Hawks. There was also the matter of feeding the post, where the Nets dominated the Hawks. “Almost every time you have a big game like that, the next one’s not as good,” said Williams, who noted that he had seven 3-point attempts. (He made two.) The Nets played poorly at the outset and fell behind, 11-1, but they recovered to take a 51-37 lead at the half. Williams had no turnovers in 17 minutes of playing time in a patient display of running the offense. Blatche contributed 8 points as the Nets’ bench outscored Atlanta’s reserves, 21-8, the first two periods. The third quarter has been a problem for the Nets for most of the season, but it was not on Saturday. The lowest-scoring team in the N.B.A. in the third period (21.7), the Nets outscored the Hawks, 25-20, in the quarter because they took advantage of the inside matchup with Lopez, who made 6 of 9 shots in the quarter and scored 14 of his 18 points. When Lopez was done with the Hawks in the third, Blatche started to work them over. The 6-foot-11 Blatche made his first five shots of the fourth period, including an up-and-under shot from the baseline. With three minutes left, the game effectively ended when Williams drove past Hawks guard John Jenkins for a layup to make the score 92-72. “It was a good win for us,” Williams said. “I wasn’t trying to go out there and get 40 again.”

Atlanta Hawks
Basketball
Brooklyn Nets
P J Carlesimo


Merits of Buying vs. Renting a Home - Economic Scene

Abstract: WASHINGTON Real estate agents across the country are aggressively making the case that now is a good time to buy a house. Mortgage rates are near record lows and will probably rise in coming years. Home prices may not be done falling, but they probably don’t have much further to go in most places either. Rents, on the other hand, seem set to increase, thanks to low vacancy rates . “Renters beware,” warned a newsletter that I recently received from a real estate agents’ group. Individually, each of these points is unobjectionable. But it’s important to remember the source. Real estate agents, like mortgage brokers and home builders, have a big financial stake in persuading people to buy homes. That’s why many agents are always pushing home buying, whatever the rationale of the moment happens to be. The truth is that you can make just as strong a case in many places for renting. For starters, neither mortgage rates nor rents are likely to rise rapidly. Even more important, house prices, relative to rents, remain higher than their long-term average, especially in much of California , the Pacific Northwest and the New York region. In these places, among others, renting is often cheaper than buying — still. I’ve made a near-annual habit in this column of looking at the rent-versus-buy decision , and The Times has built an online calculator so that readers can make their own comparisons. The idea isn’t only to help potential buyers but also to figure out whether and where house prices are overvalued. That question is of obvious importance to homeowners and to the American economy. As this year’s spring buying season nears its peak, the relative merits of renting and buying are closer than they have been since the housing bubble began inflating almost a decade ago. So the best single piece of advice for most people is to make a decision based mainly on their stage of life, rather than on any complex financial calculations. If you think you are ready to settle in one place for at least five years, if not more, buying often makes a lot of sense. That’s why I bought my first house, in the Washington area, a few years ago, despite thinking local prices remained high. But if the chances are good that you will move again in the next few years, renting is usually the better bet. The various closing costs , including real estate agents’ fees, are just too high. Owning a house also makes it much harder to move when you want to because selling a house is complicated. Within this basic framework, the numbers — specifically, something called rent ratios — are the next place to turn. A rent ratio is the sale price of a house divided by the annual cost of renting an equivalent house. When the ratio is below 15, most people should lean toward buying. To see why, look at the Atlanta area, where the average ratio is now about 13. Combined with today’s low interest rates, that ratio means that the typical monthly mortgage payment is several hundred dollars lower than the rent on an equivalent house. Over time, this difference helps make up for the other costs of owning, like closing costs and borrowing costs. And, yes, a mortgage costs money, despite the tax deduction. Only if home prices in Atlanta fall further and don’t recover for years would most buyers today have reason for regret. The other areas where the average ratio is below 15, according to Moody’s Analytics, include Los Angeles , Miami , Minneapolis , St. Louis , Las Vegas , Cleveland, Detroit , Phoenix , Pittsburgh and Tampa , Fla. On the other end of the spectrum are metropolitan areas where prices still look bubbly. In San Diego , the ratio was 22 at the end of last year (and most ratios have fallen only slightly since then). In northern and central New Jersey , it was 25, and it was 29 in Manhattan . In Silicon Valley and the nearby East Bay in California, the ratio was above 30. All these numbers are well down from their peaks from about five years ago. But they’re still higher than they were in the decades before the housing bubble. They are also high enough to make the monthly costs of owning steeper than the costs of renting. As a rule of thumb, a ratio above roughly 20 means that a monthly mortgage bill is higher than rent for a similar house. In Silicon Valley, the after-tax mortgage payment on a typical house might be $3,500 — while the rent on the same house would be only about $2,500. The arithmetic of owning then gets mighty tough. On top of closing costs and mortgage costs, owners are also falling further behind renters each month. To make up that ground, house prices would have to rise significantly over the next few years. Does that sound like a good bet? When you look at the numbers this way, it’s easy to conclude that the excesses of the housing bubble are mostly gone in much of the country. Yet you also start wondering whether New York, San Francisco , Seattle and a few other places still have a housing crash in their future. I realize there are some important caveats here. Affluent people tend to want to own their houses, even when the dollars don’t make sense, and the Northeast and West Coast are home to much more wealth than a few decades ago. That could cause future rent ratios to be higher than those in the 1990s or even the 1980s, a better decade for real estate. Meanwhile, the coming rise in rents — maybe 4 or 5 percent a year, for the next few years — will reduce rent ratios even if prices don’t fall. Yet the fact remains that a lot of New Yorkers and Californians, among others, are paying a hefty premium for the privilege of owning. Eventually, some of them may decide it’s not worth it, much as homebuyers in Las Vegas, Phoenix and Florida ultimately decided that prices were too high. If that happens, prices in New York and California will fall, too. A crash strikes me as unlikely. But any potential homebuyers should know that real estate exuberance — irrational exuberance, it seems — has survived in at least a few places.


Lion Researchers Call for More Fences to Save the Big Cats

Abstract: After 35 years of field research in the Serengeti plains, Craig Packer, director of the Lion Research Center at the University of Minnesota , has lost all patience with the romance of African wilderness. Fences, he says, are the only way to stop the precipitous and continuing decline in the number of African lions. “Reality has to intrude,” he said. “Do you want to know the two most hated species in Africa, by a mile? Elephants and lions.” They destroy crops and livestock, he said, and sometimes, in the case of lions, actually eat people. Dr. Packer’s goal is to save lions. Fencing them in, away from people and livestock, is the best way to do that, he believes, both for conservation and economics. He made that argument in a paper this month in Ecology Letters , along with 57 co-authors, including most of the top lion scientists and conservationists. The paper lays out the value of fences in clear terms, although it stops short of endorsing fencing as the only sensible option. That is Dr. Packer’s own view. With a growing human population whose rights must be respected, he says, open and free co-existence with lions is not practical, nor is it fair to the humans who have to live with the big cats. In conversation, Dr. Packer goes beyond the measured scientific prose of the paper, venting his frustration with the fantasy often offered to tourists of a free and unfettered African wilderness. “That’s 130 years ago,” he said. “I’m just trying to push people to admit the obvious. Let’s get real here.” Lions in Africa have lost 75 percent of their range in the last 100 years, problems between people and lions have increased, and some populations suffer from genetic isolation. Panthera , a conservationist organization devoted to big cats, estimates that there are 30,000 lions in Africa today, down from 200,000 lions 100 years ago. Some populations are doing well, like those in the Serengeti, which is not fenced, and those in large and small reserves in South Africa. Using surveys from 42 sites in 11 countries in Africa, the authors of the paper in Ecology Letters concluded that without fencing, it would cost $2,000 a square kilometer, or less than half a square mile, annually to keep lions at 50 percent of their potential numbers. With fencing, the cost would be $500 a year to maintain 80 percent of their potential numbers. Some of the preserves in South Africa are vast. Kruger National Park covers 7,500 square miles, an area larger than Connecticut and Rhode Island together. Fencing itself is expensive, costing about $3,000 a kilometer, or six-tenths of a mile, to install. But without it, the paper concludes, almost half of the unfenced lion populations could come close to extinction in the next few decades. Not all the authors see fencing as the only solution, although they recognize its value in many situations. Luke Hunter, the president of Panthera, and a co-author, said, “it’s clear that fencing does help lion conservation.” And, he said, people outside of Africa underestimate the difficulties posed by lions, which, he said, are “really, really difficult to live with if you’re a subsistence human population that depends on livestock.” But, Dr. Hunter said, he had reservations about wholesale fencing. He said the authors had not been able to evaluate the effectiveness of the various efforts to resolve conflicts between lions and people, including livestock management and other issues, because there had simply not been enough of them. Also, he said, “there are still huge parts of wilderness in Africa,” where conflicts between humans and lions are not yet a problem. And if Africa’s burgeoning human population concentrates in cities rather than fanning out through wilderness areas, he said, there might be fewer problems between the species, diminishing the need for fencing. Both Dr. Packer and Dr. Hunter believe that developed countries in the West, and institutions like the World Bank, must contribute more to protect Africa’s resources, which can help generate economic development through tourism. Many African countries will need help. Even if they choose fencing as the most cost effective solution, some can’t afford it on their own. Fencing the Selous Game Reserve in Tanzania, for instance, would cost $30 million, Dr. Packer said. The area must then be managed. At about 17,000 square miles, the yearly bill to manage the lion population there, fenced, would be $22 million. And that is not the only lion area in Tanzania. The needs of the human population must be recognized, Dr. Packer said, and fencing helps to do that.

Lion
Craig Packer
University of Minnesota
Africa
Wilderness


India’s Top Court Bars Campaigns Based on Identity Politics

Abstract: NEW DELHI — India’s Supreme Court ruled on Monday that candidates for political office cannot appeal to voters on the basis of religion, caste, community or language, arguing that India’s Constitution enshrines its elections as fundamentally secular. A majority of four justices ruled that elections won on religious- or caste-based appeals by candidates or their proxies could be declared null and void. Three justices, in a dissent, argued that such topics were constitutionally protected free speech. The ruling came as India prepared for a wave of assembly elections in seven states, seen as an important test of the strength of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. It also called into question an essential characteristic of Indian politics, whose secular nature often seems skin-deep. Rajdeep Sardesai, a journalist, said on Twitter that according to this ruling, the majority of those in Parliament “should lose their seats.” Other commentators shrugged off the judgment as impossible to put into effect. Political movements based on identity have led to major social change in India in recent decades. Lower-caste leaders have swept to power promising to right historical injustices. Throngs have taken to the streets demanding the right to use indigenous languages. Hindu right-wing activists have routinely rallied their electorate around allegations of wrongdoing by Muslims. Caste-based reservations are used in India in much the same way as race-based affirmative action is in the United States. Ashutosh Varshney, a professor of international studies at Brown University, called the decision “very mystifying,” offering the example of Kumari Mayawati , who was born a Dalit, in a caste of so-called untouchables. She rose to become the leader of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state. “Suppose she mobilizes Dalits on the basis of Dalit suffering. Would that be seen as a violation of this Supreme Court judgment?” he asked. “The Supreme Court appears to be saying that identity-based politics should be outlawed. But identity-based politics cannot be easily outlawed.” If candidates use the ruling to mount legal challenges to their opponents, he added, it could heat up an already combative process. “It’s a new weapon presented to adversarial politics, and it’s unlikely that adversarial politics will not use it,” he said. Some political forces already seemed poised to use the judgment to their advantage. The general secretary of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, a right-wing Hindu nationalist organization, said the judgment marked the end of “vote-bank politics,” a phrase often used to refer to the Indian National Congress’s mobilization of minority voting blocs, including Muslims. The head of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, a Muslim political group, was similarly enthusiastic, telling the Indo-Asian News Service that the order “should be implemented in letter and spirit.”

India
Election
Decisions and Verdicts
Supreme Court of India


2nd Disability Exam Advised for L.I.R.R. Workers

Abstract: The federal Railroad Retirement Board, which approves disability payments for just about every railroad employee who requests them, should first require that workers undergo independent physical exams — something that infrequently happens now — to prove that they are actually disabled, federal investigators said in a new report. The recommendation, if adopted by the board, would fundamentally change the way it decides disability cases for workers across the nation. At present, rail workers claiming a disability are able to select their own doctors for medical evaluations. At the Long Island Rail Road , where more than 90 percent of career employees retire early and then apply for the payments, many of the workers used the same small group of doctors for their evaluations. In a memorandum obtained by The New York Times, the railroad board’s inspector general, Martin J. Dickman, said a second, independent medical screening “will not only ensure proper medical review, it may also identify possible instances where there is collusion between the applicant and the doctor.” The three-member board will be under pressure to embrace the recommendation, amid widespread public criticism of its operations and four separate investigations focusing largely on the situation at the Long Island Rail Road. The New York State attorney general last week issued subpoenas seeking testimony from five doctors in Queens and on Long Island who evaluated some of the railroad’s workers. In September, The Times reported that the Long Island Rail Road, where highly unusual union contracts let many workers retire as early as age 50, had by far the nation’s highest rate of disabled rail workers. Since 2000, those workers had collected about a quarter of a billion dollars in federal disability payments, records show. After the article’s publication, federal investigators, including F.B.I. agents, raided the Westbury, N.Y., office of the retirement board, carrying out records and computers. The board is also being investigated by the inspectors general of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the retirement board, as well as by Andrew M. Cuomo, the state’s attorney general. Steven A. Bartholow, the retirement board’s general counsel, said the board was studying Mr. Dickman’s recommendation, but he could not predict when board members would act. “When you’ve got as many organizations looking into the program as we have, you can’t put time frames on anything,” Mr. Bartholow said. “You don’t want to make a decision without giving full consideration to what’s being recommended.” In deciding disability cases, the retirement board currently relies not only on written statements from an applicant’s doctor, but also on M.R.I.’s and X-rays that may capture abnormalities common to people over the age of 50. Disability experts say those abnormalities might not affect the ability of workers to perform their regular railroad jobs. Under retirement board rules, rail workers can be declared occupationally disabled if they are unable to do their regular jobs, even if they could do other jobs. In his memo to the board, dated Oct. 10, Mr. Dickman also criticized railroad employers for not returning forms requesting accurate job descriptions of those seeking disabilities. “A review for calendar year 2007 shows that these forms were sent to railroad employers for 2,566 occupational decisions,” the memo stated. “The forms were returned to the agency for less than 5 percent of these requests.”

Railroads
Long Island Rail Road Co
Handicapped
Federal Railroad Administration


Home Crowd Helps Boost Turkey Against a Rival

Abstract: ANKARA, Turkey — The shrill whistles, the deafening din of Thundersticks and singsong chants began a half-hour before Greece played Turkey at the world championships. Centuries of tension between these ancient rivals reverberated during each possession. “Certainly, Greece and Turkey have never been any kind of allies — ever,” said Ilber Orbayli, one of Turkey’s pre-eminent historians and the director of Topkapi Palace. “So the rivalry, of course, is very high.” Amid an atmosphere than makes Red Sox-Yankees or Auburn-Alabama feel like pillow fights or patty-cake, Turkey pulled away for an impressive 76-65 victory. Turkey improved to 3-0 in Group C. The game showed that any game featuring the Turks in the knockout round will be a daunting contest. “Our fans are great today,” the Turkish guard Kerem Tunceri said. “Before the tournament here, we talked a lot about this. When we get down they help us a lot. We have to use it.” Despite being NATO allies, there is a reason Greece and Turkey celebrate their national days of independence because of victories over the other. They have fought four wars since the late 1890s, but with foreign ministers from both counties in the stands, there is an appearance of an active effort of cooperation. The Turkish coach, Bogdan Tanjevic, who is from Montenegro, called the game a “gentleman’s fight.” Egemen Bagis, a Turkish Parliament member who is Turkey’s minister for European Union affairs and chief negotiator, said that relations with Greece had been gentlemanly, as well. “This is not about rivalry,” he said in an e-mail. “This is the art of cohabitation. If you look back, in the last seven, eight years, Turkey has been immensely successful in tearing down its taboos and impediments. That’s why we are more flexible and more actively seeking reconciliation.” The Greeks entered the game with a backdrop of on-court violence. Greece played for the first time in this tournament with two of its stars, Sofoklis Schortsanitis and Antonios Fotsis, who had been suspended for their roles in the bloody brawl with Serbia during an exhibition leading to the world championships. But for Greece, the full roster did not matter. It could not stop Milwaukee Bucks forward Ersan Ilyasova. He finished with 26 points on 6-for-6 shooting from 3-point range. He sparked a third-quarter flurry that put the game out of range and turned the fourth quarter into a one big party of singing and flag waving. Aside from some sporadic booing during the Greek national anthem, there was little derogatory action from the fans, just raw energy. “When you play against Greece, it used to be more of a patriotic thing,” said Omer Bozer, a former junior national team member who served as a Turkish Basketball Federation board member. “Not anymore, though. The world is changing.” There were times when on-court scuffles were the norm in this rivalry, at the national-team level and when professional teams from the countries would play each other. “Lately, it has been a lot more civilized,” said Ali Ton, a native of Turkey and former junior national team player who is now an assistant at U.C.-Irvine. “It’s changing. I can remember after the games on the junior team, you would have to sprint to the locker room without shaking hands.” The Greek forward Ioannis Bourousis said, “It’s no problem,” in describing the rivalry between the players. “This is political.” What Bourousis alluded to is part of what makes the Greece-Turkey rivalry so interesting, as the countries have so many similarities. The Greeks and the Turks drink similar coffee, with a layer of sediment at the bottom, though do not dare go to Athens and order a Turkish coffee or vice versa. Both cultures tend to eat similar food; yogurts, lamb and desserts like baklava are staples in both places. Pop culture offers another example in recent years of how the neighbors are co-existing better, as the popular soap opera, “The Foreign Groom,” featured the family drama of a Greek man’s marrying a Turkish woman. “Greek people and Turkish people are very similar,” said Aytek Gurkan, a former Turkish national team point guard who appeared in 82 games for Turkey. “Our governments don’t like each other very much.” While the players on the court are often friends and have a mutual respect, Gurkan said, it is the outside pressure of the fans and older generations that drives the rivalry. “When we came to the court, in our time, they told us, ‘You have to win the game against Greece and then you’ll be a Turkish national team player,’ ” said Gurkan, who played for Turkey in the 1980s. The same sentiment resonated Tuesday when the capacity crowd at Ankara Arena rocked as if those centuries of tension were still building. And while an ancient rivalry becomes more civilized, Turkey showed that it is going to be a formidable foe to beat on its home soil.

Turkey
Greece
Topkapi Palace
Basketball
Schortsanitis Sofoklis


Federer’s Australian Debut Offers No Reply to Rivals’ Optimism

Abstract: MELBOURNE, Australia — He has been Roger the Great for so long that when Roger Federer turns in a merely mortal performance, as he did Tuesday in the first round of the Australian Open, people start to wonder: what’s wrong? The world’s top-ranked player, Federer was pushed past three sets for the first time in 25 opening-round Grand Slam matches by Igor Andreev, whose heavy topspin disarmed Federer’s backhand. Federer ended up winning, 4-6, 6-2, 7-6 (2), 6-0, but his performance in the past year has given his rivals increased hope. Federer lost to Juan Martín Del Potro at the United States Open last year, and he has dropped finals since to Novak Djokovic and Nikolay Davydenko, who beat him at the ATP World Tour Finals in London and again this month in Qatar. In fact, Davydenko has been so emboldened by those victories , he has declared himself to the man to beat here. “Now everyone’s scared of me,” Davydenko said. “It’s an interesting feeling. Now I feel like I can beat everyone.” Federer, who has a record 15 Grand Slam titles, shrugged off Davydenko’s challenge, but he was not surprised it was offered. “Scared is a bad word; I don’t like that word,” Federer said. “Ask a boxer if he’s scared of the other guy. I don’t think he’s going to say yes.” Still, he knows his peers are questioning his motivation after an eventful year in which he married, became a father to twin daughters, and captured his first French Open . Federer is 28 , after all, which can be a fragile age in a sport that demands flawless fitness and total concentration. “I maybe wasn’t as successful as I wanted to be, you know, the last few tournaments, but I was able to reach No. 1 in the world,” he said. “But, obviously, the back to back with the French and Wimbledon was an amazing accomplishment for me.” Federer has heard one after another of his rivals — players he used to dominate — declare this tournament one of the most wide-open Grand Slam tournaments in years. Even Federer’s perennial foil, Rafael Nadal, has conceded that perhaps “12 or 13 players have a good chance.” It is clear no one is in awe of, or even really fears, Federer here. “Davydenko has been in the top five, six players in the world for the last four or five years at least, and he’s had a couple good wins over Federer,” said Andy Murray, also looking to win his first Grand Slam tournament. “Del Potro has beaten Federer as well the last couple times he played in big tournaments. So there’s no reason why those two can’t have great tournaments.” All will be watching Federer’s second-round match with Victor Hanescu on Thursday for further signs his skills have eroded or his dedication waned. He feels certain that no one is mentally tougher than he is, especially in the best-of-five format that makes Grand Slam events a true test of a champion. “I just think in best of five, you have more the mental strength that comes into it, physical strength,” he said. “It’s not so much up to chance. Best of three sets is always over in a hurry.” It is why he did not panic after dropping the first set against Andreev, and getting in serious trouble twice in the third set. “I would have been at one set all and a break down, and close from being out,” he said. “You still know you have some way to go. He get tired in the fourth set a little bit. If you can take advantage of it, the tougher player comes through.” Over all, Federer said he was happy with his performance Tuesday, even though he was often handcuffed and run ragged. He refuses to handicap the field as well. He has won this tournament three times, and played an epic final here last year. “Focus is completely on my own game and not really who’s playing well,” Federer said. “I know if my body is there and my game is there, I can beat anybody. You only see that after the first week is over, who’s really in good shape and stuff. So the way I’m feeling now, I’m very happy. I can really concentrate on the way I want to play and not on my body or anything.” He added, “It’s not very deep yet, but at least I got some information, and I feel like I’m playing really well.” Notes Kim Clijsters made swift work of Tamarine Tanasugarn, needing 1 hour 40 minutes for a 6-3, 6-3 victory in the second round. Andy Roddick, the world’s No. 7, advanced as well, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4, over Thomaz Bellucci.

Federer Roger
Australian Open (Tennis)
Tennis


Nuns Who Sold Honus Wagner Card for $220,000 Knew Donor Well

Abstract: BALTIMORE — The School Sisters of Notre Dame imagine that there is a special place in heaven for the man who helped their Roman Catholic order’s international teaching and ministry and its work with the poor. “He was such a private man, a wonderful, kind and gentle man, so we all decided that he probably wanted his name to be confidential,” Sister Kathleen Cornell, the leader of the order’s Atlantic-Midwest province, said. “So it will be our secret. But, of course, God also knows the gift that he gave us.” When the man died of cancer last Feb. 3, donations to the nuns were requested in lieu of flowers. He also bequeathed to the nuns his estate, worth more than $1 million, including a 100-year-old Honus Wagner baseball card . The nuns were not surprised that the man remembered them in his will because he cared so much for the church and, at 85, had no immediate family. The nuns were surprised, though, to find the card in a safe deposit box with a typewritten note attached: “Although damaged, the value of this baseball card should increase exponentially throughout the 21st century!” The donor, the brother of a deceased nun who belonged to the order, knew his T206 series Honus Wagner card was rare. Produced from 1909 to 1911, about 60 are known to exist. One in near-perfect condition sold for $2.8 million in 2007, a record price for a baseball card. The nuns’ Wagner card was sold for $220,000 last month. When the man acquired the card in 1936, the order — established in 1833 in Germany — was much more robust. Now the median age of the sisters is 76, and membership has dwindled to 3,500 in 31 countries. Sister Vincent — the donor’s sole sibling, the nuns said — entered the order when she was 21. She grew up in New Jersey, then earned doctorates in physics and mathematics from the Catholic University of America, in Washington. Later, she taught at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland. After a brain aneurysm in the 1990s, Sister Vincent was cared for here at Villa Assumpta’s infirmary, where her brother often sat at her bedside. The nuns knew him well. He had lived in Englewood, N.J., and had worked for the Ford Motor Company in New York before moving to Stewartstown, Pa., to be closer to Sister Vincent. She was all he had; he never married and had no children. “They were so devoted to each other,” Sister Bernice Feilinger said. “He believed in our mission and was so proud of his sister. His eyes would light up whenever he talked about her.” After Sister Vincent died at the age of 77 in October 1999, he continued to visit on Sundays, often in a green sports jacket and tie. He would attend Mass and take some sisters to lunch, Sister Bernice said. He disliked talking about himself, the nuns said. But they do know he was meticulous: in his safe deposit box was $1,000 and a note saying it was a safety net for any Y2K bank glitches. A Ford company newsletter said he had worked in dealer development and had taken care of his mother until her death. It called him “a career automobile man” who had worked at Packard, Studebaker and Mercedes before landing at Ford, and it said he was “a very private and religious person.” The nuns said he had been a Marine who fought in World War II in the South Pacific. “He didn’t like to talk about the war,” Darrin Danner, a neighbor, said. “He kept to himself and never really went outside. He bought the land next to him, so he could have more privacy.” Danner said his neighbor had planted bamboo around his house because it reminded him of the South Pacific. He once told the nuns that hiding in bamboo had saved his life. The sisters have put the man’s house on the market for nearly $300,000. After picking up the baseball card, Sister Virginia Muller, the order’s former treasurer, searched the Internet to determine its worth. When she saw the value of other Wagner cards, her jaw dropped. “I very carefully put it into the back of my files,” she said, laughing. “Then quickly insured it.” Wagner, a shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates nicknamed the Flying Dutchman, was one of the first five players inducted into the Hall of Fame. He was featured on the T206 card produced by the American Tobacco Company only briefly because, some sports memorabilia experts say, he did not want to promote tobacco products to children. “I would say 8 out of 10 times someone brings us a Honus Wagner card it’s counterfeit, so we were skeptical about this one,” said Derek Grady, director of grading for Sportscard Guaranty, which authenticated the card. “It was real, but in very bad shape. If it wasn’t trimmed down, creased and shellacked, it could have been worth a million dollars.” Long before the card was sold, sports were popular at Villa Assumpta, which houses about 75 retired and ill nuns. In the common room, baseball and football games are often shown on the big-screen television. The local teams are the favorites, with some nuns sporting team colors on game days. Sister Mary Agatho Ford, who died at 100 in 2003, had received a signed photo and baseball from Cal Ripken for her 98th birthday. They are displayed in a glass case next to other cherished items, including chalices that deceased sisters held dear. The company that sold the Wagner card, Heritage Auction Galleries in Dallas, had told the nuns to expect it to bring $150,000. But as soon as their story went public , the card grew in value. “Provenance is always important in collectibles, and the nuns provided a neat background story,” Chris Ivy, director for sports auctions at Heritage, said. In November, a sports memorabilia store owner won the auction by bidding $262,900 , including a $42,900 commission. But he never paid the money. So just before Christmas, the auction house offered the card to Nicholas DePace, a cardiologist in the Philadelphia area who is one of the nation’s top sports memorabilia collectors. He bought it for $220,000, and the nuns received every penny. Two days later, Heritage called DePace to ask if he wanted to quickly resell the card for a $60,000 profit. “I said, ‘What’s the matter with you guys?’ ” DePace said. “It’s no longer just a baseball card; it’s become a religious relic, a St. Jude of memorabilia. I’m keeping it.” DePace said that his archbishop would bless the card and that its eventual home would be a nonprofit sports museum he plans to open in Collingswood, N.J. Sister Virginia said Wagner’s granddaughter called to say she was thrilled that the card had helped the nuns. “I wish I knew more of the story, like where he got the card or why he kept it,” Sister Virginia said of the beloved donor. “But I guess it will remain a mystery.”

Nuns
Baseball
Wagner Honus
Trading Cards
Memorabilia and Souvenirs
Roman Catholic Church


Airport Body Scanner Inventor Recalls Early Opposition

Abstract: CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Thirty years ago, Martin Annis devised an X-ray technology for body scanners that unsettled some people. He had so much trouble finding a woman to test the machine on that he had to pay a family member $20 to try it. “We had difficulty getting volunteers because everybody wanted to see what a woman looked like,” said Mr. Annis, who founded an X-ray security system company in 1958. “It’s not very revealing. I don’t think anyone could recognize you.” Apparently, many people are still uneasy about the scanners, which are now at the heart of a roiling debate over how much is too much when it comes to the intrusiveness of airline security. If travelers do not wish to be subjected to the full-body scanner, they can opt instead for a pat-down by a Transportation Security Administration officer. Those options have angered travelers. A movement has emerged online that encourages people traveling on Wednesday — one of the busiest travel days of the year — to “opt out” of the body scan in an effort to snarl security lines. Sitting in the living room of his apartment here on Tuesday, Mr. Annis, 88, said such protests were “not helpful.” “We’re trying to prevent terrorists from blowing up airplanes,” he said. But he did agree with one facet of the protests — he objects to the T.S.A.’s new pat-down policy, which he said could be avoided by using his machine. “They’re somehow associating the pat-down with the technology,” Mr. Annis said. “I think the pat-down is very invasive and very annoying. It’s one of the worst things they’ve ever done.” Mr. Annis founded American Science and Engineering in Billerica, Mass, in 1958. He left the company in 1993 and no longer holds the patent to the scanner. Around 1980 he developed the Z Backscatter X-ray system, which, unlike ordinary X-rays, does not show bone but only the outline of the body, revealing any forms that do not appear to be natural — like if someone taped a piece of plastic to his body, Mr. Annis said. “I think it’s a small number of people,” who are upset about the machines, Mr. Annis said. “I think some people are a little afraid of the radiation,” he said, adding that there is more radiation “on a plane.” In two weeks, when he flies out of Boston on a trip to Israel, Mr. Annis will be subjected to the scanners for the first time. “There used to be a comic strip called ‘Born 30 Years Too Soon,’ ” he said. “Thirty years ago for this was 30 years too soon.”

Airports
X-Rays
American Science & Engineering Inc
Scanning Devices
Security and Warning Systems
Airlines and Airplanes
Annis Martin


Alabama: A Walmart Win

Abstract: The city of Florence is moving ahead with a proposal to build a Walmart directly beside a historic cemetery, despite concerns that 80 slaves might have been buried on the site. The City Council voted 5 to 1 on Tuesday night to approve the construction plan, but to require more research. The retail giant says it will not disrupt any burial grounds.

Cemeteries
Wal-Mart Stores Inc
Florence (Ala)
Slavery


Bronx Official Urges Odell Beckham Jr.: Skip the Strippers Next Time You’re Here

Abstract: The Bronx had a distinguished visitor last week: Odell Beckham Jr., the 24-year-old All-Pro wide receiver for the New York Giants. He made headlines after he danced so vigorously at the Sin City strip club on Thursday that his diamond-studded pinkie ring flew off. It was not recovered, or at least was not returned to Mr. Beckham, according to TMZ . The episode was the latest reminder that even as the Bronx basks in newfound respect — as an increasingly safe yet still affordable place to live, as the home of vibrant immigrant neighborhoods, as the birthplace of hip-hop — it still is often associated in the public imagination with unsavory doings. No one feels this dissonance more acutely than the Bronx borough president, Ruben Diaz Jr., who has spent much of his career defending the borough’s image. In 2010, he helped shame HBO out of rebroadcasting a dated documentary on prostitutes in the Hunts Point area. In 2013, he chastised a bus company that promised tourists “a ride through a real New York City ‘GHETTO.’” Image Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. of the Bronx. Credit Christopher Gregory for The New York Times And so on Monday, Mr. Diaz sent a letter to Mr. Beckham and his friend Von Miller of the Denver Broncos, who was also at Sin City Cabaret in the South Bronx when the pinkie ring went flying. (A phone call to the club requesting comment was not immediately returned; Mr. Beckham could not immediately be reached for comment on Tuesday.) “I appreciate that you both took time out of your very busy schedules to pay us a visit,” Mr. Diaz wrote . “However, you could have picked a better place.” Sin City , it turns out, has been the subject of numerous complaints about noise, fights, public urination and, occasionally, shootings . Over the summer, dancers and bouncers at the club were arrested on charges of selling cocaine to undercover officers. Mr. Diaz has asked the state to revoke the club’s liquor license. Mr. Diaz suggested that the next time the players visit the Bronx, they give Sin City a pass and check out “the many amazing tourist attractions my borough has to offer.” He enclosed a copy of the 2016 Bronx Visitors Guide . Image The Sin City Cabaret in the Bronx. Credit Gregg Vigliotti for The New York Times Perhaps Mr. Beckham might enjoy the Hall of Fame for Great Americans at Bronx Community College — a sort of All-Pro gallery dedicated to the likes of Alexander Graham Bell, Daniel Boone and John Philip Sousa. There is the Bronx Zoo, where, officials noted, a Louisiana native like Mr. Beckham might find the alligators and pelicans soothingly familiar. “As a wide a receiver, Odell would love the bee eaters catching their prey in flight,” wrote John Calvelli, a vice president of public affairs at the zoo, referring to the colorful, near-passerine birds from the Eastern Hemisphere. Mr. Miller, a linebacker, “might like our rhinos, as they are huge and strategic on foot,” Mr. Calvelli added. If Mr. Beckham prefers his wildlife wild, the Bronx River is a fine place to spot beavers . Mr. Beckham, who majored in human movement at Louisiana State University, is clearly someone with an interest in biomechanics. To that end, said Jasmine Hearn , a choreographer and dancer based in the Bronx, he might enjoy her Dec. 7 performance of “Monster” at the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance . Image A Statue of Liberty made of plants on display at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. Credit Mike Segar/Reuters Ms. Hearn described “Monster” as a “very physical dance piece” that also offers “a way of being with others, feeling warmth and allowing yourself to witness someone who is making themselves vulnerable and connecting with folks.” At the New York Botanical Garden, Nick Leshi, the director of communications, said Mr. Beckham would love the garden’s Holiday Train Show , featuring G-scale model trains going through tableaus of New York City made from plant matter. “You see a Statue of Liberty where her dress is made out of palm fronds and her torch is made out of pomegranate, and a Guggenheim Museum made from giant mushrooms,” Mr. Leshi said. “It’s an amazing experience, whether you see it during the daytime or come to one of our bar-car nights on select weekends.” Best of all, Mr. Leshi said: “We have a great lost-and-found. Our security would have gotten his ring right back to him.”

Bronx
Odell Beckham Jr.
Giants
Sin City
Von Miller
Broncos
Ruben Diaz Jr
Strip Clubs and Strippers
Football


San Francisco’s Prostitutes Support a Proposition

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO — When Proposition K was added to Tuesday’s ballot, many people likely snickered at the possibility that San Francisco might take its place alongside such prostitute-friendly havens as Amsterdam and a few rural counties in nearby Nevada. But this week, it became readily apparent that city officials are not laughing anymore about the measure, which would effectively decriminalize the world’s oldest profession in San Francisco. At a news conference on Wednesday, Mayor Gavin Newsom and other opponents seemed genuinely worried that Proposition K might pass. “This is not cute. This is not fanciful,” Mr. Newsom said, standing in front of the pink-on-pink facade of a closed massage parlor in the Tenderloin district. “This is a big mistake.” Supporters of the measure say it is a long-overdue correction of a criminal approach toward prostitutes, which neither rehabilitates nor helps them, and often ignores their complaints of abuse. “Basically, if you feel that you’re a criminal, it can be used against you,” said Carol Leigh, who says she has worked as a prostitute for 25 years and now works as an advocate for those who trade sex for money. “It’s a really serious situation, and ending this criminalization is the only solution I see to protect these other women working now.” The language in Proposition K is far-reaching. It would forbid the city police from using any resources to investigate or prosecute people who engage in prostitution. It would also bar financing for a “first offender” program for prostitutes and their clients or for mandatory “re-education programs.” One of the measure’s broadest prohibitions would prevent the city from applying for federal or state grants that use “racial profiling” in anti-prostitution efforts, an apparent reference to raids seeking illegal immigrants. The fight over the ballot initiative has become an awkward test of San Francisco’s dual attitudes of live-and-let-live and save-the-world. In the campaign’s closing days, the rhetoric on both sides has heated up. Supporters of the measure accuse the city of profiting from prostitution through fines. They also imply that laws against prostitution are inherently racist because minorities are disproportionately arrested. Proposition K, they say, will increase safety for women, save taxpayer money, and cut down on the number of murders of prostitutes at the hands of serial killers. But opponents dismiss the notion of legions of prostitutes happily romping through the city’s neighborhoods. “This isn’t ‘Pretty Woman,’ ” was how one put it. Anti-Proposition K forces paint grim pictures of girls and women from across the country held against their will in dark and dangerous brothels here, forced into unsafe sexual behavior, and often beaten, intimidated and raped. “You’re going to have young girls recruited and brought to San Francisco, and they are going to be standing on these corners,” said Norma Hotaling, the founder and director of Standing Against Global Exploitation, an outreach project here. “And there’s not going to be any services for them to go to, and the police are not going to have any means of investigating the cases.” The measure seems particularly abhorrent to San Francisco’s district attorney, Kamala D. Harris, who has made fighting human trafficking a priority. “I think it’s completely ridiculous, just in case there’s any ambiguity about my position,” Ms. Harris said. “It would put a welcome mat out for pimps and prostitutes to come on into San Francisco.” Central to Ms. Harris’s objections is the theory that prostitution is a victimless crime. Instead, she said, it exposes prostitutes to drug, gun and sexual crimes, and “compromises the quality of life in a community.” She also dismisses the argument that prostitutes would be more likely to come forward if their business were not illegal. “We’re in the practice and habit of protecting victims, not criminalizing victims,” Ms. Harris said, adding that she often reminds juries that the law protects people even if they are prostitutes or drug users. “Our penal code was not created just to protect Snow White,” she said, noting that 65 percent of cases handled by her department’s sexual assault unit involved sex workers as victims. Officials with the State Attorney General’s Office would not comment on the measure. The city’s Board of Supervisors, several of whom have expressed support for the measure in the past, would have the power to amend Proposition K if it passed. San Francisco, which has an exotic dancers’ union and a well-established history of sexual freedom, is not the first liberal outpost to mull legalizing prostitution. A decriminalization bill was defeated by voters in Berkeley, Calif., in 2004. Heidi Machen, a spokeswoman for the opposition, said her side was hoping for a solid defeat. “We want this to fail by a landslide,” she said. “So it doesn’t come back.” A local CBS poll released Thursday found that 35 percent of likely voters supported the measure, while 39 percent were opposed. But 26 percent were still undecided. On Thursday night, about 50 supporters of the measure gathered at a church to press their case. One of them, Patricia West, 22, said she has been working for about a year as an “independent, in-call escort.” Ms. West said that she enjoyed her work and believed that Proposition K would allow prostitutes to organize into collectives and negotiate for safer working conditions and better wages. Ms. West concedes that what she does for a living “can be dangerous.” But she hoped Proposition K would make her occupation safer and more legitimate. “Working in a coal mine can be really dangerous, too,” she said “but it pays a lot of money so you’re compensated for your risk.”

Prostitution
Human Trafficking
San Francisco (Calif)
Referendums
Sexual Slavery


Volkswagen Inquiry’s Focus to Include Managers Who Turned a Blind Eye

Abstract: FRANKFURT — A widening internal investigation at Volkswagen is focusing not only on who was responsible for installing illegal software designed to fool emissions testers, but also on which managers may have learned of the deception and failed to take appropriate action, a person briefed on the inquiry said. The failure of people inside the carmaker to sound warnings about illegal engine software has emerged as a crucial element of the scandal, in which 11 million cars were programmed to produce far fewer emissions during laboratory testing than they did under normal driving conditions. The number of Volkswagen executives or engineers suspended in connection with the emissions cheating has continued to grow and could soon reach about 10, said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the inquiry is supposed to be confidential. Some of the employees were directly involved in programming cars to cheat on emissions tests, but others may share blame because they found out about it and did not pass the information up the chain of command. How Volkswagen’s ‘Defeat Devices’ Worked Volkswagen admitted that 11 million of its vehicles were equipped with software that was used to cheat on emissions tests. This is how the technology works and what it now means for vehicle owners. Shareholder advocates and former employees have criticized what they said was a culture inside Volkswagen that centralized decision making at company headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany, and discouraged open discussion of problems, creating a climate in which people may have been fearful of speaking up. Volkswagen managers admitted to United States government and California regulators on Sept. 3 that cars with diesel engines were programmed to evade emissions tests. Yet at least three members of Volkswagen’s supervisory board, which oversees the chief executive, have said they learned of the illegal software from media reports on Sept. 18, more than two weeks later. Shareholder representatives have criticized what they say was failure by Martin Winterkorn, then the chief executive, to keep them informed. Authorities in the United States have not said which Volkswagen officials made the Sept. 3 confession, and it was not clear when Mr. Winterkorn first learned of the illegal software. Mr. Winterkorn said when he resigned on Sept. 23 that he had been “shocked” to learn of the deception and had committed no wrongdoing. Jones Day, a United States law firm with offices in Germany, has been conducting an internal investigation on behalf of the Volkswagen supervisory board into who shares blame for the emissions scandal, which has thrown the company into turmoil and is likely to cost tens of billions of euros for recalls, official penalties and legal settlements with disgruntled owners. During testing, software in so-called clean diesel engines activated emissions controls. At other times, the vehicles emitted up to 40 times the amount of nitrogen oxide, a harmful pollutant, allowed by rules in the United States. The software allowed Volkswagen vehicles to pass emissions tests without the usual trade-off in fuel economy and performance. The Jones Day inquiry is likely to last for months and has not yet reached conclusions about which engineers or managers were responsible for installing the illegal software — it first appeared in cars from the 2009 model year — and which managers later learned about it but failed to take action. Prosecutors in Braunschweig, a city near Volkswagen’s headquarters, are investigating whether any crimes were committed as part of the deception. A spokesman for prosecutors did not return calls seeking comment on Sunday. Ansgar C. Rempp, the partner in charge of Jones Day in Germany, declined to comment on Sunday. A Volkswagen spokesman also declined to comment. All of the executives who have been suspended so far were in senior positions related to engine or product development, including at least one who was not working at Volkswagen when the emissions cheating began.

Volkswagen
Cars
Germany
Diesel engine
Vehicle Emissions
Fraud
US
Air pollution
Automobile safety


North Koreans Bolster Power of Ruler’s Kin

Abstract: TOKYO — Kim Jong-il , North Korea ’s supreme leader, took new steps on Tuesday to ensure that his family remains in charge after his death, but the biggest leadership shuffling in a generation has so far produced more political intrigue than signs of real change in North Korea, one of the world’s most isolated nations. Mr. Kim elevated his sister and a close friend to a high military ranking and had his youngest son and heir apparent, Kim Jong-un , made a member of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party. The promotions came a day after the younger Mr. Kim was also made a four-star general and seemed aimed at ensuring a dynastic succession that would give Mr. Kim, thought to be in his late 20s, time to solidify his power. The elevation of the completely unknown Mr. Kim, and hints that other members of the extended Kim clan will exercise power behind the scenes in a kind of Communist regency, add to the uncertainty about North Korea. It appears to have mostly abandoned its incipient economic reforms and has declined to enter new international talks about its nuclear weapons program, leaving its neighbors and the United States alarmed about its intentions. Few analysts claim to fully understand the inner workings of the North Korean military or the Kim dynasty. But many who watch the country closely say they see few signs that succession will produce a stable, credible leadership that is, at least initially, confident enough to engage with the outside world or to steer resources to economic development rather than the military. “We worry about Pakistan, but this is potentially every bit as destabilizing as Pakistan,” said William R. Keylor, a professor of international relations at Boston University. “Succession in North Korea would just be an oddity if it were not for the fact that we are dealing with a country with nuclear weapons and delivery systems. That is what makes this serious.” Fear of instability also followed the death of Kim Il-sung, North Korea’s founder, and the rise of his son, Kim Jong-il, in 1994. The country did not collapse then, though its economic performance deteriorated sharply and millions of North Koreans are thought to have starved to death during Kim Jong-il’s erratic tenure. This time, the country appears less well prepared for a transition. Kim Jong-il had 14 years between his political introduction in 1980 and his father’s death, time he used to build support internally. There are few signs that a succession process had even begun when Kim Jong-il, 68, apparently suffered a stroke two years ago. Some analysts predict that new leaders may feel compelled to prove their nationalist credentials by engaging in provocative actions that could worsen tensions with South Korea and Japan and their main ally, the United States. In March, South Korea accused the North of sinking one of its warships, the Cheonan , which some analysts say appears to have been a display of force meant to persuade the military to respect the younger Mr. Kim. “The question now is whether they will do dangerous things like the Cheonan or something else to hold the regime together,” said Victor Cha, director of Asian studies at Georgetown University. “They were already unstable as it was, and this succession issue makes them even more unpredictable.” In the most destabilizing situation, an internal power struggle could also lead to the collapse of the government. But many observers discount that possibility, largely because of the support of another neighbor, China. Beijing has made it clear that it is determined to avoid a political eruption on its borders. It has consistently taken steps to aid North Korea when the North has had severe shortages of food and energy, and it has tried to ensure that international sanctions intended to punish the North for its development of nuclear weapons are not crippling. Kim Jong-il has made two visits to China in recent months to shore up its support. China has said that the younger Mr. Kim was not a member of his father’s delegation in China a month ago, but American officials say they believe the son indeed was on the trip and may have met Chinese officials informally. “What China is most concerned about is stability, namely stability in North Korea, the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia,” said Xu Wenji, an expert on North Korea at the Northeast Asia Institute at Jilin University. “So the concern for stability overrides everything else on this matter for the Chinese government.” The reasons behind the elevation of Kim Jong-il’s sister, Kim Kyong-hui, and Choe Ryong-hae, a lifelong friend of the Korean leader and a member of his inner circle, along with the promotion of Kim Jong-un, are uncertain. Experts suggested that the three, along with the sister’s husband, Jang Song-taek, might end up forming a new ruling group that could have the power to keep the military in check and continue the dynasty, at least until the son can fully replace his father. The promotion of the sister caught some analysts by surprise. Mr. Cha at Georgetown said it represented public recognition for someone who was already the power behind the throne in the Kim dynasty. He said that she was the confidante and the woman closest to Kim Jong-il, whose wives and mother are dead, and that she even took care of the leader when he was ill. “They are very, very close,” said Choi Jin-wook, a scholar at the Korea National Institute for Unification in Seoul, who said Ms. Kim was likely to emerge as “the key person in the new collective leadership of the country.” He noted that she never really needed a defined political role in North Korea “because she was the sister of the king and she had all the power she needed — maybe too much.” Mr. Choi said Ms. Kim, 64, was rumored to have a drinking problem and a fiery temper. Her daughter committed suicide in France in 2006. She is the wife of Jang Song-taek, often regarded by analysts as the No. 2 man in the North. Kim Jong-il has relied on him to handle the day-to-day duties of running the country. There were hints that some moderates have also gained power. Kang Sok-ju, a deputy foreign minister, was named deputy premier, and Kim Kye-gwan, the North’s chief negotiator in the six-nation nuclear talks, took Mr. Kang’s slot. Another negotiator, Ri Yong-ho, also moved up. American officials said they had not seen enough to predict with confidence how the succession would affect the North’s actions and policies. Kurt M. Campbell, an assistant secretary of state, told reporters in New York on Monday that the United States was “watching developments in North Korea carefully.” “But frankly,” he said, “it’s still too early to tell in terms of next steps, or in fact, what’s going on inside the country’s leadership.” Koreas Plan Talks SEOUL, South Korea — An official with the Ministry of National Defense here said Wednesday that the two Koreas would hold military talks on Thursday morning at the border village of Panmunjom. The two sides have not held such talks in two years. The defense official, speaking anonymously, declined to discuss the agenda of the working-level talks. But it was widely expected that Seoul would raise the issue of the sinking of a South Korean warship in March. The South has blamed a North Korean torpedo attack for the sinking.

North Korea
Kim Kyong-hui
Defense and Military Forces
Kim Jong Il
Kim Jong Un
Politics and Government


Federal Judge Blocks Release of Videos by Anti-Abortion Group

Abstract: SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge has blocked the release of any recordings made at meetings of an abortion providers’ association by an anti-abortion group that previously revealed secretly recorded videos of a Planned Parenthood leader. Judge William Orrick issued a temporary restraining order on Friday against the Center for Medical Progress hours after the order was requested by the National Abortion Federation. In his three-page order, Judge Orrick said the federation would likely suffer irreparable injury absent a temporary restraining order “in the form of harassment, intimidation, violence, invasion of privacy, and injury to reputation.” The National Abortion Federation sued in federal court in San Francisco, alleging that the Center for Medical Progress infiltrated its meetings and recorded its members. The group says release of any audio or video would put members in danger. “The safety and security of our members is our top priority,” Vicki Saporta, association president and chief executive, said in a statement. “That security has been compromised by the illegal activities of a group with ties to those who believe it is justifiable to murder abortion providers.” David Daleiden, a leader of the Center for Medical Progress who is also named in the suit, said in a statement that Planned Parenthood and its allies were trying to silence the group and to suppress investigative journalism. “The Center for Medical Progress follows all applicable laws in the course of our investigative journalism work and will contest all attempts from Planned Parenthood and their allies to silence our First Amendment rights,” he said. The center has released several secretly recorded videos that have riled anti-abortion activists, including one Thursday of a Planned Parenthood doctor in Colorado. It has accused Planned Parenthood of selling fetal tissue for profit, which is illegal, and Republicans in Congress have begun discussing cutting off federal money for the organization. The undercover video released Thursday shows Dr. Savita Ginde, vice president of the Denver-based Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, discussing prices of aborted fetal remains, the center says. Planned Parenthood issued a statement calling the video “misleading and deceptively edited.” An earlier video shows Dr. Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood’s senior director of medical services, describing techniques for obtaining fetal body parts for research. She spoke over lunch with activists posing as potential buyers from a human biologics company. Planned Parenthood says it abides by a law that allows providers to be reimbursed for the costs of processing tissue donated by women who have had abortions. The payments cited by Planned Parenthood officials in some of the videos range from $30 to $100 per specimen, and the organization has confirmed that is the general range, although there is no fixed price list. In Friday’s lawsuit, the National Abortion Federation alleges that the center created a fake company to get into the federation’s annual meetings in 2014 and 2015 and then recorded its members with the goal of smearing abortion-rights supporters. John Nockleby, a professor at Loyola Law School and expert in privacy law, said privacy law in California was stricter than in some other states. To record a confidential communication in California, all parties participating in it must agree to the recording. The National Abortion Federation has shown a strong likelihood of prevailing on its argument that the Center for Medical Privacy invaded its privacy, he said. The National Abortion Federation “made it clear both in its written documents and also all kinds of other releases how important it was that everything about the meeting be confidential,” he said. Judge Orrick on Friday also blocked the Center for Medical Progress from releasing the dates of any of the National Abortion Federation’s future meetings and the names and addresses of its members. A California court this week issued a temporary restraining order blocking the Center for Medical Progress from releasing any video of leaders of StemExpress, a California company that provides fetal tissue to researchers. In one of the previously aired videos, a woman identified as a former StemExpress phlebotomist describes drawing blood and dissecting dead fetuses.

Abortion
Planned Parenthood
National Abortion Federation
Video Recordings
Downloads and Streaming


Heavy Black Turnout Threatens Georgia Senator

Abstract: LITHONIA, Ga. — Just a few blocks off Max Cleland Boulevard, named for the Democrat defeated by Senator Saxby Chambliss in a bitter Congressional race six years ago, a line has formed that could be problematic for Mr. Chambliss’s own re-election this year. Hundreds of voters, most of them black residents of bedroom communities east of Atlanta, are waiting to cast early ballots, motivated by the candidacy of Senator Barack Obama but many also taking the opportunity to vote for Jim Martin , Mr. Chambliss’s Democratic opponent. “I voted for Jim because I like what he is saying, not just because he is Democratic,” Iris Epps said as she exited Lithonia Middle School after waiting about 90 minutes on Tuesday evening to cast her ballot. She said the wait would have been even longer earlier in the day. Like several other Senate and House candidates in North Carolina, Ohio and Connecticut, Mr. Chambliss finds himself in a tight race even though only months ago he was considered a cinch for re-election. A significant part of his problem is the surging participation by African-American voters, their ranks bolstered by the newly registered, a group expected to vote overwhelmingly for Democrats this year. In Georgia, where Mr. Obama’s organization worked hard to register new voters but did not mount a full-blown campaign because the state seems beyond his reach, black voters in Atlanta and the surrounding areas have been standing in line for hours. Many are among the tens of thousands of newly registered voters. New registrations of black voters ran more than 25 percent higher this year than four years ago, with especially high registration among black women. Nearly 1.4 million Georgians have voted, according to the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office, and more than a third were black. (Blacks make up just over 29 percent of registered voters in the state, which keeps track of racial data under civil rights laws.) Early voting began Sept. 22, and this week the state opened extra polling stations and extended their hours. The development is not lost on Mr. Chambliss. “There has always been a rush to the polls by African-Americans early,” he said at the square in Covington, a quick stop on a bus tour as the campaign entered its final week. He predicted the crowds of early voters would motivate Republicans to turn out. “It has also got our side energized, they see what is happening,” he said. Mr. Martin, who stood in a daunting line on Tuesday to cast his own early ballot at the Fulton County government center in Atlanta, said the greater the turnout, the better his chances. “I am honored to have a lot of African-American support,” said Mr. Martin, a former director of the state Human Services Department and a longtime state legislator who was greeted with handshakes and encouragement by waiting voters as he worked his way to the end of the queue snaking through the building. “But I have broad-based support across the state — people who want change.” The Georgia race was initially considered out of reach for Democrats. But Mr. Chambliss has been hurt by his vote for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout — which was widely unpopular, both among conservatives and African-Americans — and by a flood of tough attack advertisements from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The contest is one of the longshots Democrats would need to win to reach a 60-vote majority in the Senate that would let them thwart filibusters. “A month ago this would have been a cakewalk,” said Merle Black, an expert on Southern politics at Emory University. “This is not the election that they thought they were running.” The Georgia race has another twist. To be declared the winner, a candidate needs to receive more than 50 percent of the vote — an absolute majority. Both the tight race reflected in the polls and the presence of a third-party Libertarian candidate, Allen Buckley, raise the possibility that neither Mr. Chambliss nor Mr. Martin will break 50 percent, forcing a runoff on Dec. 2. If a 60-vote Senate hangs in the balance, the runoff could take on outsized importance. Mr. Chambliss and his allies acknowledge a rough patch after his bailout vote, which was uniformly opposed by Republican House members from the state, a glaring divide the senator quickly sought to bridge through a stepped-up schedule of appearances. As he spoke to small but politically active crowds of conservatives in Covington and Conyers this week, Mr. Chambliss assured his audiences that survey trends were in his favor. But he urged them to beat the bushes for every available Republican vote. “It is important that you talk to everybody you are friends with, you work with, you go to church with, you drink coffee with, whatever it may be, and make sure that on Nov. 4 they turn out to vote,” Mr. Chambliss exhorted a flag-waving group gathered in Covington’s town square, warning against a liberal takeover of Washington. Mr. Martin has, with the help of national Democrats, hammered Mr. Chambliss for his support of Bush administration economic policies, most recently with highly visible television commercials attributing Georgia job losses and economic pain to “Saxby economics.” Democrats would revel in defeating Mr. Chambliss. In 2002, they accused him of libeling Mr. Cleland, a badly wounded and decorated Vietnam veteran, with an advertisement that questioned his commitment to fighting terrorism. They now view Mr. Martin as the potential key to a 60-vote Senate, a distinction with which Mr. Martin seems slightly uncomfortable. “I think that is overstated,” said Mr. Martin, who said he does not see himself as a filibuster warrior but as someone with a bipartisan history and a lawmaker who would “go up to the United States Senate and stick up for the middle-class Georgian.” As in Senate races in North Carolina and Mississippi and a handful of House races, Democrats are closely monitoring African-American participation, calculating that a significantly increased turnout could tip the balance for their candidates. Mr. Black, the political scientist, said that if strongly Democratic African-American voters make up more than a third of the electorate, Mr. Martin needs to secure about a quarter or slightly more of the white vote to assemble a majority. “It is certainly doable,” Mr. Black said. The black voters who waited patiently at the Lithonia Middle School seemed aware of the difference their votes could make. “This is the most important election,” said Cathy Blakeney of Stone Mountain, who not only voted herself but made sure her 22-year-old son showed up as well. “Based on the economic conditions and people losing their jobs and people losing their homes and the economy not growing and banks going under, I was going to make sure that I came out and voted and that he came out and voted, too.”

Blacks
Georgia
Elections
Chambliss Saxby
United States Politics and Government
Presidential Election of 2008
Martin Jim


Indictment and Reward Revealed Over Operation Fast and Furious

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Justice Department on Monday unsealed the indictment of five people in the killing of a Border Patrol agent whose death was linked to the disputed gun-trafficking investigation called Operation Fast and Furious . Four of the defendants are fugitives, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation offered a $1 million reward for any information that leads to their capture. The indictment, which was handed up by a federal grand jury in November, centers on a gunfight involving Border Patrol agents and bandits in Arizona near the border with Mexico on Dec. 14, 2010. One of the agents, Brian Terry, was fatally wounded, and it later emerged that two guns found at the scene had been bought by someone suspected of being a straw buyer for a smuggling network in the Operation Fast and Furious investigation. “Agent Terry served his country honorably and made the ultimate sacrifice in trying to protect it from harm, and we will stop at nothing to bring those responsible for his murder to justice,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said in a statement. The existence of a sealed indictment and the identity of the defendant who is in custody, Manuel Osorio-Arellanes, had already been made public. But the announcement on Monday disclosed the reward and the names of four fugitives — Jesus Rosario Favela-Astorga, Ivan Soto-Barraza, Heraclio Osorio-Arellanes and Lionel Portillo-Meza — charged with crimes including first-degree murder, assault on a federal officer and conspiracy to interfere with commerce by robbery. The indictment contends that the men had illegally entered the United States from Mexico with a plan to “arm themselves with firearms” and use the weapons to rob drug traffickers of marijuana . Instead, the men got into a gunfight with four Border Patrol agents, including Agent Terry. Manuel Osorio-Arellanes, whose identity had previously been disclosed, was arrested on the night of the shooting. The indictment says he had previously been convicted of felony assault in Maricopa County, Ariz., in 2006, and it charges him with “possession of a firearm by a prohibited person” — a Romanian-made assault rifle and 25 rounds of ammunition. The court filing also charged a sixth man, Rito Osorio-Arellanes, in connection with the case, but only with conspiracy to interfere with commerce by robbery. It said he had been arrested on immigration charges by Border Patrol agents on Dec. 12, 2010. Federal officials said the indictment was being unsealed so public assistance could be sought in finding the other four defendants. A cousin of Mr. Terry, Robert Heyer, thanked officials in both the United States and Mexico for pressing forward with the investigation. “It has been a difficult 18 months for the family since Brian Terry was murdered in December of 2010, and today’s announcement provides hope that justice will eventually be served,” he said in a statement, adding, “It is the family’s hope that the unsealing of details in the case, the identification of the four fugitives and the issuance of reward monies will lead to the eventual capture of all individuals responsible for the murder of Agent Terry.” Operation Fast and Furious was an investigation by Arizona-based agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from late 2009 to early 2011 into a suspected gun-smuggling network linked to a Mexican drug cartel. Agents, seeking to build a bigger case, sometimes did not move swiftly to arrest suspected low-level “straw purchasers” for the network or to find a way to interdict their weapons. The agents eventually lost track of about 2,000 weapons bought by the suspects, many of which have not been recovered and are presumed to have reached criminal gangs in Mexico. It has since emerged that A.T.F. agents based in Arizona had used similar tactics — and lost track of weapons — in three previous gun-smuggling inquiries during the Bush administration. Last month, the Republican-led House voted to hold Mr. Holder in contempt of Congress because the Justice Department did not turn over documents related to the case. President Obama asserted executive privilege to block a Congressional subpoena. In the Terry family statement, its lawyer, Patrick McGroder, reiterated its call for the Obama administration to release the documents, saying that the family deserves “a full and thorough explanation of how Operation Fast and Furious came to be.”

Justice Department
Smuggling
Firearms
Border Patrol (US)
Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms
Holder Eric H Jr
Phoenix (Ariz)


Demonstrators Surround Parliament in Thailand

Abstract: BANGKOK — Antigovernment demonstrators fanned out across Bangkok on Monday, seeking to disrupt any high-level government meetings across the sprawling city in a renewed push to unseat the government. They surrounded the Parliament building and cut off its electricity, marched on the police headquarters and massed in front of the besieged government’s temporary offices at the city’s secondary airport. By the end of the day, they were reveling in their success. Officials canceled an important session of Parliament and fled from the airport complex, where the prime minister, Somchai Wongsawat , and his cabinet have been meeting in recent months to shield themselves from the protests. “We have agreed to cancel the session until the situation is back to normal,” Chai Chidchob, the speaker of the House of Representatives, said on Thai television. The protesters, who have occupied the offices and grounds of the prime minister’s official residence since August, called their efforts a final showdown with the government. But they have described earlier campaigns the same way. Still, the disruptions on Monday were spread across a wider area and highlighted the ability of protesters to paralyze the lawmaking process. Somsak Kosaisuk, one of the leaders of the People’s Alliance for Democracy, an antigovernment coalition that is spearheading the protests, said the goal was to “chase away” the government. Protesters were also seen marching toward the headquarters of Chart Thai, one of the political parties in the governing coalition. Others converged on the Finance Ministry. At nightfall, more protesters were massing at the airport. They set up a stage and chanted, “Resign!” “The government is hiding the truth,” said Oranuch Polprasertkul, 49, one of the thousands of protesters there. “If I don’t come out to the protests, I don’t hear the truth.” Monday was largely peaceful, but there has occasionally been violence at the protests. The police suppressed a demonstration outside Parliament on Oct. 7 at which two people were killed and nearly 500 were injured. There were two recent attacks, apparently with grenades, on the protesters’ encampment at the prime minister’s residence. An explosion last Thursday left one man dead and more than two dozen wounded. An attack on Saturday killed one man. The principal demand of the alliance — a mix of royalists, academics, the urban elite and the middle class — is the resignation of Mr. Somchai and his government. They characterize him as a front for the fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra , who, in his six years in office, built a base of support among the rural poor and forged a strong political machine that has managed to keep his supporters in office. The People’s Alliance wants to dilute the electoral power of his supporters by introducing a mostly appointed legislature. Mr. Somchai’s credibility with antigovernment critics is not helped by the fact that he is married to Mr. Thaksin’s sister. Mr. Somchai, who was attending the Asia-Pacific economic summit meeting in Lima, Peru, was not in Bangkok on Monday. In his absence, he put the army chief, Gen. Anupong Paochinda, in charge of security. There were no reports of violence on Monday, partly because the police allowed protesters to move around the city unhindered. In the past, General Anupong has shown sympathy for the protesters, who also have a degree of royal backing. Mr. Thaksin, a billionaire businessman, is supported by the mostly rural poor, who carry significant political weight in Thailand because of their numbers. He was ousted as prime minister in a military coup in 2006 and later fled to London to avoid corruption charges against him and his wife in Thailand. But his British visa was revoked this month after he was convicted in absentia by a Thai court on charges of abuse of power. He has since been seen in Hong Kong and Dubai. He and his wife, Pojaman, divorced two weeks ago after 32 years of marriage, with the paperwork reportedly being completed at the Thai Consulate in Hong Kong. The Thai news media have speculated that the divorce was a ploy to try to obtain nearly $2 billion in frozen assets, the bulk of which are listed in Ms. Pojaman’s name.

Somchai Wongsawat
Thaksin Shinawatra
Bangkok (Thailand)
Demonstrations and Riots
Politics and Government


Texas Property Tax for Homeowners Is Easy to Hate

Abstract: Ross Ramsey, the managing editor of The Texas Tribune, writes a regular column for the Tribune. The thing about your property tax bill isn’t just that it is big — that, it is. The irritating thing is that if you’re a homeowner or own property for rent, you see it as a lump sum. Sales taxes take lots of money out of the average Texan’s wallet, but they don’t come in at the end of the year in a single bill. You get to see your income tax as a single number every April 15, but most people have already paid most or all of that by the time they see it. And unlike your income tax return, your property tax bill includes what you paid last year — so you can see how much it increased. The tax on property is the biggest source of financing for school districts in Texas, which get 52 percent of their money there, according to a recent report. And with school districts going to court against the state in October to argue about school finance, the whole system — from property taxes to state financing formulas — is up for argument. Property taxes are easy to hate, and politically dangerous to mess with. Sales taxes are based on what you spend. Theoretically, you can control the consumption tax by controlling the consumption. Income taxes float with your income. Make more, pay more. Property taxes change as a result of a kind of black magic. The value of your house is based on the prices agreed to by nearby buyers and sellers. It is mathematical and looks precise, but it’s not science. If it were based on something other than art, there would be no such thing as an appraisal board where you can try to bargain your way out of higher taxes by arguing with the value they put on your humble homestead. Commercial property appraisals are based on any number of things — price, income, development value. And commercial property owners have less political leverage, because homeowners outvote them. Property taxes are built on this bed of negotiation and disagreement, and are just complicated enough to seem unfair on top of that. Property owners with cows and hay get a break (even if they’re in cities and have been able to wrangle agricultural exemptions). Veterans and elders get breaks. Homeowners get a break that other property owners don’t get. It’s easy to say property taxes should go, and some officeholders have suggested replacing them with a bigger sales tax. The property tax, they say, is a way of charging people rent on property they already own. That’s a solid applause line. But a study done by the former deputy comptroller Billy Hamilton has revealed some nasty math. State sales taxes, set at 6.25 percent in Texas, brought in $21 billion in 2009 (local sales taxes can add 2 cents to that overall rate, and are not included here). State property tax collections — all the local property taxes added together — brought in $36.2 billion that year. Mr. Hamilton says it would take an additional 11.6 cents on the state sales tax to replace those local property taxes: The state rate would then be 17.85 percent, and the locals would presumably still be allowed to charge their 2 cents for cities, hospitals, transit systems and such. It could be a lot worse, and it is, in most places. The per capita state and local tax burden in Texas is low — the Tax Foundation , a nonpartisan tax research outfit in Washington, ranked the state 45th in 2009, with state and local taxes coming in at $3,197 per year. The national average for that year was $4,160. That’s 7.9 percent of the average per capita income here, compared with 9.8 percent nationally. The numbers don’t include federal income taxes. Property taxes are higher here than in other states, partly because most other states also have personal income taxes and Texas does not. It’s really a choice, first, of how much things will cost and, second, of how to pay for them. The cost of government is lower here, on average, but the mix puts a heavier load on property taxes. There’s one other reason state lawmakers can like the current setup: They don’t set the local property tax rates on the public school finance system they’ve designed. That’s someone else’s fault.

Texas
Property Taxes
Income Tax
Sales and Excise Taxes